Chapter Text
Symptom. - a physical or mental feature which is regarded as indicating a condition of disease, particularly such a feature that is apparent to the patient.
The strong smell of garlic and parsley filled the smoky kitchen as Min Yoongi cooked over the fire, during one of the busiest nights of the year. Sweat was coating his back, and he could feel his head thumping as he flipped pans coated in oil and vegetables.
“Table five requested more kimchi.” Someone yelled from the door.
“Tell Jinho to bring it!” Sunny, Yoongi’s sous chef responded without missing a beat.
Yoongi grimaced at the loud volume of the voices yelling around him, his head tightening with every second. He assumed it was exhaustion. The night was busy, two of his cooks missing and apparently a famous food vlogger was making a video.
Not just that but Yoongi’s fiancé was having dinner with her parents on table two. Yoongi wanted his food to make a good impression to them. Hannah’s parents weren’t too fond of him still, none of them on board with the idea of an alpha chef for their daughter, both old-school believing an alpha needed to have a ‘tough’ job. Yoongi could smell their disgust when he introduced himself. He was determined to change that and show what a good alpha for their daughter he could be.
“Is table two enjoying their meal?” Yoongi asked, his voice low but there was no need for the chef to raise his voice.
“I saw a couple of smiles, Yoongi-sii. I think you’ll win them over.” Minseok, the newest waiter confided and Yoongi smiled. Just for a second, before another sharp pain exploded behind his right eye.
He closed his eyes for a little bit, using his nose to guide himself in case he ended up burning his pan. His wolf had always been his second in command whenever he was cooking.
“If they were my parents.” Sunny said somewhere at his right. “They would have beg him to marry me so he can cook them more hanwoo.”
Yoongi tried to laugh, but his head was exploding. He could hear a wolf howling in the distance.
“Ah, right? I almost cried the last time he cooked it for us.” Minseok agreed. But Yoongi wasn’t hearing anymore.
One moment to the other he felt weakness all over his right side, his arm going limp forcing him to drop the pan with a loud thunk on the stove. The sound alerted other people in the kitchen just in time to see Yoongi fall to the ground.
Sunny, the omega with short hair and perpetual bangs, was the first to kneel in front of Yoongi. Her scent, usually sweet like hazelnut, was rotting. Her face was contorted in concern just like when she burnt a hotteok working with Yoongi for the first time.
She talked too, but Yoongi couldn’t understand a word she was saying. He felt like he was drowning, slowly slipping away under the water, and the further he went the harder it was to distinguish any sound, visual or smell.
Then, everything disappeared.
--- 🐺---
The next time he recovered any sense of consciousness he was in a hospital bed.
There was an Omega sleeping in the couch next to the hospital bed, sleeping without resting, her forehead contracted showing her unrest and the familiar scent of cinnamon and vanilla nowhere to be seen.
Yoongi imagined Hannah was using scent blockers, recommended when visiting a hospital. He wished she didn’t though, he needed the comfort of her scent in this unfamiliar space.
“Oh, Min Yoongi-sii, you’re awake.”
There was a nurse with a mask over her face pulling a computer behind her towards the room. At her words Hannah previously sleeping straightened, her eyes finding Yoongi right away.
“Honey.”
Yoongi felt a knot in his throat, beholding Hannah’s concerned face. Even with the dark bags under her eyes, and the bareface she was as beautiful as the day Yoongi fell in love with her.
“Hann—” He started to say but the words turned into a cough shaking his whole body.
Everyone acted fast, the nurse quickly reaching his side to assess him and his fiancé quick to hold his hand. She was cold and shaking.
“Do not try to exert yourself, Min-sii. I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake.”
“What-what happened?” He wondered and Hannah answered as the nurse left the room.
“You gave us a scare honey. Are you okay? Is your head hurting? Do you remember me?”
Yoongi frowned at the torrent of questions, realizing that actually his head was hurting. It wasn’t the same throbbing he felt at the restaurant but a dull discomfort behind his right eye.
“I could never forget you.” He decided to answer his girlfriend, who broke into tears burying her face against the white sheets.
The doctor found them like that, with Yoongi caressing his fiancé’s hair as she continued to weep.
The next days were a blur for Yoongi. Apparently, he had a stroke before passing out in the restaurant.
“You were very lucky.” The doctor informed Yoongi after explaining how it seemed to have been a mini stroke.
Yoongi didn’t understand much about it all, even if the doctors took time to explain it to him printing papers after papers filled with medical jargon about the medicines they were prescribing and the tests they were recommending.
He just knew that his brain appeared to be fine after CAT scans and electroencephalograms. He just knew he was ready to be discharged without needing to receive physical therapy or occupational therapy as other patients with a stroke needed.
“I can’t wait to be home and eat real food.” He told Hannah while they waited for his discharge papers.
“The Jello wasn’t that bad.” She joked, her face smiling and healthy now that Yoongi was close to going home.
Yoongi loved her like this, with her rosy cheeks and loopy smile. He couldn’t wait to see her smile at his side for the rest of their lives.
“For a five-year-old maybe.” He added making her laugh. “First thing I’m making when I go home will be Tteokbokki, maybe Kimchi Jjigae too.”
“The doctor told you no spice as your first meal.”
Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Betas don’t get it. Alphas need spicy food to feel better.”
“The doctor is an alpha.” Hannah said, frowning and Yoongi paused.
“Oh, is he? I swear the scent blockers in this hospital are too powerful.”
“Scent blockers?” She asked and Yoongi nodded.
“Yeah, I can’t wait to go home and have you take a long shower to remove it as well so I can finally scent you. Maybe we can shower together?” He wiggled his eyebrow at her to make her laugh again, but Hannah was no longer smiling.
She was frowning, her face falling with each tick of the mounted clock in the room. If Yoongi could smell her, she probably would’ve been smelling sour giving away her distress.
“Oppa. I’m not using a scent-blocker.”
Now it was Yoongi’s turn to frown. “What are you—? You are wearing one.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Yes. Since the day I woke up.”
Hannah was shaking her head strongly, her beautiful long hair hitting her cheeks with force. She took a couple of frantic steps towards Yoongi, rubbing her wrist against each other which would have been enough for Yoongi to start catching a whiff of her vanilla. But there was nothing.
“Here, you can smell me, right?”
Hannah raised her pale wrists to Yoongi’s face, right under his nose. The alpha sniffed, his nose coming up with nothing but the antiseptic smell of rubbing alcohol.
“You can smell me. Right?” She asked, hope lighting her face in a way Yoongi felt terrified to destroy.
But he needed to be honest.
“I cannot.”
Her face fell a little, but she quickly hid it, the same way she did when pretending her parents weren’t talking badly about Yoongi the moment he walked in a conversation.
“Alright. It’s okay, we will talk to the doctors and find what’s wrong. I’m with you in this.” She reminded him, seeking his hand.
Yoongi grabbed her hand and squeezed. It was disconcerting not smelling her to distinguish how anxious she was about this new development, but he could trust her warmth hold. They were together in this, whatever it was.
--- 🐺---
Hannah was angry and it took a couple of hours for Yoongi to realize it.
In the past, and for Yoongi that was before the stroke, he could’ve been able to identify his fiancé’s mood the moment he stepped inside their shared apartment. His wolf had always been quick to dissect and classify every smell to understand what the people around him were thinking. Especially Hannah. Always Hannah.
But now he was in the after.
“Are you upset?”
Hannah looked at Yoongi and sat in one of the bar stools in the kitchen. She had recently cut her hair, the bob making her face look sharper. Yoongi had always mentioned how much he loved her long hair, but she didn’t seem to care anymore.
“I don’t know. Am I?” She asked coldly.
It was like that nowadays. Every conversation with his girlfriend felt like he was performing an oral test at school.
“It feels like it.”
“Ah yeah? What gave it away?”
Yoongi really didn’t want to do this. He wanted for her to explain without interrogating him, the way she used to do. He wanted them both to sit and eat the meal he prepared while she was at work and hear her complain about her coworker that always played trot music in the cubicle next to her.
But that was before.
“So? How do you know I’m upset?” She kept insisting and Yoongi knew they couldn’t go back to the before when they were in the after.
“You threw your keys in instead of letting them fall in the entryway.” Yoongi said and hated how it sounded like an accusation. “You slammed the door of the fridge after taking out a beer.”
“I did.” She said, and her eyes were locked in Yoongi. “What else?”
“You didn’t greet me.”
She laughed and the timbre of it felt like cold shards against his heart.
“You did this, you did that.” She said shaking her head. “You keep saying things I did, but can’t you tell it by the way I smell, huh?”
Yoongi clenched his jaw, because clenching his hands would seem hostile.
“You know I can’t smell you anymore.”
“And yet all the doctor tests came up negative.” She attacked and Yoongi’s jaw dropped.
“What are you implying, huh? You think I’m what? Faking it?”
That was and ‘after’ thing as well. Before it wasn’t like that. Hannah had been understanding, going with him to the doctor and reading scientific articles to Yoongi while he cooked for them, both looking for answers and solutions of his problem. Before she kissed him before going to bed and would wear a perfume close to her scent so he wouldn’t feel lost.
Then the after came with secret calls with her mother, where she cried saying ‘I can’t do this anymore’. The after brought lights off before Yoongi returned home.
The after brought discussions, like now.
“Doctor Chan said the symptoms would improve in six months.” She said.
Hannah was still sitting in the stool, and even if Yoongi was standing up on the other side of the island, it felt like she was looking down on him.
“And Doctor Hwan said it could take years.”
“It’s been two years and you haven’t improved at all.” She huffed. “Two fucking years where I’ve been patient, where I had to tell everyone that no, you’re not a beta and—”
“Where you been patient?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I had a fucking stroke Hannah, why are you acting as if you were the one with a brain—”
“I had to start therapy because of you Yoongi. You understand this doesn’t affect only you, right?”
Yoongi raised his hands to the air. “I’m sorry you have to sit in a room and talk about how hard this is for you while I get pinched with needles and strap into loud machines to see what’s wrong with MY head.”
“You say it as it is easy, but I have to face the pity stare of my therapist when she found that my alpha cannot help me in my heats anymore because—”
“Because what?” Yoongi interrupted her one more time, his voice never as harsh as now. Never towards Hannah before. But now they were in the after. “Say it please, I want to hear what a martyr you are.”
“Because he is broken and doesn’t have ruts anymore.”
The alarm on Yoongi’s phone went off, it’s electronic beeping washing over the couple as they stared at each other. Yoongi had set it up to know when to take the castella cake from the oven. Hannah’s favorite.
Yoongi gave her his back to take the cake out; his hands were shaking as he slid his black mittens over his fingers.
“I can’t have another heat by myself.” Hannah said and her voice was softer, as if the fight had left her body. “I can’t do it anymore. You know how difficult they are.”
Yoongi knew, from before, where they synchronized his rut with her heat. But that was 2 years ago.
He felt his eyes burning, tears ready to fall. But he couldn’t cry, not now in front of Hannah who needed a real alpha. So he cleared his throat before turning around to face her.
“I offered my help. I-I can still help.”
She lowered her eyes, and Yoongi realized she was not crying. No, that was before when they found the extent of Yoongi’s condition, her tears had dried since.
“You cannot knot me, Oppa.”
Yoongi placed the cake over the counter, its fluffy texture becoming blurry as his eyes started to pool against his wishes. Him crying was a new thing the after brought and something he didn’t need his alpha to realized it cause Hannah disgust.
“What is it that you want?” He was tired. “Do you want my permission to have another alpha help you in your heats? Is that it?” He laughed bitterly, tears sliding down his cheeks. “If that will stop making you feel miserable, then go ahead, you can do it!”
“Another alpha…do you even hear yourself?” She shook her head. “What type of alpha does that?”
Yoongi didn’t understand. Never did. Not before. Not after. What was an alpha supposed to be?
“Are you even still an alpha?” She said before standing up and leaving.
The cake and meal Yoongi prepared rested over the kitchen counter. He thought he was being a good alpha, providing for his omega. But it wasn’t enough.
What good had an alpha if he couldn’t scent their partner?
What good had an alpha if he couldn’t help with an omega’s heat?
What good had an alpha without a wolf?
Hannah was right. He was no longer an alpha.
--- 🐺---
Moving to a new city wasn’t a difficult decision after Hannah left.
There was nothing left there for him, not even his restaurant that had prospered under the care of Sunny while he was hospitalized seemed to be an anchor for him. The simple thought of locking himself in a kitchen with alphas and omegas he couldn’t smell made him really nervous.
It was like being blind in a way. Navigating the world without his wolf alerting him to the people around made him scared.
He moved from the city where everyone knew what had happened to him, leaving the only life he had known and leaving the person he thought loved him enough to be with him through illness and health.
He moved to Busan, choosing the city because of a neurologist who worked there.
Kim Namjoon was a prodigy neurologist with a bunch of medical articles under his belt and a pair of dimples to ease his patient’s worries. Kim Namjoon was young, but his new patient list was ridiculous long, and Yoongi managed to have an appointment with him after one year and a half of requesting it.
“It’s a rare condition, and unfortunately there’s not a lot of research done for this yet.” Namjoon told Yoongi as they sat in the office.
It was a nice office, Yoongi thought, and after jumping from doctor to doctor he felt he had the credentials to judge doctor’s offices. Kim Namjoon’s office had plants behind his desk, luscious greens that made Yoongi breath better as his hands shook with his diagnosis.
“The condition is named Hypolupinism, which basically means a decrease of wolf-traits. It means your sense of smell hasn’t gone away, you can still smell the grass, and pastries in a bakery and the rain! Which is great!”
Yoongi wasn’t smiling, and Namjoon lowered his excitement.
“But your wolf cannot smell anything anymore. Your wolf side of your brain is…disconnected, in a way. The things that would bring your alpha forward to detect a scent have gone numb. This can happen after using suppressant for a long time, or scent blockers, but usually goes away in a couple of months of stopping them.”
“I’ve been like this for 4 years.” Yoongi said and Namjoon nodded.
“Yes, yes. In your case, it’s related to a stroke directly affecting the side of your brain controlled by your wolf.”
“And… what? What are my treatment options?”
Namjoon removed the glasses and pinched his nose in discomfort. That’s when Yoongi felt he was free falling.
“Remember I said this hasn’t been studied? Well, it hasn’t because alphas tend to be… reluctant to treatment. Statistics show they don’t even believe there is something wrong with them to start.”
Yoongi looked down at his hands, conversations with Hannah during those first two years coming to the front of his head. She had been pushing him to find new doctors; to get second and third opinions while he tried to pretend nothing was wrong as he lost sleep over his symptoms.
“There’s no medicine to reconnect your wolf. Only time can tell if it will ever be back.”
No medicine. The words fell like a boulder to his stomach.
“How long?”
“It’s different for each person… it could be months, or years… or never.”
Yoongi closed his eyes. In the past, he was sure this was the moment his wolf would start acting upset and might even growl to the beta doctor.
He had been hopeful, and he knew that was his biggest mistake because the despair that consumed him when Kim Namjoon told him there was nothing he could do for him was his fault. If the hope hadn’t gotten wings, no one would’ve been able to cut them and make him fall harsh against the ground.
--- 🐺---
After meeting Kim Namjoon and finding out there was no cure for his condition he resigned to a life as Beta. No one knew him in this city, and it was easy to walk to the supermarket and chat to the couple buying bread without having to inform them that no, his condition hadn’t improved.
It was…freeing, in a way.
As an alpha Yoongi had to behave a certain way to conform to society’s expectations of what an alpha should be. Even with Hannah, sometimes he had to pretend he was less emotional, more aggressive, less creative, more decisive. He didn’t realize how tiring it had been to step into the shoes of an “alpha” until the shoes no longer fitted him.
Now he was going to the movie theatre and could weep freely when the dog was killed without hearing people murmur in his back about what a shame of alpha he was. Now he could enter a store and buy soft-scented items like candles, bath bombs and body fresheners without having to pretend he was getting them for his omega partner.
Although he was accepting his new self-imposed life as a beta, he missed being an alpha.
Not because of the way people reacted differently when he was an alpha, although he noticed great difference, but because it was a part of himself.
He learnt to navigate the world as an alpha. He had already imagined the rest of his life as one, marrying an omega and having pups with them.
But now, that seemed like the life of someone else.
Five years went by that way, where Min Yoongi was a beta as far as everyone was concerned, and no Alpha or Omega detected something wrong with him.
But something was wrong with him.
It was a Thursday night that Yoongi felt it. He was doing laundry, finding the task calming in its robotics movements and the sweet aroma of the detergent made him feel as if he was smelling an omega.
He finished setting up the laundry machine and went to turn on the A/C. It was November but for some reason his apartment felt really hot, so much he was sweating as he went through the notions of making himself dinner.
Not even half an hour later Yoongi had to remove his t-shirt, throwing it carelessly over the next pile of clothes he was to wash, the fabric damp thanks to the sweat.
He turned to the A/C realizing it was still working, and definitely not broken. But still, he was panting and his skin felt hot to the touch when he started to push his pants down.
The thermometer told him he was running a fever, and it only heightened Yoongi’s confusion. He had not been coughing or sneezing before it started. He didn’t have a sore throat or ear pain, although his head was hurting now, a dull type of pain he vaguely remembered from the past, not from his stroke but when he had his ruts…
Which couldn’t be. He didn’t have a wolf anymore. He was not an alpha anymore, he was Min Yoongi, a beta who worked writing a cooking blog from home.
Still, his skin was in flames, and all his muscles started to ache as if he had run a marathon. It remembered him of his first rut when he was a teenager, how scared and excited he had been knowing he was presenting like an alpha the moment he felt the heavy knot forming in his pants.
Taking his boxers off Yoongi found no knot, not even an erection like in all his other ruts. So, he was right, it couldn’t be a rut.
A sharp pain made him double over himself, holding onto his stomach, and sweat continued to drip from his hair to the ground.
He was naked, in the middle of his living room and in that moment, he only had one person he could call. The room was spinning as he grabbed his phone from the kitchen counter and almost dragged himself to the bathroom filling up the bathtub with cold water.
He hissed the moment he dragged himself to the tub, the cold water hitting his skin violently but enough to calm his symptoms momentarily to call Kim Namjoon.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hyung!” The doctor answered. “I was about to call you! Tae will have a dinner party tomorrow and he wanted to know if you want to—”
“Namjoon.” Yoongi managed to get the word out. His voice was so scratchy it probably rang alarm bells inside the doctor’s head.
“Hyung, are you okay? What’s going on?”
“I’m so hot.” He said. “So hot. Hot.”
“Do you have a fever? What do you mean?”
“My head is so hot. My eyes are burning.”
“Okay, alright. Hyung, I’m on my way, keep talking to me. Do you know where you are?”
“Tub.”
“So, at home. Great, fantastic. I’m on my way.”
“It feels like when I presented.” Yoongi added, self-conscious because if someone was aware of his lack of wolf, was Namjoon, and here he was probably with a fucking cold mistaking it for a rut he no longer had.
Namjoon was silent for a while, and Yoongi closed his eyes resting his head against the edge of the tub. He could hear his friend saying goodbye to his fiancé, and the car starting. And then the doctor talked.
“Do you think you have a rut?”
Yoongi wanted to scream that yes, it felt exactly as it had almost ten years ago before he had his stroke, but much worse because he felt he couldn’t breathe and the only thing that would’ve given him a relief in the past was not possible right now because his dick was not even hard.
“No.” He opted to say, glaring at his flaccid dick beneath the cold water. “Because I’m no longer an alpha.”