"shotaro, everything alright?"

"mmh..."

"are you sure?"

"mmh..."

"positive?"

"mmh..."

a few seconds of silence.

"what time is it?"

"mmh..."

hikari heaved out a sigh at her brother's reply, standing up from the couch shotaro was sitting on and walking to the kitchen where hawoon was preparing dinner for the three of them.

"oh, hika, are you coming to help me?" the boy asked as his lips curved up in a smile.

"i don't know what to do with shotaro anymore..."

hawoon's smile turned into a frown as he stopped focusing on the stove to look at his girlfriend. "is he still sad?"

"yeah..." hikari sighed. "and it seems like it's getting worse with time passing..."

"do you... do you think nct could have done something to him?" hawoon hesitated, the thought of their favourite idols being mean to shotaro not fitting with their minds.

"no, of course not!" hikari shook his head. "he seemed so happy when he came back from their dorm. and judging by what their manager said, nct were happy as well..."

"i know, right... but he's been like that since he came back..."

shotaro had been living with his sister and hawoon again for a week long. seven days ago, namkyu had brought him back to their small apartment, and he had been ecstatic to see hikari and hawoon again, and he had told everything that had happened at the nct dorm with so much joy and happiness. and then, everything had changed.

with days going on, shotaro's usual happiness and bubbliness seemed to transform in sadness and dullness.

the first day, he had simply been less smiley and less invested in hikari and hawoon's conversations, and then, he started to stop smiling, his face always blank or with a hint of sadness, as if day after day, something was sucking all of the brightness out of him. his state had degraded more every day, and now, seven days after coming back from the nct dorm, shotaro barely interacted with hawoon and hikari anymore, and he didn't answer by anything else than hums. he was slow and lazy in his acts, he seemed bored all day, and was willing to do nothing, he didn't take care of himself as much as he did in the past and he didn't even seem to realise how he was slowly changing; it looked like he was having a depression.

"i mean... nct have to have something to do with this..." hawoon stated, breaking the silence that had taken possession of the small kitchen.

"but i don't believe that they did something bad to him." hikari replied. "i tell you, he was so freaking happy."

"i know, i saw it." hawoon nodded. "but he isn't anymore, which means something happened."

hikari let out a loud sigh rubbing her temples with her fingers while trying to understand what could have happened to her baby brother.

"look, we'll ask him more about it during lunch. i'm making his favourite dish, hopefully this will cheer him up a bit." hawoon pulled his girlfriend in a hug before going back to cooking and making sure the meal was excellent.

sadly, even though hawoon had cooked something very tasty and delicious, this didn't have the effect both betas wanted on shotaro.

the omega still looked like he was done with life as he toyed with the food inside his plate using his chopsticks. hikari and hawoon kept glancing at each other in silence, indirectly asking each other what they could do to make him stop being like this; it pained them so much to see the boy they were attached to being so depressed.

"shotaro... do you need something...?" hikari tried, making shotaro lift his head in slow motion to look at her in the eye. his usually sparkling orbs were void of any emotion, and the dark bags under them made shotaro look even paler than h aready was.

"no, thanks..." he replied in a very low voice.

"are you sure?"

shotaro didn't even answer this question. his head lowered again at the same pace it had lifted, ahd he got back to toying with his food, eventually putting a piece in his mouth and chewing on it lazily. hawoon was sure that his meal was cold by now, and all of its tastiness had surely dullened because it wasn't hot anymore, but shotaro didn't seem to mind. actually, it looked like he was forced to eat a dish he hated because of how depressed he was while eating.

the two betas looked into each other's eyes again, despair obvious on both their faces.

they had no idea what to do. shotaro wasn't cooperative, he didn't want to do anything, and the only things he did, he was doing them in slow motion, as if the sole idea of moving at a regular speed hurt his heart.

"what do we do?" hikari whisper-shouted to her boyfriend, trying to exclude shotaro from the conversation – he didn't look like he could do the effort to concentrate and listen to what they were saying anyway.

"i don't know." hawoon replied on the same tone. "maybe take him to the doctor."

"he'll never accept this." hikari sighed.

"we'll have to lie to him, then. but we can't leave him that way. he looks like he's losing more life with every second passing."

"do you think a doctor could help?"

"it's worth a try..." hawoon shrugged. "and if a general practitioner cannot find anything, we'll go to a specialist."

"what kind of specialist?"

"i don't know... first, one specialised with omegas... and perhaps a psychologist..."

before hikari could answer in a hushed tone, a cough interrupted their conversation, making both betas jerk their heads to the side to look at shotaro. it was the loudest sound he had made for a few days.

the omega was still looking at his half-eaten plate, his chopsticks poking the cold food like it was a dangerous substance. shotaro stayed silent for a few seconds after both betas had started staring at him, and after coughing a second time, he spoke words that caught both hikari and hawoon off-guard.

"how do you think it feels for an omega to be taken away from his mates...?"

α

"okay, so today we'll be recording the songs for our new album! everybody in the cars to get to the studio!" namkyu exclaimed, clapping his hands a few times to catch the attention of the 22 neos who were sprawled out around the living room.

the manager had to wait for a few mintues for the 22 alphas to be outside, choosing which cars they would be sitting in. however, when all the boys were out of the dorm and that he had locked the door, he realised he maybe shouldn't have left them on their own to decide who would be sitting in which car.

as alphas, the boys all had a very annoying tendency to want to be in the chief's shoes, and so, this implied very violent fights to get shotgun.

fights for shotgun were surely the worst fights namkyu had had to deal with. if the 22 alphas could always be compared to mad beasts with anger issues when together, but they were just a bunch of very angry and utterly stupid animals when shotgun was involved.

once, namkyu had tried to stop a shotgun fight, and he had ended punched in the nose, causing the cancelation of their schedule, the booking of an ambulance and an immediate ride to the hospital. a broken nose later, namkyu scolded the boys like they had never been scolded and punished them for a month straight. after this incident, shotgun fights had been still wild, but they usually died down as soon as namkyu intervened, the alphas being too scared of another one-month punition.

so, when namkyu realised he had just left the 22 alphas to deal with the sitting arrangements themselves, he immediately rushed to the cars, already thinking about which punishment he will threaten them with.

but surprisingly, there was no one in front of the cars, let alone the sight of any fight going on.

"what the hell...?" the manager frowned, looking around the street to find nct – 22 alphas couldn't be too hard to find, they couldn't have gone very far.

however, the tinted glass window of one of the cars rolled down, revealing jungwoo seating in the shotgun seat. "are you coming, or not?" he asked in an emotionless voice.

namkyu frowned, looking through the open window at the inside of the car and almost choking at the sight of some other members sitting silently in the back seats, their seatbelts fastened.

"namkyu?" jungwoo spoke again, waking the manager up from his daze.

"yes, yes! i'm coming!" he nodded, getting in the driver's seat of their car before driving to the studio, making sure that the other cars were following them as well.

and if nct's calmness while getting in the cars had surprised namkyu, their comportment at the recording studio shocked him.

sure, nct had stopped being as violent and aggressive as they were before with the discovery of shotaro, but now that the omega had stopped living with them for a week, namkyu believed that they would slowly go back to acting like bratty alphas. in fact, he was very wrong with that.

for the past seven days, nct had been back to living between them without an omega around, and they had acted even calmer that they used to act when shotaro was around.

the fights were very occasional, the boys never raised their voices much, they didn't need the makeup artists to cover their beating marks anymore... it was as if shotaro had transformed them into betas, they didn't have their territorial and aggressive behaviour anymore.

but namkyu had noticed that their behaviour had gotten stranger with days passing.

the more days passed, the calmer they became. but they weren't calm because they had turned comprehensive of namkyu and because they had understood fighting wasn't a solution. they acted calm because it seemed like they didn't have the force to fight with each other anymore, as if they were exhausted of living, and they were trying to save their energy. the 22 energetic alphas could now be compared to a hord of zombies that didn't care about anything anymore.

and now, at the recording studio, the word 'zombies' was the perfect one to describe them.

namkyu stared in shock as the sound engineer had to make them sing their lines over and over again, always asking for more energy and less dullness. they were supposed to sing a song about enjoying your youth, but they sounded like they were grieving.

and don't even dare asking namkyu about jeno and jaemin who hadn't even uttered a word since the second day after shotaro's departure, as if the omega had left with their vocal cords. those two alphas looked even more ravaged than the other 20 ones, and namkyu couldn't understand what had gone through them.

"taeyong." the manager called for the boy as he walked out of the recording room, dragging his feet to the ground. "come with me."

the alpha obliged, walking slowly towards namkyu and following him to another room, a few doors down the corridor.

as soon as they had entered, nct's leader leaned against the wall, looking at his manager with his eyes that didn't convey their usual superiority.

"what has been going on with all of you this past week?" namkyu asked, studying every centimetre of the boy's face not to miss a single change in emotion.

"nothing." taeyong replied in a monotone voice.

"i see it's not nothing." the manager replied. "you've all stopped fighting and bickering every second."

"isn't that what you wanted?" taeyong raised a brow, and even in this act, namkyu saw how lazy he had become. taeyong was usually able to get his brow much higher when he lifted it, but right now, it was barely above the other one.

"i want you to stop fighting but to keep acting like alphas. i wanted you to change nothing except your comprotement between each other." the manager explained. "and now, everything has changed. you guys look like you're void of any energy. and i'm not even talking about jaemin and jeno who look dead... it's like something changed into you and..."

taeyong listened to namkyu speaking without speaking a word. he stayed unmoving, leaning on his wall and blinking his eyes from time to time while listening to his manager voicing out every change he noticed in the boy's behaviour.

his monologue lasted for a few minutes during which he repeated himself a few times, sigh that he was really desperate to understand what had happened. and taeyong knew what was the cause of this dullness, he knew exactly what happened to them and why they couldn't act more energetic.

and he knew he needed to tell namkyu about it right after his manager has stopped speaking.

"you're done?" he asked as namkyu caught his breath after his speech.

"isn't that enough already?" the manager scoffed.

taeyong ignored him as he pushed himself away from the wall, taking a step towards namkyu and crossing his arms over his chest.

"how do you think it feels for alphas to be taken away from their mate?"