"l-let me g-go..."

"omegas are very rare around here... we won't let you go away that easily, pretty thing."

"l-leave me a-alone..."

inevitably, what was meant to happen happened.

shotaro knew he had to listen the words from the thirty-year-old beta who had tried to help him. he knew that he should have let him come with him. but something inside of him wasn't normal, and the need to walk straight in the most dangerous neighbourhood of seoul had exceeded every other thought in shotaro's mind.

and as expected, this had ended up with a bunch of betas catching him to do god knows what.

the omega was now being held by his throat, a few centimetres above the ground, by a beta man missing one of his front teeth. there were other betas around too, enjoying the show and waiting for shotaro to be served on a silver plate so that they could eat him fully – metaphorically speaking, of course.

for the past two weeks, shotaro had slowly lost his ability to control his life, but it seemed like he had regained it all in a second. now that the poor boy was in danger, he could move and talk freely again, but this didn't change anything considering he was still a weak omega.

"what are we doing with him?!" a man standing a few metres away asked out loud to the man that was having shotaro in a chokehold.

"well..." the man missing a tooth smirked at shotaro. "omegas were made to be sex dolls, weren't they?"

a chorous of 'yeah!' resonated in the dirty street.

"so, that's what we are going to use this precious thing for." he continued, using his free hand to pinch shotaro's cheek, his dirty fingers leaving a black print on his pale skin.

the man let go of shotaro's neck as he noticed that the omega was slowly losing consciousness because of the restriction of his flow of air. shotaro let out a loud gasp as his trachea could take in a large volume of air again, but his muscles were still very weak, causing him to fall to the ground immediately.

the man missing a tooth laughed at the omega, using his foot to poke the panting boy's back. "see? the weakest being to exist... not even able to stay on their feet."

with a sigh, the man bent down, gripping shotaro's arm and pulling him up rather violently.

"look at this miserably pretty thing..." he stated, showing off shotaro to the other people around, earning cheers and claps.

"so..." he started again, using his free hand to pull on shotaro's hair to lift his head and show his face. "who wants to taste the tightness of an omega first?"

"certainly not any of you." a low voice replied, making all of the betas turn in the direction of the voice and gasp.

the 22 members of nct were standing in the middle of guryong village, their brows furrowed and their eyes fixed on the men who had been manhandling their omega. low growls escaped their mouths as they tried to fight the sudden urge to kill the bastards that had touched shotaro.

"let him go." taeyong warned, his eyes fixed on the man that was holding shotaro.

"we found him first, he is ours now." the beta scoffed.

"certainly not." taeyong took a step forward, raging with anger. "he's ours."

"i don't see anything claiming that he's yours, sorry." the man missing a tooth declared, pulling on shotaro's hair to look at his neck. "so, this means that he belongs to us now. he's our thing to use."

this was the last straw for taeyong. the alpha let out a growl as he ran to the toothless man, jumping on top of him to get him off shotaro and punching him hard as soon as they were both on the ground.

the other betas rushed to help their friend as they noticed taeyong hurting him, but they were soon stopped at the other nct members jumped on them, punching them harshly as well.

while most of the nct members were busy beating up the betas that had hurt their shotaro, jeno and jaemin rushed to shotaro who was coughing while lying on the ground, his body aching because of how badly he had been handled.

"shotaro! can you hear me?" jaemin crouched, pulling the omega in a sitting position while jeno made sure no one was trying to approach them and hurt the poor boy again.

"j-jae...m-min..." shotaro breathed out, clutching on the alpha's shirt as he tried gluing his body to the other's.

"yes, it's me, shotaro. don't worry, the others are here, we saved you from those betas. you're safe now." jaemin wrapped his arms around the omega, pulling him in a hug as both of them felt a sudden rush of feelings within their bodies.

the embrace jaemin tightened around shotaro made his heart so much lighter, and the sole presence of the 22 alphas he had grown attached to was enough to make him feel safe again. he could see them; better, he would breathe in their scents and get intoxicated by them until all he could think about was them, nct, a group of 22 alphas that had completely messed with his mind and made his life ten times more enjoyable than it used to be.

there was no possibility to mistake this feeling with another one. this very emotion that grew so powerfully in the pit of his stomach and made his whole body feel more powerful and complete... he had finally gotten a taste of what this unbelievably amazing feeling others had told him about.

"m-mates..." shotaro let out, barely above a whisper, while looking at his surroundings.

20 of the nct members were fighting around him, ridiculing the men that had been violating him a few minutes ago, making dust and blood fly around the place to avenge the poor omega. jeno was standing right next to jaemin and him, his eyes focused on the fights as he made sure no one needed more help.

"did you ask something?" jaemin asked worriedly, looking at shotaro.

"m-mates..." shotaro replied, his eyes falling on the red bite mark that had appeared on jaemin's neck, just in the place he had bit him. the omega lifted his arm slowly, reaching for jaemin's neck as he let his fingers trace the beautiful mark.

jaemin smiled as the feeling of shotaro's fingertips lingering on his bite mark made a zoo of butterflies tickle his insides. "yes, shotaro. you're our mate."

and as soon as those words left jaemin's mouth, shotaro's eyes rolled to the back of his head as consciousness left his body, leaving the place to darkness and numbness.

α

"guys, he's waking up!" a voice rang in shotaro's ears as the boy's eyes fluttered open, making him come back to his senses slowly. his heart started pumping fast in his body because of the stress that took over him when he found himself in a house when he remembered being outside.

however, a second later, shotaro's nose was invaded by the familiar scent of the 22 alphas, and this didn't fail to make him relax and let his body getting overwhelmed with it.

"shotaro? are you okay?" taeyong asked, one of his hands shaking the boy's shoulder gently.

"i-i... i'm feeling better..." the omega mumbled, trying to sit up with the help of taeyong.

the omega was quick to look at his surroundings, smiling when he noticed he was back in the nct dorm, sitting on one of the couches as the members of nct were all surrounding him, bright smiles plastered on their faces as their eyes were on the omega.

"do you recall what happened?" taeyong asked again – he had been nominated to be in charge of the talking not to overwhelm shotaro by having 22 people talking to him at the same time.

"y-yeah." shotaro nodded. "i-i don't know why i went there... i was just... my body went there on its own... i-it wasn't me..."

"it's fine, shotaro, don't worry." taeyong caressed his arm to reassure him. "we were there to save you, so there's no need to worry about this."

"t-thank you." shotaro said in a low voice. "thank you so much to all of you from coming to rescue me."

"it's normal, shotaro. you're our mate, so, of course we're going to come and save you." taeyong smiled at the omega. "we all immediately felt that something was wrong with you, and our instincts brought us to guryong village, where you were."

there was a small pause durong which shotaro glanced at jaemin. the alpha smiled at him, nodding his head quickly to answer shotaro's silent question.

"s-so..." shotaro looked back at taeyong. "does that mean that... that we're... m-mates...?"

"yes, shotaro, we are mates." taeyong replied. "all 23 of us."

shotaro looked successfully at the 22 alphas who were all smiling at him like he was the most precious thing to exist. it felt good for once to be the centre of attention and to be surrounded by 22 alphas, because for the frist time, nct weren't just a group of alphas for shotaro; for the first time, he saw those 22 alphas are something more than just acquittances or friends. nct were his mates.

"m-my... m-mates..." shotaro said, not believing what was happening to him. but it was all too real, and he knew how real it was. his heart was beating so fast and his inner omega wanted nothing more than jump into their arms and stay there forever, where he was safe, protected and loved.

there was another silence during which shotaro continued looking at the 22 alphas that were his mates. however, taeyong broke the silence, catching the attention of the omega, and making all of the other alphas tremble in anticipation.

"shotaro, you are you mate, and we know how dangerously omegas live. we saw today how awful people can be with this secondary gender, and we want nothing more than keeping you safe and protecting you forever. that is why, we wanted to know if you would want to become ours for real and let us create a mate bond to unite all of us and protect you from all of the dangers of the outside world."

the omega's eyes watered as he listened to nct's leader's words. he couldn't believe that he had 22 males, let alone that they were willing to treat him as their mate and make sure he was safe and sound all the time. "y-yes..." he let out as happy tears left his eyes.

"so, does that mean we get to mark you?"

α

"did he tell you more details about where he went?"

"no, he just said he was going out to breathe in some fresh air."

"but he didn't tell you where?"

"no, he didn't."

hikari stopped pacing around the kitchen to look at the clock on the wall before bitting on her fingernails.

"how long as he been gone for?" she asked her boyfriend.

"four hours." hawoon replied. "almost four and a half."

"fuck." the girl swore in japanese. "we need to do something."

"we can't even call him because i found his phone on the sofa." hawoon sighed.

the beta girl thought for a few seconds, getting worried sick for her omega brother.

"we should call the police." she declared.

"the police?" hawoon raised a brow. "they don't take in disappearance complaints under 24 hours."

"fuck, fuck, fuck..." she swore in her native language again.

"let's just go out and try to find him. he cannot be so far." hawoon sighed.

"good idea." hikari nodded. "i'm going to change and we're going. make sure you phone has battery before- "

the sound of the doorbell made the two betas look at each other before they both jumped to their feet and rushed to the front door to slam it open.

and once it was open, both betas let out a breath they had been holding in for way too long at the sight of shotaro standing in front of their door with a smile on and the 22 nct members on his heels.

"oh my god, shotaro, you scared us to death! we thought that- wait!" hikari stopped speaking as she caught a glimpse of her brother's neck and arms. she took a step closer to him and pulled on her collar to look at his chest under the pastel purple fabric. "why are there bite marks all over your body?! and why are nct here with you?!"

the omega smiled at her and hawoon before taking a step back and looking at the 22 alphas standing behind him.

"hika, hawoon... please, meet my mates."