The restaurant: A Michelin Star steakhouse in Hannam, dimly lit and spartanly decorated. The date, Friday, December 1st. The alpha: Juwon.

They would have canceled this date night if they hadn't made the reservation months ago. It's the kind of restaurant with a long waiting list, a famously abusive chef-de-cuisine, and glowing reviews in major news outlets. The kind of restaurant that Juwon's job gives them access to.

"She's pretty," Yeonjun says, gesturing to the waitress that Juwon's been checking out all night. He's easily distracted when drunk, and easily drunk when exhausted. He wears a suit and a few white hairs that gleam against black.

Juwon flushes. "Sorry."

Yeonjun doesn't have the right to be angry about this — still, Juwon could at least be discreet.

"It's fine. She is pretty," Yeonjun says. He probably wouldn't have mentioned anything if he didn't see her obvious appeal. Her face is sweeter than Yeonjun's, her body petite like a fairy's. He wonders if she can get away with everything, the same way Beomgyu does.

"You're prettier," Juwon says, and Yeonjun laughs. So many of alphas' compliments became meaningless once he realized their insincerity. At 19, he swooned when an alpha called him "the most beautiful omega he'd ever seen." Then, he realized that alpha said the same thing to every omega he wanted to fuck.

"What have you been reading lately?" Juwon asks. He's asked this question on nearly every date they've been on since college. He always wants Yeonjun to give him a plot synopsis of whatever book he's been reading, a brief lesson on a best-selling prize-winner so he can seem erudite at parties. Yeonjun doesn't mind. He gets to speak, uninterrupted, about his interests, while Juwon listens with rapt attention. It's a symbiotic ritual. But Yeonjun's only been reading the news lately — headline after headline about terrible things happening to omegas.

"I read an article about this omega who was going out with her friends who got murdered by some alpha. He was angry she wouldn't sleep with him after going back to his house," Yeonjun says.

"In Korea?" Juwon asks, cutting his steak.

"Yes."

"Wow. That's terrible. Korea isn't usually that violent." Juwon's knife pauses. "But why did she go to his house if she didn't want to sleep with him? Like, what was the point?"

Yeonjun's hand tightens around his fork. "Why does that matter? It doesn't justify him murdering her."

"Obviously not," Juwon says, taking a bite. "I'm just saying, there's a lot of terrible alphas out there. You have to protect yourself. Your parents must have been so scared when you went to Seoul for college. But you had me."

Juwon is right, partially. He did protect Yeonjun, always. From a group of alphas catcalling him, from a classmate who sent him pictures of his penis when they were paired together from a group project.

But what about omegas who didn't have an alpha? Were they just free pickings?

"Being careful doesn't always help you. Most rape victims are raped by their husbands or fathers."

"No way."

"It's true. So what were they supposed to do?"

Juwon finally swallows his food. "There are some situations where you can't do anything. But omegas have to do what they can to stay safe when it's possible. I'm just thinking pragmatically. What if our baby grows up to be an omega? We have to teach her that she can't just go back to strange alphas' houses."

Yeonjun has always found Juwon handsome. Hair parted on the side and gelled down, eyebrows neatly microbladed every two years. He has a square jaw, a wide smile, gentle eyes. But as he speaks with his mouth full, steak mashing against his teeth, Yeonjun sees every flaw, every sign of aging. The hollowness in his face, the dullness of his skin.

"I just don't get why your first reaction is to question why she went to his house. You're blaming her instead of the murderer."

"I never said I blame her."

"No, but you're just focusing on what she did wrong. She's the victim."

Juwon sets his cutlery down, looks at Yeonjun straight-on. "Are you pregnant?"

"What?"

"You're acting really weird. Maybe it's hormones."

"Are you serious?" Yeonjun almost wants to laugh. Juwon has a bit of a mean streak, but come on.

"Yes. You're taking everything I say in bad faith, and it's not like you to pick fights. And, you look a little..." Juwon looks away.

"What?"

"You've gained a bit of weight."

Heat rises to Yeonjun's face. "I'm not pregnant."

"Are you sure? Have you taken a test?"

Yeonjun slams his hands against the table. He wants to yell, but he forces himself to whisper, "I'm not pregnant."

Yeonjun retreats to the bathroom. He barrels into an empty stall, sits on a toilet seat, and cries.

In high school, an alpha sat behind an omega in class and poked the back of her neck with his pencil. She flinched away, whispered at him to stop, but he kept going. She dealt with it for ten minutes before she stood up, yanked the pencil from his hand, and broke it in half.

"I told you to stop," she growled.

"What, are you on your period or something?" The alpha asked. "Psycho."

The entire class laughed at her. Yeonjun laughed, too.

Are you on your period? Are you pregnant? Are you hormonal?

Yeonjun splashes water from the sink onto his face, lets the water cool his heated cheeks. With red eyes, he returns to the table.

Juwon reaches across the table to hold Yeonjun's hand. He rubs his thumb along the inside of Yeonjun's wrist, his brown eyes wide and puppyish.

"I'm so sorry," he says. He always is.

"It's okay." Yeonjun resists the urge to squeeze Juwon's hand hard enough to hurt.

Juwon's too tired and too drunk to drive home, so he asks Yeonjun to. Yeonjun doesn't turn on the music, just gazes ahead at the dark roads as Juwon closes his eyes in the passenger seat. He sees his own reflection in the rearview mirror, and he hates it.

At a red light, Yeonjun texts Beomgyu. Do you think i've gained weight?

Beomgyu answers: idk you don't wear tight clothes so it's hard to tell

but does my face look different?

actually yeah i think youve gained at least 100kg. my pastries are working

Useless.

He texts Soobin. Do you think I've gained weight?

Soobin types for a long time. Then, Why do you ask?

Everyone in the world is useless."

"Junie, the light is green."

At home, Yeonjun undresses and pulls out a scale while Juwon watches him with bloodshot eyes. He's changed into his pajamas and gotten into bed without showering, blankets pulled up to his chin.

"I said I was sorry," Juwon mumbles.

"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty."

The scale reads 3kg heavier than the last time he checked. Yeonjun crouches on the scale and buries his face in his hands.

Juwon sits up. "Hey, it's okay. It's natural to gain weight sometimes. No one stays the same weight all the time."

Yeonjun used to. He was careful to maintain his weight within a 2kg range. Then, he met Beomgyu, Soobin — is this the result of enjoying his life?

"Junie, I'm so sorry. Really."

"Go to bed," Yeonjun says.

Yeonjun and Juwon don't have sex that night, which is rare unless one of them is sick. Instead, he waits until Juwon is asleep, and he invites Soobin to meet him. Of course, Soobin always comes when he's called.

They go to a bar on the other side of Seoul, quiet and dark and nearly empty. The bartender can't make a decent-tasting drink to save his life, but he has a heavy pour.

Next to each other in the booth, their thighs touching, their faces close. In the candlelight, Soobin's skin is burned orange, smooth as marble. Yeonjun wants to kiss him.

"Why do you spend so much time with me?" Yeonjun asks. "Don't you want to hang out with your friends?"

Soobin stirs his straw in his drink.. "I don't have that many friends. I think you don't realize how shy I am. The day we met, Beomgyu had to hype me up to ask you for the empty seat."

"Seriously? You don't come across as that shy to me."

Soobin smiles at him. "I don't feel like I have to be shy when I'm with you. I don't know why. I just feel safe when I'm with you."

Yeonjun squeezes Soobin's fingers under the table. There's so little that he knows about Soobin. Yeonjun's grown so familiar with the feeling of being with him, the heady freedom, the hypnotic pull. But Soobin so rarely speaks about himself.

"You don't feel safe with many other people?" Yeonjun asks.

"I feel safe with my family. With Beomgyu. Everyone else kind of scares me," Soobin laughs. "I don't know why you don't."
Yeonjun knows. It's the loneliness of his life, how pathetic he is. How could Soobin be scared of someone who's so much worse-off than him?

"When I was a kid, I had a stutter," Soobin says. "It was pretty bad. Kids were assholes about it. That made me scared to speak, which made the stutter even worse."

Yeonjun's noticed it a bit — the way Soobin's voice catches on some consonants, his hesitance before certain words. But he always thought it was just Soobin choosing his words with care — he had never identified it as a speech impediment.

"Were kids really that bad?" Yeonjun asks.

Soobin grimaces, nods.

"Didn't your family do anything? Don't you have like, forty older brothers?"

"I didn't tell them. I didn't want to admit to being a loser. Anyway, it stopped on its own eventually. But I still get nervous when I speak. It's hard for me to make friends."

Yeonjun stares down at his drink, the light reflecting off the glass turning blurry as he allows his eyes to unfocus. If he and Soobin had gone to school together, Yeonjun wouldn't have bullied him, but he might have been friends with the kids who did. If a room full of people were laughing, he laughed too.

"Wasn't there anyone who stood up for you?" Yeonjun asked.

"A couple kids tried, but no one really listened to them."

"I'm really sorry that happened to you." Yeonjun imagines a little Soobin, chubbier cheeks and wider eyes, and he can't believe anyone would ever want to hurt him. It's strange, how many people around him have been hurt while he's just stood there, untouched. Being perfect, living up to everyone's expectations — it's always protected him. He's safe in his cage.

Soobin rubs Yeonjun's shoulder, gives him a comforting smile. "Hey, I'm okay now. Don't worry."

But if he's okay, what is he doing with Yeonjun?

"Hey! No!" Soobin says, laughing. He swipes his thumbs beneath Yeonjun's eyes. "Why am I comforting you about me being bullied?"

Yeonjun laughs. "I don't know. It's the alcohol, I guess."

Soobin's eyes dart around the room, before he leans in and kisses Yeonjun gently. Yeonjun stands up, takes Soobin by the hand, and leads him outside. Around the corner, in a narrow alley lined with trash, Soobin kisses him hard, knocking his head against the brick wall. But Yeonjun doesn't mind the pain — he's glad for it. It makes him just like everyone he loves.

Yeonjun leans into him. God, he wants to go to bed with him. But Soobin deserves so much better than a love hotel, and that's all Yeonjun can offer him.

Soobin pulls away slowly, and he looks at Yeonjun with sad, resigned eyes, as if he might understand.

Not long after, they head to the subway station. They hover on the platform, and take same line in different directions.

***

Yeonjun starts a diet. He rejects Beomgyu's free pastries, ignoring the way Beomgyu's face falls. He ditches his writing, using the time to exercise, go on walks, or even take a nap. Getting enough sleep is essential for weight loss.

But his weight doesn't budge. He doesn't even seem to lose any water weight. So, he cuts out rice and bread. Juwon notices that, of course, and nudges Yeonjun to eat more during dinner.

"You seriously look good, Junie. I just said you gained weight because I was upset and tired." He tries to scoop some of his rice onto Yeonjun's plate, but Yeonjun pulls his plate away.

"But I did gain weight."

"It doesn't matter. You're healthy."

The next night, Juwon huffs and rolls his eyes. "Are you just doing this to make me feel guilty? If you're still angry, you could at least be direct."

"I'm not angry. This isn't about you. I just need to deal with this."

Besides, maybe Juwon should feel guilty.

"Why? It's trivial."

Yeonjun closes his eyes. Perhaps it's trivial, but it's his. He doesn't have much else to work hard for.

"It just makes me feel better to be in control of my weight."

But even after two weeks of efforts, his weight crawls upwards. With Juwon at work, Yeonjun searches online for causes of weight gain. First on the list: stress . What could Yeonjun be stressed about? His daily tasks are simple and repetitive. He certainly gets nervous about the situation with Soobin, but he rarely allows himself to think of it. He doesn't think his search for Jimin is stressing him out, though it does frustrate him. Does that count as stress? Could he be stressed?

Hormonal disorders, thyroid disorders. He books an appointment for a blood test.

At the bottom of the list, pregnancy.

Yeonjun couldn't be pregnant. He takes his birth control every night after Juwon falls asleep. He's responsible, consistent; he always does what he's supposed to do.

At least, he was before he met Soobin. Now, Yeonjun is split in two. There is the self that he's created for Juwon and his parents, and the self that he's created for Soobin. Soobin has relaxed standards for him; he's patient as Yeonjun molds himself into what he wants. He holds Yeonjun's hand as he quietly disobeys his parents, as he nurtures his own interests, as he starts to questions if omegas are responsible for everything bad that's happened to them.

It isn't easy, severing himself in half like this. It makes him forgetful, and it leaves him unable to fully become either self. Just as he's forgotten Juwon's laundry, he's forgotten to take his birth control. But it's okay to miss one day, as long as he takes two pills the next day. And he always remembers to take two pills the next day.

Does he?

He rips his birth control pack out of it's hiding place: underneath the kitchen sink, in an empty container of Clorox wipes. The next pill in the packet is for Wednesday. Today is Monday.

Did he miss the past five days? He couldn't have. Did he miss a few random days that add up to five? Or is he more than five days behind? Over the past few months, could he have missed a week and five days?

Yeonjun slips on his sandals and runs to the nearest convenience store. He picks three pregnancy tests, each from a different brand. He drops one on the floor as his hands shake, and he realizes that they're red, numb.

As the cashier rings him up, Yeonjun catches sight of himself in the mirror. There are snow flakes in his hair. It's the first snow of the season.

"Twelve thousand won," the cashier mumbles without looking up.

Yeonjun reaches for his pocket, but he doesn't has his jacket on. He's in his pajamas, he doesn't even have his phone.

"I'll be right back," Yeonjun says, rushing out. Back to the apartment, back to the store.

The cashier meets his eyes now, and Yeonjun can't tell if the grimace on his face is judgmental or sympathetic. Thankfully, she doesn't say anything beyond the typical costumer service script.

Yeonjun pees on three different sticks. He reads the directions: After fifteen minutes, the stick will show one line for a negative result, or two lines for a positive result.

Yeonjun kneels on the ground and presses his head to the cold tile, shaking. Covering his eyes, he stays down on the floor without checking the time, but it must be more than fifteen minutes. Eventually, he builds the strength to lift his head from the floor, and he blinks as his eyes adjust to the harsh bathroom light.

There cannot be two separate selves. One will eat the other.

On every test: two lines.