Joongi's POV
rooftop hallway, West stairwell - Doan has just walked away.
The door clicked shut. Joongi didn't move. He stood there, back to the wall, air thin in his lungs. His pulse thundered like footsteps on marble.
"Because I didn't want anyone else touching you."
"I didn't want anyone else seeing you like that." The words kept repeating. Low
.steady. Brutal in their, honestly. He hadn't known anyone could.
Joongi squeezed his eyes shut. The edge of his sleeve brushed his wrist same spot where Doan hand pressed the cold cloth. Not skin. Not direct. But it had felt like more. He should've been angry. Should've been afraid. He had been, once. Afraid of being seen of being stripped down to the truth he'd spent years hiding behind scent blockers and silence.
And yet when Doan had looked at him. It hadn't felt like exposure. It had felt like being found. Joongi pressed a fist to a chest. You didn't actually want me to go.
What scared him the most was how true that Had been. He'd told Doan to stay away. Had curled his fingers around the piano bench like restraint was something physical. had told himself, if he touched you, it's over. And yet, some part of him deep, wordless, had wanted him to stay.
To see him.
Not the omega he was ashamed of.
Not the boy with the scholarship and the secrets and the second-hand shoes.
Just him. Just Joongi
And Doan had.
He had looked—and hadn’t claimed. Had stayed—and hadn’t taken. Had seen—and hadn’t turned away. That was the part Joongi didn’t know what to do with.
Because he could handle cruelty. He’d lived in its shadows. He could handle coldness, distance, indifference. That was what the academy trained them for. But kindness? That soft, brutal thing? He didn’t have armor for that. He slid down the wall until he was sitting, legs pulled up, face pressed to his knees. No tears.
Just the tremble of someone who’d felt something. Impossible.
Someone who had been protected.
And didn’t know why it hurt.
Next morning
Kang Joongi (MC/Omega)
Joongi opens his locker
There's something inside
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just... A small, deliberate act of care. Something Doan left behind.
Kang Joongi (MC/Omega)
maybe glove, maybe a handkerchief. No note. But it says something anyway. He was somehow confused at what he saw.
Kang Joongi (MC/Omega)
So this is Doan's version of apology. Or can I say confession.
And Joongi doesn't know what to do with that kind of softness.
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