Chapter Text
”Have a good flight and call me once you’ve met your host pack!” His best friend squeezes Felix tightly, and Felix squeezes her right back. “And if they don’t treat you well, kick them in the balls and come straight back home!”
Felix huffs out a laugh and swallows down the tears that are threatening to spill over.
“I’ll miss you,” he says and takes in a deep breath, embeds her petrichor smell in his memory and promises himself to not forget it until the day he returns to Australia.
“I’ll miss you too,” she replies, her voice choked up from emotions, “and promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I promise.”
It’s dark outside. Streetlights and neon signs are rushing by in a blur, but Felix doesn’t pay them any mind. He feels sick to his stomach and being in the backseat of a car certainly doesn’t help. Sometimes he catches his social worker staring at him through the rearview mirror, a permanent frown etched above his eyebrows. The car rolls to a stop at a red light, and Felix lowers his gaze to his lap, where his hands clutch a hospital brochure written in hangul. The sight of the Korean alphabet suddenly makes his throat feel tight.
“We’ll arrive in about ten minutes,” his social worker says. His voice is gentle, a stark contrast to the thunderous expression on his face. Felix knows that his anger isn’t directed towards him, but he can’t help the way his heart slams against his chest in discomfort. At least the beta’s scent blockers are masking his annoyance, and the only smell that permeates the air is that of Felix’s distressed omega.
He crumples the brochure between his fingers into a ball and stuffs it into his backpack that rests against his legs. The red fabric is stained and dirty. Felix remembers how it shone when he first bought it a couple of years ago. He still remembers its weight on his shoulders as he made his way through the airport with excitement and optimism, ready to start a new life in a different country.
Felix should have never come to South Korea.
Of course he had known that going to another country by himself as an omega involved risks, and South Korea was notorious for its strict laws for omegas, and lax laws on omega protection. His friends had tried to deter him repeatedly from going, but Felix had received an internship offer at a gaming company that he couldn’t bring himself to turn down, and he had always wanted to get to know the country that his mother had grown up in. His father had been born in Australia to Korean immigrants, but his mother had only moved there in her early twenties. She had died in her early thirties, when Felix was just shy of turning six years old. Going to Korea, he had thought, would help him deepen his bond with her.
He had thought wrong.
His fingers, no longer occupied with anything, start to tremble. The skin around his nails is dry and cracked. An overwhelming urge builds up within his chest to rip open the car door at the next stoplight and just tumble out and run. It’s his fight-or-flight instinct kicking in, and in his mind he knows that the idea is ridiculous. Where would he even go? He’s an unclaimed omega in South Korea. It wouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours for a pack to pick him up and claim him as theirs, and from past experience—
A shiver wracks his body at the thought.
South Korea does not allow unclaimed omegas to live by themselves. They need to be registered with a pack, and their pack tag needs to be visible at all times when in public for their own safety. Things aren’t like this back in Australia. Omegas are free to make their own choices without the fear of a pack coming along and claiming them. Different countries have different laws, however, and Felix accepted that if he wanted to move to Korea, he would have to accept their cultures and traditions regarding subgenders.
At first, it was okay. He registered with a trustworthy company that provided foreign omegas with the opportunity to join temporary packs. He moved to Seoul, and got along well with the pack. Occasionally they would clash, but that was only to be expected when people from completely different cultures came together, but all conflict was soon resolved again and they made it work. It took some getting used to the rigid pack hierarchy, but he managed.
Felix started his internship at the gaming company, got familiar with the neighborhood, found a coffee shop that he started to frequent, and didn’t mind the bracelet with the pack tag that dangled from his wrist whenever he left the house. Of course it sucked to give up the freedom he was used to as an omega in Australia, to have alphas openly proposing and even cajoling him into joining their packs, to have his subgender define his tasks at work, but he was still content to learn about the country that his mother was from. His Korean improved, and he learned the places to avoid at night as an unclaimed omega, even though he was officially part of a pack.
And after seven months, one of the two omegas of his host pack got pregnant. Alpha hormones spiked, and Felix was no longer able to live with the pack without being met with aggression as he was still an intruder and not an officially claimed member.
Which meant that he had to find a new pack as soon as possible.
That’s where it all went wrong.
Felix startles out of his memories when he hears the car door fall shut. He blinks a couple of times and looks outside, only now realizing that they are parked on the side of a street. The neighborhood is made up of expensive-looking highrise buildings, with small park areas between them. Given that it’s already past 2 a.m., few people are walking outside, but many windows within the buildings are still lit up.
The car door next to him opens, and his social worker ducks a bit to be face to face with Felix.
“Come on, your foster pack is waiting for you.”
Felix tries to suppress the shudder that takes over at those words. His foster pack. Out of one hell, into the next one. If he could, he would have dashed to the airport the minute he got out. But his injuries were too severe to make it there on his own, and all his money had been taken. All his possessions fit into the one backpack by his legs. Besides, there was no one waiting for him in Australia. He had never had a good relationship with his father, and it’s been three years since he had last been in touch with his friends. He didn’t have a phone to contact them. He didn’t even know their numbers, and according to the police there was no missing person report that fit his description.
So they had taken him to the hospital once they found him, and while his injuries were severe, they didn’t warrant an overnight stay.
And that’s when the social worker showed up, introduced himself as an employee of omega services, and affirmed Felix that he is doing everything in his power to find a place for Felix to stay.
A safe place.
Felix doesn’t know anymore what safe is supposed to feel like.
He doesn’t even remember his social worker’s name. All he knows is that the beta is making promises that he can’t guarantee to keep, and that in one of these highrise buildings, his foster pack is waiting for him.
Foster pack. The term makes him want to scoff. Felix doesn’t want a pack. He doesn’t need a pack. The past three years have given him enough pack interactions to last a lifetime. He wants to go home to Australia. He wants to get his own place. He wants to lock the door and draw the blinds shut and let the darkness consume him. He wants to never have to interact with other people ever again.
What Felix wants and what Felix gets are two entirely different things tho. He’s learned that lesson by now.
Felix clutches his backpack to his chest and stumbles out of the car. The social worker is reaching for him, trying to steady him at his elbow. Felix shrinks into himself, and the beta immediately draws his hands back.
They’re getting buzzed into one of the highrise buildings and take the elevator up to the eighth floor. With every passing second, Felix's heart beats faster. The social worker is talking, but Felix can’t hear a word he’s saying. A ding signals their arrival and makes him flinch, drawing the backpack even closer to his chest. His legs follow the social worker into a hallway without his permission. They stop in front of one of three giant black entrance doors, and the beta rings the bell.
Felix’s mouth is dry. His hands are trembling and he’s trying to press them into fists, but it doesn’t stop the trembling, and his heart is going to break his ribs and jump out of his chest. Suddenly he wishes he was back in the hospital bed, with the disinfectant smell and the IV stuck in his arm, a bag of electrolytes steadily dripping into his body, the neon lights too bright and the police men stationed in front of the room. It was a terrible experience, too many sensations all at once, and Felix had been terrified because no one had told him yet what was going on, but—
It was probably still better than whatever would happen to Felix behind this door.
He can hear voices, and then the door opens, revealing a man in black trousers and a black shirt, with tousled dark hair and the dark scent of patchouli.
Alpha.
Felix cowers behind the social worker, biting his lower lip. As if hiding had ever done him any good.
“Chansung, good to see you,” the alpha greets and bows. Felix’s social worker returns the gesture, “and you must be Yongbok.”
Felix can barely hide his flinch at the use of his Korean name and quickly bows as well, the backpack still pressed against his chest as tightly as possible.
“Bang Chan-ssi, thank you for stepping in at such a short notice,” Chansung says. The tone of his voice makes Felix suspect that the both of them are acquainted with each other rather than strangers. He wonders how many times Chansung has already brought omegas to this apartment and what had happened to them. The unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach intensifies.
Bang Chan opens the door and beckons them in. Felix follows his social worker with trepidation. He takes off his shoes and quickly counts eleven other pairs while the beta and alpha talk with each other. His heart sinks. That’s a lot of people. A lot of people mean a lot of different rules. A lot of different pain.
When he gets up again, his eyes briefly meet the alpha’s. Felix tenses and lowers his gaze immediately. He knows the rules. Omegas aren’t worthy of looking at alphas directly. Not even two minutes, and he’s already fucked up.
Fuck.
Fuckfuckfuck.
“Why don’t we go into the dining room to discuss things? Minho warmed up some sundubu jjigae. We weren’t sure if you still got dinner at the hospital.”
Minho. That’s a new name. If Minho has cooked, that means Minho must be an omega. A beta at best, as warming up food doesn’t require a lot of work. Felix tries to take a deep breath without being suspicious. The scents are too mixed to identify the occupants of the apartment and their subgenders individually. Only the alpha’s earthy scent dominates.
Felix follows to the dining room. The alpha tells them to take a seat and leaves to the kitchen. The beta pulls out a chair. Felix drops to the floor on his knees.
“No Yongbok, you don’t have to sit on the floor.”
Felix’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t move. The beta is technically still in charge of him, but they are in the apartment of the alpha now. Felix knows his place, and it is certainly not at an alpha’s table.
Bang Chan returns with a tray that holds two bowls of rice and two bowls of jjigae. He stops in his tracks for a second when he spots Felix on the floor, before continuing to the table.
“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to sit on a chair, Yongbok?”
That’s a trick question. Of course it would be more comfortable to sit on a chair, but Felix won’t make that mistake. He forces himself to take trembling breaths and grounds himself through the feeling of the backpack against his chest. Is he supposed to answer? If he says yes, that would imply he’s uncomfortable. If he says no, he’ll disagree with an alpha. His breath hitches as he’s trying to work out the right answer, but—
there is no right answer.
He lowers his head and hopes that his silence is deemed an appropriate response.
A few seconds pass. When it becomes clear that Felix won’t answer, the alpha places a bowl of rice and jjigae along with cutlery in front of Chansung, who thanks him.
Then he walks around the table. Felix keeps his gaze down. He can only see the alpha’s leg, and they’re approaching fast. He tenses, ready for what’s to come. Silence must have been the wrong answer after all.
The legs stop at a distance, and Bang Chan crouches down. Two bowls and cutlery are placed in front of Felix. His eyes fall on the jjigae for a moment, before focusing on his own knees again.
“I didn’t properly introduce myself yet. My name is Chan. I’m the pack alpha.” The alpha stays crouched in front of Felix. It’s the closest he has been so far. Felix forces himself to stay as silent as a stone. When it becomes apparent that he won’t answer, the alpha continues. “Please eat if you’re feeling hungry. I’m sure that it would make Minho very happy.”
Minho. The one who warmed up the food. Motherly instincts. Must be an omega. This must be another test. The alpha wouldn’t possibly want an omega within his pack to feel happiness. What if Felix eats and the omega gets punished for it? He ignores the hunger gnawing at him as a delicious smell wafts up from the bowl. He feels too sick to his stomach anyway.
The alpha gets up again. Felix twitches. When the alpha returns to the dining table, a safe enough distance away to not reach him, to not be able to hurt him, is the first time he feels as if he can somewhat breathe again.
The alpha and social worker are talking with each other. Felix knows that it’s about him, but he doesn’t dare eavesdrop. Instead he keeps his position, and ignores the way his body screams in pain. He loses all sense of time while trying to stay alert, but his energy slowly leaves him. He hears the beta eat while they’re talking, and forces himself to ignore the food before him. It’s another test. He’s going to be a good omega. Give the alpha as little reason to punish him as possible.
Not as if Bang Chan would need a reason.
Eventually, the beta gets up and says his goodbyes. He too crouches down in front of Felix, like Felix is worthy of being on the same level as a beta or alpha. It’s ridiculous. His backpack is still pressed against his chest, and his arms and knees and back hurt.
“Remember what I said, Yongbok. This is a safe space for you, I promise. I’ll stop by soon to check up on you, okay? There’s no need to worry.”
Felix only nods slightly. Not because he believes what Chansung said, but because he wants to show that he listened.
The alpha escorts his social worker outside. Felix can hear them exchange a few more words. The entrance door opens—
and then it falls shut and is locked.
And Felix is trapped, once again.
With a strange alpha.
And who knows how many other people hidden away within these walls, just waiting for the social worker to be gone to come out and play with their new omega.
The alpha’s footsteps draw closer, and Felix squeezes his eyes shut, hoping, praying, to wake up back in the hospital bed with the relief of knowing that he is finally packless. That he is finally free.
“Yongbok-ah,” the alpha murmurs, and Felix tries to hold himself together, to not break apart on the dining room floor, cold sundubu jjigae and rice in front of him and the looming figure of the alpha above.
A fearful whimper spills from his lips.