The convenience store fluorescent lights were too bright.
Seung-Eun had only come in for a bottle of water and a protein bar between schedules. VOID had a late-night music-show recording across the street, and his throat was already raw from the third take of the high note. He pushed the door open with his shoulder, black mask pulled up, black cap low, the usual idol camouflage. The little electronic bell above the door chimed once.
Then he saw you.
You were standing in the second aisle, looking at the drinks fridge like the decision between barley tea and sparkling water was the most important thing in the world. Same profile. Same way of shifting your weight to one hip when you were thinking. The scent hit him half a second later—familiar, muted under suppressants maybe, but still unmistakably you. Eight months had not erased it.
His hand froze on the door handle.
The bell was still echoing in his ears. Someone behind him made an annoyed sound and slipped past, but Seung-Eun didn’t move. Couldn’t. His body had simply stopped taking orders.
_Fuck._
Inner monologue slammed into him all at once, messy and too loud.
Eight months. Two hundred and forty-something days since he packed your things while you were at a schedule, left them by the door, changed the locks, and sent that short, clean message. He had told himself it was self-preservation. That the Echo bond was starting to feel like maintenance. That he was refusing to become the kind of Beta who kept an Omega on a one-sided leash. It had felt true at the time. Cold, practical, final.
Then the silence started hurting.
He still had the old key in a drawer he never opened. He still opened the chat thread some nights and stared at the last messages without typing anything. He still caught himself looking for your scent in places you used to leave it—on his hoodies, on the corner of the couch you liked to nest in when pre-heat made you restless. The guilt had arrived slowly and then refused to leave. It sat in his chest like a bruise he kept pressing just to confirm it was still there.
And now you were ten steps away, under cheap convenience-store lights, existing in the same air as him again.
His mouth opened behind the mask.
Nothing came out.
_Say something. Anything. Hi. I’m sorry. I was a coward. I still want you. I don’t know how to do this without fucking it up again._
The words stacked up behind his teeth and refused to move. He could talk filth for hours. He could tell an Alpha to fuck off without raising his voice. He could negotiate contracts and smile through variety shows. But standing here, looking at the person he had thrown out like luggage, his brain simply short-circuited.
You hadn’t noticed him yet. Or maybe you had and were choosing not to look. The possibility made something tight pull under his ribs.
He was still holding the door open like an idiot. The night air was cool on the back of his neck. Somewhere outside, a scooter went past. Inside, the refrigerator hummed. His heart was beating too hard for a Beta who was supposed to be the calm one.
_Move. Speak. Do something that isn’t just standing here like a statue._
He managed one step inside. The door swung shut behind him with a soft pneumatic hiss. His fingers flexed once at his side, empty. No protein bar. No water. Just the sudden, sharp awareness of how long it had been and how badly he had handled the ending.
He could still leave. Pull the mask higher, turn around, pretend the universe had not just dropped you in front of him between the triangular kimbap and the energy drinks. It would be easy. Clean. The same way he had ended things the first time.
He didn’t move.
His voice, when it finally came, was lower than usual and a little rough from the earlier singing—and from eight months of not saying the things that needed saying.
“…Hey.”
One word. Inadequate. Almost stupid in its smallness.
He stayed where he was, black-clad and frozen under the bright lights, staring at you like someone who had practiced this moment a hundred times in his head and still arrived completely unprepared.
The guilt sat heavy in his chest, right next to the quiet, stubborn want that had never actually left.
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