Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Ricky’s eyes open, it’s like they never closed. He’s transported into a nursery. The walls are lined in black-blue wallpaper sprinkled with spaceships and hot air balloons printed over the expanse of the room. It takes a while for his eyes to reach the ceiling and when he does, he can only stare in awe at the dusky sky painted above him. Then, below, he realizes the baby in his arms is more than just a weight on top of him but a living, breathing bundle of joy attached to one of his breasts. This has to be another dream.

“Mommy?” calls a small voice from the doorway. A pup no higher than the knob of the entrance pushes his way into the room with soft steps, and he can’t be more than five when he hugs around the crook of Ricky’s arm. His hair is a puff of wavy mess and his eyes are big and sweet when they make contact, and the mother swoons when he opens his mouth again. “When you’re done, we play?”

If it weren’t for the suckling babe, Ricky would’ve let himself be led around by the tike at the drop of a hat. Instead, he adjusts the weight of the baby so that he can unwrap one of his hands to stroke along the boy’s buttery cheek. He feels so real. The warmth of his skin makes Ricky want to cry. “We can play,” Ricky repeats gently. “Almost done, okay?”

He’s had this dream before. Not this exact moment, but with these children, his children. He knows them and they know him, and Ricky falls right into place. It’s like he’s never left.

Ricky can tell his oldest is getting antsy when he starts to tug on his arm, lifting his button nose up to get even closer to him. “Kiss?”

It all comes too naturally for him. He’s been here over a handful of times, and each time his dreams end, he comes right back into them like clockwork. He cranes his head down to the small child with his lips puckered, being careful not to get too far away from the baby cradled in his arms. “One kiss.” The boy practically head butts him before he’s given a slobbery, lazy peck immediately after and he laughs when he goes in for another to bite his son’s cheek gently. “Is daddy home?”

This is what it’s like to be double; neither here nor there. Ricky has an entire life to live behind his closed eyes, a family to tend to, a husband that desires him. He’s safe in this world. But, he also has an entire life settled in reality, and when he wakes up, the wallpaper fades away. The smell of pine cones cease to exist, just like the weight of his children in his arms. He’s colder now in his New York apartment than he’s ever been, and there should be some type of word for the yearning he’s left with, this ache with no name. There are times in Ricky’s life where he wishes his husband would come find him and take him away from all this hefty humanness.

Ricky holds the end of a stick of incense against the flame of his lighter, waiting for it to cook up in red embers before stuffing the wooden end into a bowl of rice. The smoke starts to swirl out in trance-like waves, smooth and sultry. Ricky has to stop himself from staring at it for too long when his weekly readings are stacking on top of one another by the minute. When he finally comes around to opening the first textbook from the top, he is pulled into the content like a moth to a flame.

For Folklore and Other Mystical Superstitions 560, Ricky reads about inyeon. Inyeon is as simple and as complicated as brushing against someone in a crowded hallway. It’s as easy as reaching for the same apple in the grocery store. It’s as difficult as seeing the same person in line twice in one week. For Ricky, it seems like inyeon happens 8,000 times a day. For Ricky, all of this happens in the span of one week.

It’s inyeon when he steps out of his apartment at the same time as his neighbor. Their doors face each other and that makes it even weirder. Respectfully speaking, Ricky’s new neighbor is quite the looker. He’s as normal as they come, but he has a face that makes you do a triple take. His eyes are dark and big, and his hair is as messy and brown as a dog. He’s got a silly grin, too, and Ricky takes a mental snapshot of it to ponder over during his walk down to the ground floor of their building after they exchange greetings.

“You’re pretty efficient,” Ricky comments in regards to the trolley parked outside of his neighbor’s door. It takes up half the hallway and Ricky finds himself scooting around it.

“It’s a good thing we have an elevator.”

“Even if the lights flicker and it stops working half the time?”

“New York, right?” They share a smile, and Ricky’s eyes blink through the extra pound of silence. “I’m Gyuvin, by the way. I also go by Kevin.”

“I’m Ricky.”

It’s inyeon when they both end up at the hot bar at Whole Foods stumbling over the same vegan mac and cheese. They do an odd shuffle back and forth when telling the other to grab their portion first, and it goes on for a few seconds before Ricky gives up and goes first, piling it into his take-out box. He’s overly cautious of how much he takes, leaving just enough for the man when he moves onto the mashed potatoes next to it.

“Are you…?” Gyuvin starts like he’s afraid to say the word.

“Vegan?” Ricky questions back before shaking his head. His earrings dangle and swing when he does so, and he can see Gyuvin staring at them. “Oh, no. This one tastes better.”

Gyuvin chuckles as he takes the handle of the ladle. His box is stuffed to the brim already while salad and quinoa take up half of Ricky’s. “All the extra additives instead of cheese, right?”

“Right,” he answers, to end the exchange on a neutral note.

It’s inyeon when they end up at the bodega underneath their building at 10:10 in the morning on a Thursday. Gyuvin has his hoodie up and over his head, still swaying from sleep, and Ricky tries hard not to be seen with his house slippers and Halloween pajama pants from behind the chip aisle. He doesn’t even have chapstick on.

“Oh, Ricky,” he hears Gyuvin say from the right of him. He’s got half of his bagel in his big mouth with some of it smeared in the corner of his cheshire grin. Jesus. “Rise and shine, beautiful.”

“Gyu…?”

“Gyuvin,” the alpha enunciates before taking another whopping bite. “Didn’t I say it would be easier to call me Kevin?”

“Let’s not,” he says with a wry smile.

The alpha laughs and Ricky can’t stop wanting to disappear. “You don’t like my name?”

“It sounds unnatural.”

“Like the name Ricky?”

“Gyuvin?”

“Yes?”

“Your egg yolk is dripping.”

“Shit,” he exclaims with his big eyes growing bigger. Gyuvin drags his tongue up the side of his fingers to catch all the yellowy goodness, humming despite Ricky’s look of disgust. “Thanks.”

It’s forced inyeon when Gyuvin takes in his Amazon package and returns it to him once Ricky returns home after school, and the omega invites him in for dinner. Their clothes brush when both try to enter the apartment at the same time, and Ricky swears he can feel 8,000 worth of layers between them and their winter attire. If he smiles, Gyuvin doesn’t catch it.

They end up huddling around Ricky’s coffee table on floor pillows with a heaping bowl of his mom’s famous dumplings. The sauce is simple and Ricky wonders if Gyuvin will even like it considering all the vinegar he adds, but the man scarfs it down like he’s been starving for days on end. He has a very healthy appetite and it makes Ricky full just watching him enjoy something as simple as boiled blobs, and the boy bites down on his chopsticks when the alpha glances up at him with a shy smile.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“Usually,” Ricky says before laying his utensils flat over his bowl. “But, not this time. It was taking me forever to get through this stash but you’re really chowing down.”

“They taste homey,” Gyuvin says after chewing one of the dumplings all the way through.

“My mom made them for me when she came back from Shanghai for my last heat,” Ricky replies as he picks his chopsticks back up again to take a serving onto his plate before biting off half of it.

“She’s a good mom,” the alpha says as he leans back against the couch parked behind him. His long arms raise up to the cushions and Ricky gulps a ball of filling down his throat when he sees a sliver of Gyuvin’s abdomen when he stretches.

Honestly, Ricky has never put the words mom and good together before. He supposes she did what was expected of her and nothing more than that. Is that good, or is that good enough? He brushes the thoughts away when Gyuvin’s legs start to poke out from his side, and his socked feet nudge against Ricky’s thighs just slightly as he adjusts. Ricky is considered very tall, but Gyuvin is so big it hurts.

“What’s in the box?”

“Should I do an unboxing?”

Gyuvin’s face spreads into a mischievous smirk. “Fuck yeah.”

“Don’t lose your shit and try to rob me when you see it,” Ricky warns, feeling a little playful after remembering what he ordered. The box rips open easily after he slides the sharp end of his house key over the tape, and when he pulls the Lego box from the cardboard, Gyuvin yells loud enough to startle the cat hybrid into dropping it.

“Gyuvin!” Ricky screams back with his hand over his chest.

“Sorry, sorry,” Gyuvin says sweetly as he retracts his legs from Ricky to pull himself into a sitting position, grabbing the box from the floor. All the little pieces inside of it start to rustle when Gyuvin turns it around to study the design on the back, mouth gaping. “This is sick.”

For some reason, Ricky feels proud. “I thought it would go well with my decor.”

“Orchids are a beautiful touch to…” Gyuvin waves a hand around. “All of this.”

“Help me build it,” Ricky says before he can stop himself. The clock on his phone shows that it’s already nine, but he doesn’t want the alpha to leave just yet.

“Bet,” the alpha declares before ripping into the toy.

By the time they are halfway done, Ricky learns that Gyuvin is a tattoo artist. It starts when his hoodie sleeves roll up and Ricky realizes he’s never seen the alpha without one, not yet at least. His arms are covered in art and he is too attractive to focus on anything but him. The man is quite talented with his hands. Gyuvin ends up finishing one of the flowers in just a few minutes, the same few minutes that Ricky takes to himself to keep studying the alpha’s flesh drawings. There’s an air of familiarity about Gyuvin that Ricky has trouble sitting with, and his thighs press together when he pulls them back up to lean his chin on top of his knees. The move has the other glancing up at him and he smiles again, and Ricky’s eyes scamper away.

“Not gonna lie,” Gyuvin says as he clicks another piece into place. “I was fully prepared for you to pull out something crazy from the Amazon box.”

“You’re not that lucky,” Ricky says before retracting his fingers from the mound of similar blocks when he sees Gyuvin reaching for the same thing.

It gets quiet again and Ricky yawns softly as Gyuvin stretches his back after finishing off another stem. Ricky’s eyes lay over the emptied platter that once held a mound of dumplings, licked clean. Even Jiwoong, his ex, despite always being over his place, could never finish their dinners off like Gyuvin has tonight. The omega’s fingers search into the neck hole of his shirt to roll a jade donut into his fist, deep in thought before Gyuvin snaps the last flower in place and Ricky awards him with a bright smile and the honor of placing it wherever he pleases.

Inyeon, in its most basic sense, is the entanglement of two people across different lifetimes. It’s what ties people together even after being reincarnated. A predestined relationship. In short, it’s destiny, and with Gyuvin chatting with him across his coffee table he wonders what type of inyeon brought them here. It’s possible that in another life they mean more to each other, or maybe they were always a dog and a cat brushing tails.

Lunar New Year falls on a Saturday in February, and Ricky messes his eyeliner up three times before it comes out semi-decent. There’s no one to impress at his cousin’s get-together, but he still likes to be presentable at times even if there is nobody to stroke his ego aside from his childhood crush. He’s got his red panties underneath his matching tracksuit from Celine and his stomach is ready to inhale years of tradition after being an hour late. He swings a bag over his shoulder and balances a tray of pastries on one arm from Fay Da, the local Chinese bakery in their little neighborhood before bracing the cold.

Thankfully, Zhang Hao’s apartment is only a block away in one of the more updated brownstones in the area. When he arrives, Ollie is already drunk off of baijiu and his sister Xiaoting is nagging about how sweet the mooncake is, picking out the golden center to eat only the salted egg yolk. Her eyes widen when she sees the younger guest and she hurries her fingers into his mouth to lick off any excess crumbs before dragging Ricky into a tight hug. They see each other nearly every other week for dim sum and gossip, but occasions like this always make her a little softer around the edges. Something about found family and adulthood in a big city. Her neck smells like the floral version of his own perfume, Baccarat Rouge 540, and he smiles when she takes the hoard of pastries from him.

Eric Chou is booming from Hao’s Google Home and the lights are half set to a festive red for their quaint celebration. The homeowner has tassels hung from every branch of his nicely maintained Money Tree, and there are coupled banners hanging from each side of the expansive window of the living room. It feels good to know that they haven’t lost their roots even with their very American lifestyles.

“Took you long enough,” Hao exclaims as he reemerges from his bedroom in a scarlet hoodie. He goes in for a hug anyway, letting his arms wind around the taller boy with a tight squeeze before poking around in the pastries for his favorite egg custard tart. “You should have gotten more of these.”

“You don’t need more than one,” Jingxiang comments from the couch where he’s squashed underneath a drunkard.

Hao is two bites deep into the pastry when he holds the rest up to Ricky’s lips and the boy takes a generous quarter off of it. It’s fresh considering the bakery was still bringing them out from the back when Ricky arrived thirty minutes before closing, and he hums at the taste. He doesn’t shed himself of his puffy outer layer before he flops himself on top of Ollie and on top of Jingxiang.

“I’m gonna hurl,” Ollie says behind his hand with his eyes squinted. “I need to pee.”

“You gotta choose one, kid,” Jingxiang says as he brings a hand over Ricky’s cold cheek. They exchange a grin and Ricky closes his eyes to press even more of his weight on top of the youngest. “It’s been a while,” he says, directed to Ricky.

The omega chuckles, warming himself up with the man’s palm. “How’re the envelopes tonight?”

“Hanbin gege is very heavy handed,” the alpha informs with a soft pat.

Red envelopes have always been their favorite part of the holiday, like most children. Jingxiang and Ricky would collect them all at the end of the night and count the crisp bills like they were bank tellers when they were young. They used to have so much fun together when they were kids, and now they’re adults with less in common than two passerbys.

That’s how life is sometimes. Someone can be your most favorite person for a few delicate seasons and then melt away like snow between your cupped hands. When Ricky opens his eyes, he doesn’t question the wistful look in Jingxiang’s eyes. He likes to pretend they’re thinking of the same things. Ollie grunts again underneath him and Ricky laughs.

“Who let him drink? He’s not even legal yet,” Ricky whispers like Ollie isn’t inches away from his lips.

“He had one sip,” Hao says from the table. He’s helping Xiaoting with cutting open the watermelon. “Not even a sip, it was a lick.” After realizing the boy’s outfit, Hao sighs. “Ricky, shoes off.”

Jingxiang sticks his tongue out at Ricky when they meet eyes again and he’s punched in the gut lightly before Ricky shuffles over to the front door to toe off his sneakers. He’s given a piece of watermelon from the center as a treat and he loiters behind the only girl in the room for more, mouth open.

“Jie is wishing you good health and lots of sex this year,” Xiaoting sings to everyone’s annoyance as she feeds Ricky with her hand. When the crowd from the couch boos, she swings her arms up. “What?”

“I need a smoke break,” Hao says after polishing off the remainder of the girl’s mooncake, slapping his hands together to get the crumbs off. He nods over to Ricky like he wasn’t just asked to take his shoes off. “You coming?”

“I don’t smoke anymore,” Ricky says with a scowl.

“Puritan,” Zhang Hao remarks as he turns to the other boy Ricky’s age. “What about you?”

Ollie is the first to put his hand up. “If he moves, I’ll really vomit.”

“Oh, fuck me to fucking hell,” Hao says in their mother language, the first of many conversations.

Ricky ends up on the front steps of Hao’s building, passing a cigarette back and forth to the older boy in the dead of winter. It’s the only thing to warm them up and they share it like it’s a portable fireplace, blowing the smoke out of each other’s way.

Ricky wonders how much of this he will remember in fifty years. He hopes he never forgets the way Hao laughs, or the way he looks when he’s marinating in thoughts. He hopes he can remember what it feels like to be young and worried about the future. There may be a day where he can look back at their simple life as young adults in New York and smile at how foolish they were for thinking there would be nothing else for them but this.

Then he tries to remember what he was doing a year ago, two years ago, how they partied together endlessly when Ricky graduated from a UC school and took five luggages to the Big Apple to start his new life as a grad student. Back when he met Jiwoong, and then now, the aftermath of the older man. Everyone in his family was sure Ricky would be the first one to get married with how serious the pairing was, how devoted they seemed. Jiwoong showed up to every festivity, paid for all their meals when the friend group would go out, greeted his mother over FaceTime with his broken Mandarin every chance he got. He was the picture perfect partner on paper, but nobody knew how much they lacked in other sectors of their relationship. Sometimes, when Ricky scares himself with the thought of ending up alone, he regrets ending things with such a good guy just because the so-called passion wasn’t there. In the same breath, he doesn’t want the lore he tells himself to consist of him not being good enough to be loved in the way he desires, so he let Jiwoong go for something better suited for him. Now, he’s back to square one.

Like Hao is uncovering his personal thoughts, he coughs around smoke, waving it away. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Ricky tries not to think about his new neighbor. “Not lately.”

“Do you think you’ll start dating soon?”

“I don’t think I have the time right now,” Ricky says simply. It’s the same answer he told his mother when she stayed with him for a month, and it still rings true. He had a lot on his plate with school and school and… school.

“That’s what you keep saying.” Hao taps the ash off the end of the cigarette with his pinky and it falls off into fiery specks. “You don’t miss it?”

Who wouldn’t miss the warmth of another person? “Dating isn’t for me.”

“Your mom is worried that you’re holing yourself up in your apartment reading your books all day. She said she’s scared you’re wishing your life away.”

“She doesn’t understand how hard it is to meet someone decent nowadays,” Ricky refutes weakly. He wants to say Hao doesn’t understand either after being married to his husband for three years already. He doesn’t know what it’s like to go on a dating app made for sex, looking for genuine love. “It’s exhausting.”

Finding love is hard for someone that isn’t down to fuck at the drop of a hat. It’s even harder for someone that lives inside of their head half the time. If he could be like any other omega and find a heat partner, maybe he’d have some sort of normalcy in his life. He’s twenty-four and he already feels like he’s running out of time. Despite Jiwoong and him dating for three years, he’s really only ever had that one serious relationship to fall back on in terms of experience. He’s tried to be sexually liberating but he’s truly not interested in having sex first and then falling in love. He feels too protective of his body to do something like that. Maybe it’s a sex phobia like Xiaoting once suggested, or a phobia of being touched by the wrong person.

Either way, Ricky nudges the tried end of the cigarette into the cement stair and blows out what is left in his mouth. “What ever happened to bumping into each other at a grocery store or meeting at a coffee shop?”

“Are you living in a 2000s sitcom?” Hao chuckles.

“Maybe.”

“Well, it’s definitely not Sex and the City,” Xiaoting says as she makes her way between them after stepping out of the building, head bobbing in search of smoke. “Done already?”

“Why don’t you guys ever worry about Jingxiang? We’re the same age, you know,” Ricky says petulantly.

“We do!” Xiaoting says with too much enthusiasm for the situation. She pushes her elbow into Hao’s arm to get him to agree with her. “We do, right?”

“It’s different for him,” Hao says in his brutally honest way.

“Because he’s an alpha,” Ricky replies flatly. “And has all the time in the fucking world to find his mate while my biological clock is running out. Is that what you want to say?”

Ricky isn’t mad at Hao for reminding him of reality. They live with it every day so it’s nothing they don’t already know. Most omegas, like Hao, end up married before Ricky’s age, especially in Chinese culture. It’s the prime age for child bearing and the best time to start the beginning of a long marriage. Ricky was not like other omegas and they all knew that.

“You still have time,” Xiaoting says between the two boys. But he’s three years away from being in hot waters with his mom for being a leftover omega and being sold off to anyone that will take him. “Who knows? You could be the one that ends up having one of those red string of fate moments.”

If only Ricky was so lucky. With all the commotion of needing to get out into the dating world again, Ricky is starting to feel like his version of fate is ending up on multiple blind dates with alphas coordinated by his mom and her jury of other anxious parents. In the times he gets really lonely and down on himself, he pretends he would be fine with an arranged marriage. As long as they’re taller than him. Handsome. Maybe funny. Kind and understanding. Typically well off. Like his dream husband. The husband he’s created in his head. The husband he will never get to have.

That same night, he’s sucked into another dream that shakes him by the spine. He wakes up with a small foot pressed to his cheek and he has to resist the urge to bite off each little toe one by one when he notices his son laying upside down between him and his supposed husband. The bed is warm and Ricky can see the clock shine three in the morning, and it makes sense because there’s just the sound of breathing in their big, dark room. Ricky wishes he could see the face of his spouse but every time he tries, it’s nothing he can make out for long enough to remember in his waking form.

“Rui,” comes the deep voice, still very much caked in sleep. “Why’re you up?”

“I don’t know,” Ricky responds softly so he doesn’t disturb the puppy pile on their bed. With his eyes more adjusted now, he can make out two more of his sons hidden at different ends of the mattress. He’s about to worry about their daughter’s whereabouts when he sees the bassinet on the other side of the room, rocking on its own with a motor.

“Should I get you some water?” his husband asks, but he’s already sitting up, his broad back showing when he lifts himself onto his elbows with a belated yawn.

Ricky reaches for him. The last three dreams were without the bigger man, and maybe he’s longed for him enough in his real life to conjure up the man’s presence in this dimension. “Just stay with me.”

“If you keep speaking like this,” his husband starts as he makes his way back under the covers. Ricky can see his smile and he grows hot at it. “I’ll be in big trouble.”

“Don’t be a pervert,” Ricky scolds with a hand pushing into the middle of the man’s chest even as he’s quickly caged in by two thick arms. “The babies are here,” the omega reminds with a soft tut.

“They won’t wake up just because of a kiss,” the man says innocently.

Ricky can tell why they’re married. He would totally marry a sneaky bastard like this, the type to make you feel as many butterflies as a teenager even with four kids under the belt. With the man’s hand cupping the side of his neck, this is probably the reason they have so many kids. He can feel the softness of the other’s lips brushing over his, the weight dipping in the mattress when he leans over him, the barely-there stroke of a tongue opening him up. When he opens his eyes to see the vaulted ceilings of his apartment, he lifts his head just to bang it back into the pillow a few times. It was just getting good. Ricky attempts to sandwich himself with another package of feathers and fluff, willing himself back into the dream.

Ricky doesn’t get to return to his second life because God hates his guts. Instead, he ends up taking a run around Central Park with his headphones clipped over his head. He’s all bundled up, clad with a thick scarf knitted by Xiaoting when he thinks about the extra readings he should be catching up on. Gyuvin pops into his mind when he starts to ponder what to get for breakfast. Halal Guys is a good option for a quick bite, but he wants to make sure he’s getting something he knows his neighbor will appreciate. His run turns more into a brisk Hot Girl Walk when he gets closer to the bodega and the bell placed on the top edge of the door alerts the clerk of his presence.

“Ricky,” the older man says in his lovely accent, tapping his chest to show his excitement. “Where’ve you been, my boy?”

“Busy, boss,” the younger chirps as he makes his way to the deli counter and the man follows him after rinsing his hands under a faucet. “I’m gonna get the usual,” he says when the man wipes his wet hands over his apron. “And then a bacon and cheese with double huevos.” When the man gives him a knowing look he covers his eyes with his hand before turning away. “Don’t start with me. It’s too early for this.”

The man laughs and it’s booming and Ricky wants to crawl away by his knees. “Who’s the lucky man, bella?”

“No one,” Ricky blurts out passively as he finds a cup of mini Oreos more interesting.

“There’s a new fella that comes in here asking for double huevos,” the clerk replies with a chuckle. He sounds so much like the dad Ricky’s never had. “We call eggs uova in my language. Do you think he likes your uova?”

“My uova is drying up into powder right now, Giovanni,” Ricky says with a mean little smile that the man enjoys thoroughly as he slaps the sandwiches together.

The man’s arm hair grows thick all the way down to his knuckles like he’s a wooly mammoth and he smiles like a bear that escaped from the wilderness when he rounds the counter to give Ricky a tight side hug. Ricky hopes he doesn’t smell too much like sweat. “My treat today, amorina.”

Ricky is warm with the affection from his deli man as he gets into the elevator after entering his building. The bagels are even warmer in his hands, baking in the parchment paper as he watches the levels rise before they open up to his floor. He wanders around the front of Gyuvin’s door before actually knocking on it, and part of him curses the dumb idea when a few moments pass by without any sign of the man. He’s about to turn around when the door swings open and Gyuvin’s fresh from bed, hair tousled and he’s in jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt, probably the same outfit he was sporting the night before. Gyuvin squints at him before rubbing his eyes clear of boogers, and then his face brightens when he realizes who it is.

“Morning, Ricky,” he says without much intention to say more. It’s a surprise for him, obviously, and he leans away to give his neighbor some space to get inside.

Ricky walks into the man’s home for the first time with eyes as bright as the morning sun. There are boxes lined up with what looks like bottles of ink and needles for the man’s profession, and lots of baby wipes and cleaning supplies. It’s relatively clean and there’s actually some thought to the interior decor which Ricky finds pleasant. Mid Century modern definitely fits the man’s vibe, even though he was somewhat expecting a mattress on the floor and a dirty couch from someone’s stoop. Ricky ends up on a long, dark green sofa despite wanting to sink into one of the bean bags off to the side, unwrapping the small parcel that holds his avocado sandwich. Gyuvin is wiping his glasses with the end of his shirt before sliding them on. They’re thinly rimmed with silver wires and big slabs of glass that make his face look even smaller than it is. He’s painfully handsome when he walks over to sit next to Ricky on the couch and their knees bump together.

Ricky passes the bigger package over to the man and he takes it with one of his signature grins. “Gio’s got the hands of God,” Gyuvin groans after his teeth sink into the stuffed bagel, close to taking the wrapping with it.

The older boy looks around some more just so he doesn’t end up looking right at Gyuvin. He glances at the row of graffiti skateboards lining the wall before he sees all the glaze containers stacked underneath. Then, he realizes all the earthy colored pottery pieces dotting the home. “I didn’t know you did ceramics.”

“Gotta keep something for the mystery,” Gyuvin says humbly. “I don’t give it all up on the first date.” Ricky wasn’t aware that they had a date but his lips twitch either way. Gyuvin swallows before shouting into nothing, “Alexa, play One Dance by Drake.”

Ricky finds himself laughing into his own bagel when Gyuvin gives him a funny look when the music starts to play from his speakers. “Drake in the morning?”

“It’s chill,” Gyuvin argues lightly before craning his head towards Ricky’s. “You been thinking about me?”

“Why would I?”

Gyuvin holds up half of his bagel like it’s a trophy. “Hm?”

Ricky rolls his eyes to brush the gesture off and he uses his pinky to clean up around the corner of his lip when he feels avocado escape from his mouth. “You could say thank you. It looks like you need it.”

“I thought I was gonna wake up shit-faced today,” Gyuvin admits as he goes back to staring blankly at the empty screen of his television. “My friends go buck wild on the weekends for no reason. I must be aging out of it.”

“Party boy,” Ricky comments before squealing when Gyuvin’s hand lurches into his stomach to start tickling him.

“I just said I didn’t like it,” Gyuvin says between clenched teeth, wriggling his fingers wherever he can touch. “It would be fun if you were there. You’re very entertaining.” Ricky gives him a confused glance and he laughs, retracting his hand from the boy’s puffer jacket. “You’re like a cat, you come and go as you please.”

“I am a cat hybrid,” Ricky reminds. “Alexa, play Unravel Me by Sabrina Claudio.” When she doesn’t respond, Gyuvin repeats the request before finishing off his food.

“Are you studying today?”

“I should be,” Ricky says. “Why?”

“Bring your books in here,” Gyuvin suggests as he gets up to grab two bottles from the fridge. “I have to do some sketching today for a client.”

“Would it kill you to be alone for a while?”

“Says the guy that woke me up from my slumber,” Gyuvin says after passing over a cold water bottle. The only thing surprising is that he doesn’t insist on breaking the cap open for Ricky. “Don’t you want some company while you’re cosplaying Elle Woods?”

Ricky gives him a look at the awful reference. “Are you loud when you draw? I need silence when I read. No Drake, no Kendrick Lamar.”

“I can be silent for you,” Gyuvin says before downing all his water and crushing the plastic obnoxiously in his hand. To add to the fratboy-ery, he groans loudly. Ricky looks out the window with the taste of avocado and carbs infiltrating his mouth. This is what he wanted, right?

They end up meeting up at Grand Central Oyster Bar two days later after a successful study session. It’s an underground joint, literally in an underground station and tucked away from the liveliness of the city above it. It doesn’t take them long to be seated and Ricky marvels at the swooping domes swelling outward from the ceilings, tiled in creamy whites. It does, however, take quite a while to get some attention to their table after being handed the menus.

“We should get the Belon Wilds,” Gyuvin says after scanning the twenty some different species. “They’re typically pretty meaty and come from Maine.”

At this point, Ricky doesn’t care where the oysters come from as long as they itch his appetite the right way. He’s starving after a full day of classes and he can feel his hunger pull him closer to the edge of fussiness. Ricky is not normally this hungry, and he notes it down as something to watch out for in case his heat is approaching.

“I’m fine with anything,” he says with his lip tucked between his teeth. “I think I’m going to break out into a sweat if I don’t get something in me fast.”

Gyuvin is a good guy. A great guy. Like the perfect gentleman he is, he finds a way to wave down their waiter even through the boisterous dining hall, and he spits out a long list of items that even Ricky can’t catch before their server nods and walks away.

With his lips pressed to the glass of his cup, he murmurs, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” The alpha pulls a packet of oyster crackers off the unmanned trolley close to the window and opens it before handing it to Ricky. “Here, eat this first. I don’t want you passing out on me before we get to dessert.”

Ricky figures he’s going to sound dumb if he asks a full grown adult how he manages to order for himself so seamlessly, so he pops a few crackers into his mouth as he looks around. He’s been in New York for quite a few years now but he’s never been here before. It’s a tourist trap, but he can see why. It holds years of history dating back from 1913, and it’s not like you can see this type of architecture just anywhere. When his eyes float back to Gyuvin, he notices him staring. A common occurrence.

“What?”

“You really suit this place,” Gyuvin says with a grin. With his baseball cap on, his hair isn’t covering his eyes and they seem even brighter today.

Ricky scoffs but it’s light and he runs his fingers over his naked eyelids with a bit of embarrassment rising over his face. “Sorry, I probably look so bad right now,” he apologizes. “I slept in today.”

Gyuvin finds it amusing. “I complimented you and you’re apologizing?”

“I guess I am,” Ricky says sweetly as he leans back into the booth. He doesn’t know what to do when Gyuvin looks at him the way he does. He doesn’t know what to do with the feral animal inside of him rolling onto its back for the younger man. “You had a tattoo appointment today, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gyuvin recalls as he mirrors Ricky’s movements and slumps into his chair. “It’s a back piece, super huge scale. I did the outline two months ago and we’ve been adding things little by little every few weeks. Back tattoos are killer if you try to do it all at once.”

When Gyuvin’s sneaker knocks against his under the table he doesn’t move from it. “Your eyes have to be pretty strong to stare for that long.”

“I’ve got a lifetime supply of eye drops, believe me,” Gyuvin says with a deep laugh that Ricky adores.

“I have a lot of respect for artists. I could never do what you do.”

“That’s funny because I could never do what you do.”

Oysters and red checkered tablecloths and attractive alphas in hoodies. It really doesn’t get more New York than this. Gyuvin takes a long swig of his draft beer the moment the bottom of the cup hits the table and Ricky swallows a chuckle when their server gives him a wink before leaving them with their table of seafood dishes.

Gyuvin takes the lead in dressing up their hefty order of oysters with tabasco and lemon and cocktail sauce where necessary. While he’s caught up in that, he nods his head over to the plate in front of Ricky. “That’s the pan roast. It’ll warm you up, try it.” When Ricky takes his first bite, Gyuvin looks at him like he’s waiting for a reaction. “How’s that?”

“Perfect,” Ricky muffles behind his hand. The heat hits him right where it needs to and it’s thick and buttery in all the right ways. “I’m going to need you to order every single time.”

Gyuvin places a prepared oyster onto the omega’s plate before licking his thumb free of sauce. “Deal. Take this.”

For some reason, Ricky keeps doing as he’s told. He isn’t this obedient in his daily life, but Gyuvin makes him want to be. Once the oyster hits his tongue he is greeted with a creamy surprise and he chews before swallowing it. “This is great. Lots of… depth?”

“See? You get me,” Gyuvin says before chugging his own oyster down the tube. “So, what did you learn about today? Anything noteworthy?”

“We’ve been discussing inyeon in class,” Ricky says slowly as he settles his gaze on Gyuvin. He was hoping to bring it up to the younger man someday, and this is a clear avenue to do it.

The man obviously knows what he’s talking about, and he nods his head as he works through his second oyster. “No shit?”

“No shit. It’s very interesting,” Ricky says as he blows over his spoon of clam chowder. “Every culture makes up their own story about destiny. It’s like we all long for the same thing.”

“We all want to belong,” Gyuvin says, as if picking up what Ricky puts down. They work like this. Gyuvin understands him without Ricky needing to do much on his end.

“To the world or—“

“—to someone,” the alpha finishes.

The two men talk about other things after that, like who won the Super Bowl this year, and what the best beer brand is even though Ricky barely tolerates the taste of anything slightly alcoholic. And their feet are still touching, and Ricky is noticing that Gyuvin is purposely tapping against his each time he shakes his leg. When they walk home from the station, their hands stroke across each other’s until Ricky pulls his own into his pockets to stop the electric sparks from bothering him further. It’s one of the warmer nights, just rising above sixty degrees, and he smiles to himself when Gyuvin brings up his curriculum again.

“Do you believe in inyeon?”

“I do,” Ricky says carefully, like he’s being tested on the topic. When he speaks, his words expel into fog from his mouth. “I think I believe in it more than the red string of fate.”

“Really? I’m the opposite,” Gyuvin says as he walks a few steps ahead of Ricky to turn around so they’re face to face. He’s walking backwards, and he’s good at it, dodging every fire hydrant and street lamp in his way. “It feels silly to think that everyone we come into contact with is someone we’ve dealt with in a past life. Like, it shouldn’t be that simple, you know?”

“I get it,” Ricky agrees as he watches Gyuvin’s Nikes skid over the pavement. “But I feel like there is a lot of anxiety around finding the one singular person at the end of your string. It makes you rush through every experience you have with other people just to get to The One,” he says with his fingers bunnied into air quotes.

Gyuvin’s face molds like he’s being properly persuaded. “Nice point.”

“There’s a lot of emphasis on the destination instead of enjoying the journey,” he continues after dragging Gyuvin out of harm’s way when a bicyclist rings by. “Inyeon brings importance to compassion for your community and it connects you to multiple people. It makes sense because everyone starts off as strangers, but with some people we feel more entangled with than others.”

“This is why you’re the one in school and I’m not.”

“It’s not even about that,” Ricky says with his fist pointed at the alpha teasingly. “They’re both great. In all languages, all cultures, we circle back to this concept that there is one person, this one magical soulmate that was created with you in mind.”

“And of course we all have one, because coming into the world alone would be preposterous.”

“Totally out of the question for any of us to wither away into nothingness,” Ricky says with a grin that Gyuvin returns tenfold.

“Do you think you’ve found your one?”

“I wouldn’t be walking the streets at night with an alpha if I did,” Ricky says in a roundabout way.

“You would if you were a scandalous vixen,” Gyuvin says. “Which you aren’t,” the man adds on quickly before turning so that they face the same direction and their arms touch again.

Ricky smiles at Gyuvin’s attempt to make him feel better after the joke, and he knocks his elbow against him purposely. In the wise words of Taylor Swift, sparks fly. A single touch is enough to ripple through the omega in a steam of affection. “Thanks for the clarification.”

Ricky almost misses his stop because of his book. Even with his schedule, he manages to find some time between places to read what he actually enjoys, and he’s out of breath when he climbs up the stairs to get to street level, plopped in the middle of Chinatown. He walks into Nom Wah Tea Parlor, because where else would you be able to find a group of twenty year old implants from China on a Friday evening? His cousin already has the table filled with bamboo baskets and Ricky can smell the oolong with hydrangea brewing from the teapot that he picks up before even seating himself.

His fingers rest over the lid of the pot gently as he pours into Xiaoting’s cup, palm down and manner-like. He continues until she taps two of her fingers onto the table, mid conversation with Hao over her fiancé deciding to take a business trip during their anniversary. It’s hot gossip, and Ricky finally plops down into a vinyl coated chair after doing the same for his older cousin.

“Hanbin would never do something as ridiculous as that to you,” Xiaoting says with her chopsticks waving above her plate. There’s a delicious shrimp dumpling clenched between the two sticks and Ricky follows it with his mouth before she surrenders to him, cupping her hand underneath Ricky’s chin for any fallout. “I should have married someone Korean!”

“Hanbin is a different breed,” Hao says with a shake of his head. “He doesn’t leave me alone, and your man wants to give you too much space. You can’t win, Ting. Men just don’t understand us.”

“Alphas are the problem,” she decides after pulling another har gow between her lips. “The world would be better off without them.”

Hao agrees with a faint nod and he tips the lazy Susan towards Ricky so that he can reach the other parcels of joy from where he’s sitting. It rotates and the youngest goes straight for the steamed spare ribs, ignoring the ruby red chicken paws that wave at him from the next basket over. While he gnaws the meat from around a bone, he feels eyes on him and he’s smiling already.

“Baby miaomiao,” Xiaoting muses as she reaches for Ricky’s cheek. “When will we be able to talk shit about your husband, hm?”

Ricky’s gaze moves over to the elderly couple next to them, then the Lunar New Year lanterns hanging from the ceiling branded with Sapporo over the fronts. He finds it interesting how much they milk the decorations even with the New Year being a few weeks deep. “Weren’t you guys just talking about how men are the problem?”

Everything is round, cyclical. The tables, the plates, the matching jade donut pendants that the three of them have hanging above their hearts. The green ring wrapped around Xiaoting’s finger, and the silver one around Hao’s. He doesn’t think about how they belong to people while Ricky doesn’t.

There’s a TV lifted up onto a stand close to the kitchen that is playing a rerun of Tokyo Juliet all the way from 2006. It must be playing from the DVD player that’s connected to it since it’s the very first episode and Ricky is momentarily entranced by the opening scene. It’s a festive party for adults and the main character is around six years old, wandering and crying as she weaves through cocktail dresses and champagne. That is, until she meets the main lead and he hands her a bar of chocolate to calm down. They sit underneath one of the table-clothed food bars in their own world with the tips of their little shoes sticking out. It’s the beginning of a turbulent enemies to lovers trope, the one where they don’t remember each other at all when they’re as old as the guests walking around, and Ricky smirks as he takes a bite of the salt and pepper shrimp Hao peeled for him while he was distracted.

Everything in this world is about love, about destiny and karma and ties. Humans die for it. How silly is that? We all just want to be held in arms that have been outstretched in our direction. Headwind by Garden Sister plays through the speakers of the restaurant and Ricky thinks about his mother. He should call her. He won’t, but the thought still crosses his mind.

“Men will always be an issue, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want them,” she says with her finger tapping over her temple.

Ricky copies the action. “You should get this checked out,” in reference to her brain. He shrugs as he unsticks a piece of pork siu mai from the parchment paper. “I like being alone. It’s nice.”

Hao drops his face into his hands like he’s about to cry, but he’s faking and dramatic and so is Xiaoting when she starts to sob. “Our child is going to become a sheng nu!”

Sheng nu, most commonly known as leftover women, leftover omegas. These individuals stay unmarried well into their late twenties and beyond. It’s the worst thing to be, apparently. Ricky eats his way through his feelings. If he wanted to be nagged about marriage every week he would keep up his relationship with his overbearing Tiger Mom.

“Sorry I didn’t end up becoming a child bride,” Ricky apologizes half-heartedly.

Without any sense, Xiaoting hums. “You were a very pretty kiddo.” She checks his darkened expression and laughs before patting over his hand, and Hao shakes his head a second time behind his teacup. “Just kidding. I would have killed anyone propositioning you for marriage.”

“Speaking of kids,” Hao presents. “Hanbin is asking to start having them.”

Ricky likes the idea. At least soon he won’t be the youngest anymore at these dinner dates, and the attention will be completely off of him. He welcomes a baby, and with that, Xiaoting babbles on about prime dates for ovulation and heat cycling to get the most successful results. Ricky listens only to figure out what to avoid doing.

Before they call it quits for dinner, Gyuvin sends him a nondescript address with an even more ominous message of: Meet me here. :)) Ur gonna scream lol.

This is how Ricky ends up at the very tip of Lower Manhattan after a few stops from Chinatown, scooting out of Xiaoting’s cuddly embrace with excuses of needing to get back home to finish up some discussion posts. Hao only looks suspicious when he sees Ricky glancing at his phone more than two times between goodbyes, and he pushes them into their subway before getting in the cart going the opposite direction. It takes exactly twenty-two minutes for him to arrive at his stop and with each minute that passes, Ricky gets a little more anxious.

The breeze from the river is almost too much for Ricky to handle as he totters around Battery Park, not at all familiar with the area. He’s just about to give Gyuvin a call to ask the man if it’s a prank he’s pulling due to the lack of people around at eight thirty at night, but he spots something glimmering in the distance.

“Rui-cky,” Gyuvin yells into his cupped hands from the entrance. He waves a single arm up for even more of a greeting, looking like a dog waiting for a treat. His form is illuminated by the glass enclosed carousel gleaming behind him and Ricky’s mouth continues to open as he walks up the ramp to get to the younger man, chuckling excitedly.

“Oh my God,” Ricky says before pressing a gloved hand to his mouth, eyes widening as the colors of the fish boats change. “This is beautiful.” He turns to face Gyuvin when he hits the side of his arm. “How’d you find out about this?”

“Forget about that,” Gyuvin says as he takes the omega’s hand to pull him into the opening of the ride. “We’re the last batch before closing. You made it just in time.”

Ricky feels like a jellyfish in a fish tank, or a little creature in a chambered nautilus when Gyuvin helps him into one of the empty seats. It’s just them despite there being thirty other vehicles to plop into, and the alpha settles into one that faces Ricky, pulling his phone out for pictures. The SeaGlass Carousel starts up before Ricky can belt himself in and he’s amazed at the machinery pulling their respective fish into different swim patterns, and he’s lifted up and down in it, and he laughs when he catches Gyuvin struggling to get a good angle of him.

The ride is more than immersive and he finds himself getting lost in the motion of waves and then lost in Gyuvin’s hopeful gaze. When the fish around him begin to fade into neutral pinks and seafoam greens, he catches the alpha taking a video and there’s a fondness that digs into Ricky’s chest. It takes just a day for things to change, and just a singular moment in time for you to see someone differently.

Time freezes. It’s morning, and he’s in his Upstate New York home making double eggs on the frying pan. Sunny side up, over easy. He’s got one of his toddlers balanced on his hip and they’re still heavy from sleep with their head tucked against his collarbone, watching him go through the motions of breakfast. His middle child is the clingy one, the one that cries whenever he’s forced to be without him for more than ten minutes, and Ricky presses his lips into the boy’s wavy locks, nosing into the sweet aroma of baby shampoo and linens.

He can hear his husband from the other room playing with the baby in their rocker, and once he transfers the eggs to a plate he sees a perfectly done bagel waiting to be assembled. Thoughts. Ricky’s feet move slowly in his dreams, and when he finally makes it to the doorway to get a glance at his husband’s back he can see into their living room. It’s wide with crown moldings and wallpapered murals inside each alcove. Bright and sunny and the ceilings are so high it makes his spouse look small while he’s crouched down over their child. Their oldest is still passed out on the couch with just a pair of Pororo whiteys on and his mouth open in a soft snore.

“Baobao would not fall asleep last night,” his husband says once he senses his presence in the room without turning around.

“Daddy must be very tired,” Ricky coos as he adjusts the baby in his arms to the front of his body instead of his side, locking his arms underneath their rump to distribute their weight evenly. Everything feels so real. The smell of their home, the sugary fruit candles from Anthropologie burning in each room, the coolness of their hardwood flooring.

The man laughs and his back shakes. He’s still in his nightwear so he must be staying home today. Ricky wants this dream to last forever and a night. “My wife’s beauty sleep is what matters.”

Ricky wants to get closer to the other man to touch him, but like most things in this dimension, he holds relatively zero control of what he can and can’t do. His feet stay stuck to the floor and when he looks down he notices they have matching slippers. His are pink with cats and his husband has a blue pair with a dog. Sickly sweet.

“Eomma is coming this weekend,” the man says after leaning a bottle into their child’s mouth. “She said she’ll make kimchi for us.”

Ricky knows the word because of his cousin’s husband. In his dreams, he speaks multiple languages fluently, understanding each and every syllable and absorbing what is being said to him like it’s native to him. He feels like something is being dangled in front of his face.

That’s when time skips backwards in his dream and he’s now on their bed with his blouse unbuttoned all the way down. His husband has his ear pressed to his belly and he can’t be more than four months pregnant at this point, small and round and treasured by the man. Their daughter hasn’t been born yet. Ricky’s got his fingers tangled in his hair, the curls crushing under his palm.

“She’s so active in there,” he says. Ricky can hear the smile bouncing off his lips when the omega feels the baby shift inside of him and he sighs. The sensation almost feels abnormal, but he knows this version of him enjoys being plump with children given that they have three other tikes before their fourth is planned.

For the very first time ever, his husband looks up at him. Really looks at him. Full lips pressed to the bulge of his stomach, deep brown eyes, a buttony nose and a face he would be able to find even in a crowd of people in their bustling city. His heart drops so low inside of him he can’t even begin to reach for it. It’s Gyuvin.

When he jolts out of sleep, he’s drenched in tears.

It goes without being said that Ricky avoids his neighbor with every fiber of his being. The mission goes well for the most part as Gyuvin ends up coming home later each day, most likely due to the tattoo appointments at the studio ramping up, and Ricky sneaks into his house as early as he can manage without causing any commotion. He’s good at compartmentalizing, and he can shove his fears and worries into a box without too much effort when it comes to the whole dream revelation. He can reason it away, too. He figures Gyuvin is just one face of many pulled from his subconscious to finally flesh out the husband in his mind. Dreams are supposed to mock real life, after all, and this shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary for him. He’s seen the man enough times and thought about him more than enough for him to manifest even at night. That was all on Ricky and has nothing to do with the real Gyuvin that lives across the hall.

Things go swimmingly until Ricky is drowning in the prerequisites of his heat. The hot flashes are enough to take him completely out because of how sensitive he is to them, and the ache of his back makes it hard for him to sit for long in his lectures, running out the minute class is deemed over. His Owala bangs into the pole of the subway on his way home and he curses when part of the paint gets scratched off, chugging the rest of his water before he can make it to the lobby of his building from pure thirst. He’s so lightheaded that his vision goes in and out and he ends up pressing the wrong floor on the elevator as his cramps take form in the walls of his empty womb.

To add to his distress, he has a mountain of packages sitting at his door (another sign of his heat) from his manic shopping spree the other night. He kicks them all into his house and they topple around like a cluster of hollow bricks before he can slam the door shut, leaning into it. When he reaches between his legs he can feel himself leaking through his jeans. While he knows this is all in preparation for one day far into the future having babies, he still groans when he thinks about himself waddling with a wet patch all around the city. All of this pain has to be good for something.

On the first official day of Ricky’s heat, Gyuvin shows up to his door like he’s responding to an AMBER alert. He looks frazzled, even more than Ricky does as he holds his door just halfway open with his nose poking out of it in confusion. “You’re in heat.”

“Yeah, something like that,” comes Ricky’s muddled reply.

They stand there for a moment before Gyuvin takes another step forward and Ricky closes the door a few centimeters more. “Can I come in?”

“No,” Ricky says slowly. He’s leaking out of his ass and Gyuvin wants to come in for what? To get sprayed with it like a dog chasing a water hose? No way. His face does soften at the imagery of Gyuvin smiling and drenched with his dumb dog grin that he always has on. That’s much better than the dejected look the real Gyuvin now sports, and Ricky feels interestingly bad about it.

“Oh. Okay, I mean. Yeah, that was probably really weird of me… to ask.” Gyuvin brings his hand through his hair and Ricky holds his breath for nothing other than to stop his heartbeat from going rampant. “Good night, then.”

“Good night,” Ricky calls after the man as he turns to get to his own door, and they wave at each other before Gyuvin disappears inside his own home.

Weird.

It’s even weirder when Gyuvin shows up again a day later with the same stormy cloud of anxiety hanging over his curled hair. There’s gel in it today and it looks magnificent but very crispy. They exchange glances before Gyuvin is handing off a few grocery bags and Ricky takes them with reluctant fingers before opening them to peruse the contents.

“If you need anything else, just let me know,” Gyuvin says to fill the silence while Ricky searches through.

“Pads?” Ricky asks without looking up. His cheeks are already pink.

“Heavy flow,” Gyuvin notes like he’s going to get brownie points for it. If he had a tail it would be swishing like the top of a helicopter.

Ricky’s cheeks deepen into a darker pink when he sees a bottle of strawberry lubricant, and now’s the time to look at the alpha, because what the fuck. “And the lube is for…?”

“Oh,” Gyuvin says with his lips circling. “For you know. That stuff…”

“I’m making more than enough of it on my own right now,” Ricky supplies before arching his eyebrow. “Which is also none of your business.”

Gyuvin can smell it because he’s an alpha. Ricky knows that Gyuvin can smell it from the way his neck gets red at the mention of it, like he’s been caught. He plays it off with one of his smiles and Ricky forgives him for being a nosy, imposing alpha in his head. “You’ll let me know if you need anything else, right?”

“Sure will,” Ricky says knowing he won’t be reaching out at all. He would much rather cut his hand off than reach for the younger man in any way, shape, or form. With that, the omega waves and closes the door before Gyuvin can ask to come in again.

What once felt like inyeon now feels a lot like the red string of fate. Ricky feels binded in it, hands tied behind his back, and his resolve is fading into water like rice paper. There’s a stronger tug towards Gyuvin the further Ricky tries to run away from him. He feels each layer and each karmic knot tighten around him like bondage and he pads over to his couch to fall face-first onto it, leaving his feet to dangle over the edge for ghosts to grab him and pull him down under.

The third time, Ricky is on FaceTime with Hao when his doorbell rings.

“Who is that, Quanrui?” asks the older boy suspiciously. The phone picks up the blanket on the other side rumpling when another man’s head pops into the frame from the noise of the door.

“Probably my neighbor,” Ricky says as he forces himself to get up from the bed and out from under the heating pad. He can hear Hanbin, his cousin’s husband, ask who it is too. Hanbin has always been a protective older brother to him since he married into the family, but the omega really doesn’t want to be scolded when his guts feel this tied together.

“This late?” When the boy doesn’t respond, Hao raises his voice a little louder as the phone is left on top of the duvet. “You have to be careful. You can’t be opening the door for just anyon—”

It’s not just anyone, it’s Gyuvin. His curly-haired dog neighbor. The pain in his ass lately as he’s been sorely avoiding the younger man with all of his might. He opens the door with a sigh and the wool of his Celine hooded sweater almost catches on the door knob in a snag. It’s three sizes too big for Ricky so he’s bagged in it despite his broad shoulders, and his thighs lay bare underneath the end of the hem. Gyuvin clocks him with an obvious glance of interest before straightening up, the berry chantilly cake from Whole Foods propped above one of his hands. Ricky glances at the dessert before Gyuvin’s face, studying the eye bags starting to form on the alpha’s face. He looks worse than Ricky at this point and he isn’t even the one going through World War III in his lower parts.

“How are you?”

“I’m alright,” Ricky answers curtly as he leans into the door for support. He glances at the cake with a soft smile and Gyuvin lifts it up so that he can take it, which the omega does. The size is big enough to feed eight or more people, and the smaller boy has no clue what to say next.

Gyuvin clears his throat. “This was trending on TikTok,” he says after bringing his eyes back up to Ricky’s face. “I don’t know if you’re on TikTok, but lots of people were raving about it. I thought you’d enjoy it.”

“Thanks,” Ricky says. The air around them starts to buzz, and really, Ricky has no goal to let the alpha in, so he turns his head back to the chattering from far into his apartment, looking apologetic when he meets eyes with the man again. “Sorry, Gyuvin,” Ricky says when he hears Hanbin’s voice yelling all the way from the speaker of his phone in his bedroom. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Ah,” the man says when he picks up the third voice. “Right, no, it’s fine. I wouldn’t wanna impose,” he chuckles with his hands up. “Uh, enjoy the cake. And have a good night?”

“I will,” Ricky says as he starts to shut the door, feeling awfully sorry the more Gyuvin’s face deepens into something indescribable. “Night.”

When the lock clicks, Ricky immediately looks through the spy hole to watch the man sigh and get inside his own home before walking back to his bed with the cake still in his hands. He stares at it for a long time and then picks up his phone. It’s full of Hanbin’s face now, and he looks more than concerned.

“Was that a guy?” the older man interrogates. “An alpha?”

“You sound like such a dad, Hanbin,” Hao groans, muffled from a pillow. “Tell Ricky to get some sleep.”

Even when they hang up, Ricky lays wide awake in bed with his heating pad burning a hole into his stomach. He feels the same ache that he feels after one of his intense dreams, and he doesn’t know where the longing comes from, which version of him it originates from. All he knows is that something inside of Gyuvin is making it hard for them to be apart, and Ricky doesn’t know if that should be considered a good or bad thing for him.

When Gyuvin makes his fourth appearance at his door in the span of one week, Ricky starts to believe that he has a lot of debt riding on him from a past life. Maybe Gyuvin murdered him in the last one. Maybe they were sworn enemies. Or maybe, they were just like his dreams painted them out to be and there was more inyeon between them than Ricky would like to admit. Other than the cramping coming from his pelvis, something else starts to pang in his chest as he watches the alpha pace back and forth through the peephole.

“Hey,” Gyuvin says, already out of breath since the moment Ricky’s opened the door. “Again,” he adds lamely. Ricky stares at him, something long, and Gyuvin takes it as a sign to hurry the fuck up with it. “I noticed you haven’t been ordering delivery lately.”

“You… noticed?” What, did he have twenty-four hour surveillance on him?

The alpha, as if sensing the hostility, digs his thumb behind him in the direction of the Ring camera set up above his doorknob. “I usually get a ton of notifications whenever your Uber Eats drivers stop by. Haven’t lately, so…”

“Right,” Ricky says, feeling the heaviness of his heat in the sack of his womb. He runs a hand over the heating patch above it and Gyuvin watches him with a boatload of sympathy.

The younger man holds up the bag of what appears to be food, and the smell wafts over to Ricky like a wave of savory goodness. He really hasn’t been eating much while fighting off his cramps. “Uh, so, I got you porridge. It’s from this place my friend owns. Well, his family owns.” Gyuvin, with his red-tipped ears, looks more like an omega now than Ricky. “It’s a restaurant.”

“I figured it would be,” Ricky responds with his gentle voice. He doesn’t know what to do with the alpha and staring at him is only making him even more nervous, but there’s a stench of anxiety that Ricky picks up in the man’s normally minty aroma that gives a lot away. “Why are you doing this?”

Gyuvin’s mouth opens and then closes, and then he’s squinting his eyes like something hurts and Ricky feels sorry for the poor guy. “I don’t know either,” the alpha says under his breath.

Ricky hates biology. He hates it so much that he steps away from the door to let his neighbor inside. When Gyuvin hesitates, Ricky sighs and grabs him by the thickness of his wrist. “Get in already.”

“I don’t want to disturb…” But he’s already disturbing. His eyes widen when he sees the state of the omega’s loft. It’s not at all how it was before. It’s a mess. There are clothes everywhere and Gyuvin finds it hard to believe there’s anything at all left inside the boy’s closet, and the bed is… Well. It looks comforting. Soft. Gyuvin can understand why he hasn’t left his place in a week with three fluffy blankets and all of New York Fashion Week’s haul piled on top of his mattress.

“Too late.” After one glance at the alpha’s face Ricky has to swallow the urge to giggle and he takes the bag from his fist to unload the contents onto the table. Porridge for two, a generous amount of sides ranging from jeon to gently seasoned squash, and an order of rice balls. “Staring won’t make it any cleaner, you know.”

“You’re nesting,” Gyuvin says, like it isn’t the most obvious thing ever.

“That’s kind of what omegas do,” the older boy replies as he peels back the lid of the take-out bowl. “Abalone?”

“Yeah.” Gyuvin pulls himself around the counter to take over the set up, and Ricky leaves the food alone to let the alpha do it all. He was hurting enough as it is and seeing Gyuvin wordlessly take care of things is something else that helps ease the pain in his groin. “My friend’s mom told me abalone is good for your bones and staying healthy and stuff. She said it’s great for heats.”

“She’s probably right,” Ricky supplies unhelpfully as he leans his forearms over the kitchen island. It’s cool, and he finds himself rubbing against the granite countertop for more. If he could get naked and roll and rub his body all over it he’d be a very happy camper. Instead, he watches Gyuvin find his way about his cupboards with ease, finding himself at home in the cat’s apartment.

To Ricky’s enjoyment, Gyuvin also sets the table until it’s overflowing with food. It’s mainly quiet aside from the chewing that Ricky does, and Gyuvin is staring at him like he’s an organism under a microscope.

“You’re not like other omegas,” Gyuvin states when Ricky is in-between bites.

Ricky half-snorts and a pellet of stewed over rice slaps itself to the wall of his throat tube before he has to cough it back out like it’s a hairball. “Is that supposed to make me feel special?”

“No,” he says, worrisome. “I just can’t figure you out.”

Ricky is a little PMS-y, but he has a right to be. His entire uterus is going to fall out of the hole of his body. “It’s not your job to.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Gyuvin says awkwardly. He’s fidgeting with the seam of his jeans and Ricky’s lips soften around another spoon of rice.

“I’m recessive,” Ricky says. Defective would be another word to put in place of that but he holds back. Alphas don’t usually care enough to even understand the implications of what that means. “My heats are longer and more painful, but I don’t go crazy for sex or anything. It’s just a bag of torture for a month and then I’m all good.”

Ricky wasn’t looking to be comforted, but Gyuvin locks eyes with him in a way that makes him warm. His eyes are so, so brown. “Two in ten omegas suffer from the recessive trait.” He’s all too serious now and Ricky feels like he’s naked despite being layered in two semi-used hoodies. He’s too seen under the man’s gaze. “People really misunderstand how bad it gets for you guys.”

Ricky still has the spoon hanging from his lips, eyebrows crossed together. “Okay…” He doesn’t even know what to say to the walking Wikipedia. “Yeah, they don’t.”

“Like, you go through all of this pain,” Gyuvin says, as confident as he would be on a soap box in the middle of the city. “The cramps, irregular heats, heavy flows, then some of you even struggle with cysts, it never ends.”

Taking a bit of the man’s confidence, Ricky taps the handle of the spoon onto the table, nodding his head in agreement. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s not easy at all. I have to sit through ten heats in one and I don’t even get to have the fun part because my fun parts don’t feel so fun.”

“Exactly,” Gyuvin eggs on, even more charged by Ricky reciprocating the energy. “And having sex is probably terrible for you, I heard it’s like jamming a knife in and out of your body for cat hybrids. Someone told me it feels like spikes, like, fuck. How horrible is that?”

“So true,” Ricky says behind his hand, eyes round. “Nobody understands it.”

Neither of them understand why they high-five, but they do, and it’s awkward again after that. Ricky tries not to think about the electricity that passes through his palm. It’s silent for a moment before Gyuvin hands the smaller boy a napkin to wipe his lips.

“Does all sex hurt for you?”

“On and off,” Ricky says truthfully, dabbing away the porridge. “I have to be super aroused and into the other person to open up. Otherwise it’s like my hole clamps tight and nobody can get insid—“ He stops himself from going any further when he sees Gyuvin’s face darken. “That’s probably too much info, huh?”

It’s not with the way Gyuvin asks him more. “Is this why you don’t have a heat partner?”

“Who said I didn’t?” But then Ricky remembers the camera pointing directly at his door and his cheeks feel hot all of a sudden. So much for being mysterious.

“Nobody’s come over.”

“Toys exist, too,” Ricky says flatly. With the way Gyuvin brings it up, having a heat partner must be an essential for the other man. He doesn’t want to think about all the people he’s probably laid in bed with.

Gyuvin grows quiet for a second. “Are you thinking about me?”

“Huh?”

“Your scent soured just now,” Gyuvin says. He’s too perceptive for his own good.

“No,” Ricky says slowly to buy himself some time to make up a white lie. He goes for his usual argument against his friends, he’s way too passionate about it. “I’m not a fan of hooking up like everyone else is. I’d rather save it for when I have a real mate.”

“You’re old school,” the alpha says, and his smile is too fresh. When he pushes his sleeves up his arms the tattoos say hello and Ricky’s eyes flit over them in attraction.

“You’re sounding kind of cocky for a dude that’s been marching outside my door for days.”

“I was worried about you,” Gyuvin says, as if that will make his case any better. “I could smell you all the way from my place.”

Ricky doesn’t want to think about Gyuvin smelling him because that’s weirdly intimate and Ricky doesn’t have the mind space for anything of the sort. He was self-sufficient and didn’t need an alpha to tell him when he reeks of sex hormones. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“…I don’t think I can stop.” There’s that pained face again, and Ricky doesn’t let his eyes linger on the man for long enough for it to touch him.

Ricky looks away at that and brings his knees to his chest. He should’ve thrown on some sweatpants before bringing the alpha inside of his home but he didn’t expect to let him in at all. Much like other things. He slides his hand over his chest with a crooked expression. Is this heartburn?

“Heat partners aren’t just good for sex, y’know,” Gyuvin speaks up.

When the smaller boy presses his cheek to his bare kneecap he sighs, turning his eyes back onto the other with disinterest. “Yeah? Dazzle me.”

“I could help you get food and the supplies that you need,” he starts, ignoring the way Ricky cocks a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him. “And, I could massage your cramps away. I’m good at that, and I can clean up your dishes and stuff after you eat so they don’t overflow your sink.” He keeps going, and Ricky has noticed that Gyuvin tends to ramble when he wants to make a point. “Oh, and I read that sometimes the warmth of an alpha can soothe your symptoms. Like heat therapy.”

“Gyuvin,” Ricky says once the man stops chattering. He swallows when Gyuvin’s big eyes settle over him and he sighs like he has no idea what he’s doing. Ricky shuts his eyes, not wanting to see. This moment feels like it should last forever, and part of him doesn’t want to turn the page to see the butterfly effect that this next question will have on the future of their neighborly relationship. “Do you want to try?”

Even though Ricky can’t see Gyuvin, he can hear the strangled growl that gets swallowed back down. Even though Ricky pretends he doesn’t have a clue why Gyuvin is so insistent on being next to him, he still leans into the alpha. “Yeah,” the man whispers. He sounds so much closer now. He can feel his voice in his ear. “I do.”

In the short time Ricky’s had his eyes closed, Gyuvin’s made his way to his side, and Ricky doesn’t stop himself from climbing into the man’s big lap to settle over his thighs. He doesn’t want to see the alpha’s face, and his feet tuck underneath the back of the man’s knees. “You’re such an easy alpha,” Ricky says, trying to make this feel normal. To keep up the banter they’ve been rolling off of. The most horrible thing about this is that he realizes very quickly that Gyuvin was right. Touching an alpha makes him feel a hundred times better, and he sighs into the space behind Gyuvin’s ear as he hugs his arms around the man’s neck feeling frail. “Floosy,” he gripes.

Gyuvin winds his around the boy’s waist, squeezing him like he’s the only thing that is holding Ricky together at this point, and it could be true with the way Ricky melts into the embrace. Gyuvin smells like his cologne and something deeper, muskier, like flesh and a long day’s work. And Ricky was really hoping his heat wouldn’t mess up their relationship. He enjoyed having a neighbor his age to hang around, someone casual and funny and enjoyable to bother and be bothered by. He didn’t want to lose what they had, but something blooms between them and it isn’t just body heat.

The alpha rubs his cheek against Ricky’s like he’s trying to drag him through his scent, and Ricky allows himself to be whatever Gyuvin needs, pliant even when the man’s hands start to wander, gripping and molding and feeling his sides. It feels good. Gyuvin’s fingers dip under the thin waistband of his shorts to tuck his thumbs close to his hip bones, rolling them into his pelvis just like he said he would if given the chance. Ricky all but moans at the touch, and he shivers like a storm-drenched cat against the man.

Gyuvin molds his hands into him like he’s manipulating clay, feeling him like he wants to open him up, and Ricky allows him. Allows him to do whatever comes next, even when that involves them kissing and lots of teeth that Gyuvin should learn to keep out. They look like shadow puppets against the wall, moving in sync, a tangle of red limbs, red strings.

Gyuvin likes to walk up behind him when he’s brushing his teeth to get his morning hug. They hug every morning until Ricky spits the paste out and gargles through his mouthwash and then they part until the omega crawls back into Gyuvin’s lap. By the second day, Gyuvin’s missing a shirt and he never makes the effort to put another one on, walking around Ricky’s place with just jeans or sweatpants depending on the time. The sleeves of the man’s tattoos will keep him warm. The omega watches Gyuvin work his Dyson around the flat from the comfort of his bed, getting into the grooves of his walls. He wets his lips when he sees the muscles laid over the man’s abdomen flex, and he feels himself blush as the alpha gets closer with the vacuum.

“I should change your air filter,” Gyuvin says in passing as he dumps the dirt from the container of the Dyson into a shopping bag. He does it in the kitchen far away from the omega, but he speaks loud enough to include Ricky in the conversation. “Your place attracts dust like crazy. This can’t be healthy.”

In the few days Gyuvin has been staying over, he’s changed the flickering light bulb in Ricky’s entryway, fixed the hinges on the wonky kitchen cabinet, and has deep cleaned the entire apartment with natural cleaning products from a rushed Target run. Ricky almost can’t recognize the man anymore. He’s gone from the dorky, but hot boy next door to something bleeding very close to something more impactful. Lunch goes by quickly because Ricky is complaining of an upset stomach, and somehow that ends up with Gyuvin and his thick fingers tucked into his cunt after the omega begrudgingly takes five bites of his curry and rice. Dinner is even worse, and Ricky gets spread out on the couch before dessert, grinding his dripping core over a willing mouth.

They talk before bed after Gyuvin’s had his tongue in all of Ricky’s lower bits, until the cat is satiated after three wholesome orgasms rip through his skin and Gyuvin’s nose is rubbed raw. If Ricky licks a bit of himself off of Gyuvin’s chin when the man is done, no he doesn’t.

Gyuvin smells like the omega’s face wash after that and he has a handful of Ricky’s soft ass in his palm, kneading it like it’s a stress ball that’ll bring him closer to sleep. Gyuvin doesn’t make any further moves on him, which comes as odd to Ricky because he’s sure other alphas would be knot deep inside of the omega by this point, but Gyuvin settles for ten minutes alone in his apartment before he comes back refreshed and ready for sleep. He doesn’t even kiss Ricky unless he asks. While that should be a relief for someone as avoidant as the omega, Ricky starts to crave it.

While a medical note from Dr. Gynecologist is enough to excuse Ricky from a full month of school due to his extended heat, he still needs to catch up with his work flow, and Gyuvin helps him by running through half of his readings for him. Gyuvin is actually not too bad at inhaling all the research articles Ricky dreads going through. They have a system down by the first hour, and Ricky’s got his feet slung over the man’s thighs as they highlight and take notes in their respective textbooks. Gyuvin scrawls notes down for Ricky, his version of SparkNotes, for whatever it is he comes across, and after thirty minutes they spend five just kissing in lieu of a brain break.

“Give me a rundown,” Ricky demands with his toes pushed up into the pocket of Gyuvin’s hoodie.

“Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” Gyuvin rattles off immediately. He reaches around Ricky’s ankle to thumb over the soft skin of his arch, trying to pull together the information he just read from pure memory. “Basically the thought is that someone’s native language can warp the way you perceive the world around you and your experiences. That the very structure of language shapes your worldview.”

“Did you know people generally discredit it? In my field, of course,” Ricky notes with a grin. “It’s so controversial.”

“Really? It made sense to me while I was reading it.”

“Yeah?” He shoves his foot even deeper into the pocket to keep it warm. “I do get it in some ways. There are lots of languages that have to do with linear structures, if this, then this, cause and effect, one thing comes after another in order. Then there are others with different structures, ones that are more cyclical in nature, where time is considered as something more fluid.” Ricky likes the way Gyuvin stares at him, like he wants to kiss him. “Like inyeon for example, that belief feels a lot more fluid than the red string of fate. The red string of fate feels like if, slash then. Inyeon feels like many different multiverses happening simultaneously.”

Gyuvin goes quiet for a moment and Ricky wonders what is going on in that skull of his. “So, you’re saying people that speak the same language have the same concept of time? Like superheroes?”

“I guess,” Ricky giggles before resting the back of his hand over his forehead. “I don’t know. This stuff can get confusing really quickly.”

Gyuvin dog tags the page he’s on before resting it on the table with the notepad on top of it. He takes the boy’s foot out of his hoodie before he goes in for his well-deserved break, inked hands gliding around the boy’s throat with practiced accuracy. He fits perfectly around him, and Ricky looks at him with a sticky glance that has Gyuvin moving his hands up to his cheeks instead.

Ricky will definitely remember the content now with Gyuvin holding his head in his hands. His lashes fan out over the top of his cheeks but he’s met with the warm glow of the alpha’s face close to his when he opens his eyes, and he mewls when Gyuvin finally gets on top of him. The white lanterns above them sway when the heat whirs on from the vents like they usually do at this time of night, but Ricky is hot for a different reason altogether.

By now, the omega is begging for it, gripping Gyuvin by his clothing and squirming to be filled. A tongue isn’t enough and fingers aren’t enough. He needs Gyuvin the way fish need water, and omegas need alphas. The bigger man slides his reading glasses off and onto the coffee table before doing anything else in the way men do before committing to something serious. And it is serious, because for the first time in Ricky’s life, his body pulls itself apart just to accommodate the man inside of him, the temple doors pushing open with each long thrust, each spine tingling drag. It feels like coming home.

Hao calls him while Gyuvin is on another food run to break the news that they’re having a baby. There’s a certain type of sisterhood he has with his cousin that can’t be explained in words, but his heart is as gleeful as it would be if it were his own child he was expecting. Listening to Hao, the younger boy notices that his usual blunt demeanor molds into something less rigid and more motherly just by speaking about being a mother and it has Ricky grinning ear to ear. His cheeks hurt from it.

The happiness radiating from the other man is infectious and Ricky is toothy when he hugs his legs in front of him. “I guess I won’t be your special baby anymore.”

“You’ve always been special,” Hao says with his tone softening.

Ricky opens his mouth to brush it off but then he sees the way the other omega stares at him like he should know better, and he tilts his head against his knee, eyelids growing heavy. “I don’t know if special is the right word to describe me.”

“But it is,” Hao says, and Ricky really has no choice but to agree and be special for him. “I’m really grateful to you, Quanrui. If you didn’t tell me about your vision, I might not even be with Hanbin today.”

The younger boy hums. “It was just a dream. I didn’t even know what was going on back then.”

“Dream or vision, or prophecy, whatever it is, you knew it for what it was,” Hao replies with a glow in his dark eyes. “You need to trust yourself more, Quanrui.” When Ricky doesn’t respond with anything else but a quiet moment of doubt, Hao sighs. “Believe in yourself. You owe that much to your gift.”

“Okay,” Ricky lolls out, chuckling. It’s a way to end the conversation, to keep things light and to push the attention off of him. “So, what are we thinking for names? Ruirui Junior? Quanrui the Second?”

By the time Gyuvin gets back home, Ricky is so lonely with want that he jumps into his arms and the alpha keeps him upright even with multiple bags cutting off the circulation in his skin. They don’t say much that night. There’s nothing to say when they make it to the bed and Ricky rubs his cheek against the man’s stubble until it scratches him, and he perches himself on the alpha’s abdomen like he isn’t anything more than a ten pound cat, staring down at Gyuvin with feline eyes. His feet collect over the taller’s groin from their position and he shares kisses with the wolf that linger deep into the next morning. Ricky can’t tell if he hates Gyuvin or hates how much he can’t be without him.

A surprising development is that Ricky allows Gyuvin to hold his hand all the way to the market. His excuse is that it is still too cold for it to be considered spring, and the alpha takes what he can get from the fickle boy next to him. The moment they enter the store, Ricky parts from him and their hands grow cold again with the distance. Ricky’s heat symptoms have subsided greatly after three weeks with Gyuvin, and it is also the shortest cycle he has experienced in his entire life but he would never clue the man in on that pertinent information.

Gyuvin leans his forearms along the handle of the shopping cart as he watches Ricky turn a bag of pasta over to read the nutrition label. “What made you go into linguistics?”

“Just a calling, I guess,” Ricky says, slightly distracted by the new items stacked along the endcap of the aisle.

“I read somewhere that people who become interested in psychology and language are typically the children who never quite felt understood at home.” This is definitely not a conversation to have in a Trader Joe’s, but Gyuvin doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s the need to understand others that becomes their love language, because they know what it’s like to not feel understood by anyone.”

Ricky guides Gyuvin and the trolley through the tight hallways of food, dodging the influx of customers filing in from the evening rush. He thought distracting the alpha would be enough for him to drop the subject but when he finally turns back to drop a bag of sour gummies into the basket, Gyuvin is staring at him expectantly.

“Is this really what you want to talk about after being inside me?” Ricky sighs when he sees the man add another of the same product into the cart.

“It’s what I want to talk about because I’ve been inside of you,” Gyuvin says pointedly.

Ricky sighs even louder as he pushes his way to the produce before grabbing one of the plastic eco bags from the roll. Gyuvin unsticks the plastic from itself from the mouth of it when he sees Ricky struggle to. “That makes no sense.”

“Why?” Gyuvin presses, fully curious. “Isn’t it natural to want to get to know someone?”

The omega feels around the pile of mangoes until he finds a softer one, holding it up to Gyuvin’s suspiciously good dog nose for validation that it’s ripe. “Normally people smash and dash.”

“I’m not like other people,” Gyuvin says because obviously Ricky has a preconception of him he can’t shake off.

The omega doesn’t like how emotionless he sounds but he can’t help but be a little like his mother when he’s pushed into a corner. It comes out of him naturally. Be reasonable, see the situation for what it is. “You’re right. Other people definitely don’t go grocery shopping after having sex either.”

“Well,” Gyuvin says close to Ricky’s ear. “If it means anything, I feel like I understand you.” Ricky is almost embarrassed when Gyuvin gets a little too close and people start to stare. “I think we speak the same language.”

Whatever that means.

They hover over a pint of cookie butter ice cream when they make it through their insane subway ride back home with more groceries than necessary. Gyuvin tends to overbuy when it comes to Ricky, wanting to have extra of everything just in case. Ricky scrapes his spoon into the valley they’ve been working at when he catches Gyuvin staring.

“I’m going to start charging you for these sneaky glances,” Ricky says after pushing his spoon into Gyuvin’s mouth. “What do you want?”

“The inyeon thing,” he says after chewing the cream until it goes soft and melty over his taste buds. “You know how it’s all about layers and destiny and stuff.”

“Uh huh,” Ricky moves him along.

Gyuvin stares at him with his big eyes, those big, big eyes. “Do you think we have inyeon?”

“I don’t know,” Ricky says, but it’s obvious that isn’t his true answer. His eyes bat up at Gyuvin when he looks up, lashes nice and pretty. “What do you think?”

“I think we were married in a past life,” Gyuvin says without hesitation, that is, before Ricky’s perfect dark eyebrows cinch together in the middle of his forehead and he leans back, rigid.

“Bye,” Ricky says after placing his spoon down on the counter, starting to trot away and from this conversation. Marriage? Ricky doesn’t want to place this much importance on the alpha, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Gyuvin’s so underneath his skin that he can feel the man in his bloodstream. If he were to be anything else, Ricky wouldn’t be able to take it. He loves Gyuvin, he knows he does, but he’s too much for him. Too good for him.

If his dreams were any indicator of how they would be as a married couple, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. They were supposed to be dreams and stay dreams. Now, Gyuvin is all too tangible and real for him to grasp any of it at all. Being with Jiwoong felt a lot like fulfilling a duty, but being with Gyuvin feels like being unraveled.

“No, wait, listen,” Gyuvin chuckles as he jogs around to catch Ricky’s wrist, guiding him back to the couch so that the smaller can topple over his lap. He seat belts his arms around the omega’s waist to keep him from pulling away as he stares up at Ricky’s stormy face. “You don’t think so?”

“What do you want me to say?” Ricky mutters as his fingers play with the strings of Gyuvin’s hoodie.

“I want you to say you feel it, too,” Gyuvin says when Ricky hides the side of his face into his shoulder.

Despite dedicating his entire life to understanding language and the deeper levels and meanings associated with it, this is where he falters. Ricky has trouble saying what he means. “What difference does it make?”

“I know you feel it,” Gyuvin insists as he wiggles the omega’s body with a bounce of his knees. “I can tell you love me. Why can’t you just admit it?”

Ricky feels like he’s in the middle of something he used to pray for. “Why can’t you just drop it?” the omega asks in the same pushy tone.

Ricky refuses to look at Gyuvin after that. He doesn’t know what kind of face he will make if he were to see the alpha, so he stares at the kitchen counter piled high in their Trader Joe’s haul, in their groceries, in the produce they picked out together. There are two mangoes on the counter and he loves Gyuvin. There’s miyeokguk from Gyuvin’s mom still sitting in a pot on his stove and he loves Gyuvin. There’s an unwashed mug with both their lip marks on the rim and he loves Gyuvin. He’s loved the man for longer than he can remember at this point.

How does he even begin to tell the man that he knows what their future holds? How does he tell Gyuvin that their oldest son loves dinosaurs more than anything? Or that their twin boys only eat their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when cut into hearts? Or that their daughter sleeps through the night by the time she’s four months old? How does he tell the man that they get married in a venue with tall grass and mountains and the wind was blowing so much that day that the ring fell out of his hands twice? When is a good time for Ricky to let the alpha know they buy an older Victorian house in Catskills, New York, and it takes a full year for the renovation to be done to the omega’s liking?

He couldn’t dare. He refuses to let him in, but Gyuvin boxes his head between his rough hands and presses their foreheads together and their noses squish. “I love you,” Gyuvin says forcefully. They’re so close now that their eyelashes are centimeters from flapping over each other. “I love you.”

To have someone grab you and say they love you feels purposeful, and Ricky wants to scratch him out of that same love. He can see himself in Gyuvin’s eyes. Ricky had to be the person he was until he met Gyuvin to become this version of himself; the one made to love and be loved. There’s no use in shying away now.

Ricky feels like he’s somewhere stuck between his two lives, not completely awake and not yet dreaming when Gyuvin shuffles behind him in bed. He lets the man hold him, lets his hands slide over his body like it’s not just his anymore, but theirs, and he exhales softly as Gyuvin finds his lips in the darkness.

“Ricky?” Gyuvin mouths against him.

It takes a few more kisses for Ricky to stir and his hand strokes over the side of the man’s jaw, thumbing over the regrowth blindly. “Mm?”

Gyuvin is a lover, and so he catches the boy’s thumb into a peck that he repeats until he finds the courage to keep talking. “Can I say something insane?”

A pause. “Mm.”

“I’ve been dreaming about you,” Gyuvin says, so light that Ricky can barely make it out. “For a long time, actually.” As if that wasn’t enough to make Ricky feel the weight of the world push him further into the pillow, he whispers, “Longer than I’ve known you.”

Gyuvin was right. They did speak the same language, but he found out earlier than Ricky, put the pieces together faster. The omega’s heart pulses in his chest when he realizes the implications of what Gyuvin is saying. They’ve met even in their dreams. His husband came out and found him just like he wished he would. It wasn’t just a dream he was seeing behind closed lids every night, it was a premonition of love. It was layers of gossamer inyeon.

The moral of their story is this: I have found you, I would have found you anywhere.