Chapter 18

The phantom tickle at the nape of his neck flared to life once again.

Furrowing his brow, Nathan’s mind instantly flashed back to the afternoon of that specific day. He vividly recalled the leaves drifting down from the trees in Alex’s front yard, fluttering through the air as the afternoon sun beat down on them.

Alex had been looking at him with that exact, agonizing expression.

Just like the rainy day when he had handed over the umbrella, the Alpha looked like a boy who desperately wanted to cry but had completely forgotten how. And despite the utter devastation bleeding from his eyes, he had still forced himself to smile.

Because Alex’s face kept violently intruding on his thoughts, his performance during the evening training session was noticeably subpar. Seemingly picking up on Nathan’s distracted state, Jonah, the owner of the gym, casually approached him.

“What’s on your mind, little investigator?” Jonah asked.

Nathan’s expression instantly soured.

Jonah was the instructor who had meticulously taught Nathan Krav Maga since he was a child. Having immigrated from Israel, the older man was also a long-time, trusted friend of his late father. Consequently, he was one of the very few people who actually knew about Nathan’s deeply held ambition to become an investigator.

“I’m not little,” Nathan retorted flatly.

Even though he knew perfectly well that responding to the bait meant he had lost the exchange, he couldn’t stop the words from slipping out. Jonah burst into a booming laugh.

“If I don’t call a kid a kid, what else am I supposed to call you?”

While he was already significantly taller than the average teenager, his height was the only physical trait Nathan genuinely felt self-conscious about, purely because he was still the shortest compared to his towering older brothers. Given that every single man in his family, including his late father, easily cleared six feet, it was an absolute biological certainty that he would eventually hit a growth spurt.

Yet it occasionally irritated him when people, especially Alex, who always seemed to look down at him with an infuriatingly fond, endeared expression, spoke as if he had already completely finished growing. Though in Alex’s case, it never actually crossed the line into genuine annoyance.

Following that train of thought, Nathan snatched up his towel. Having people constantly judge him based entirely on his outward appearance was a frustrating reality he dealt with every single day. He knew exactly what he looked like. He had spent his entire life listening to garbage from people declaring that he was pretty, beautiful, or that his looks put even the most gorgeous Omegas to shame.

This relentless objectification was the fundamental reason Nathan didn’t particularly like people. The world was utterly infested with idiots who mistakenly believed that just because they offered a compliment, the recipient was obligated to graciously accept it.

Nathan had never, not even for a fleeting second, harbored a desire to look like an Omega. He was a Beta, and being told he was prettier than an Omega was a remark he completely failed to process as a compliment. While he used to openly express his intense displeasure when he was younger, he had eventually realized it was an entirely futile effort and simply stopped responding altogether.

Instead, he built an impenetrable, icy wall around himself. This was exactly why he rarely made friends his own age, and why he especially, deliberately avoided keeping Alphas in his inner circle.

In that very specific regard, Alex Yeon was the sole, miraculous exception.

The football-playing Alpha possessed an outward appearance and physical build that was almost stereotypically, aggressively Alpha, yet despite all that, he never once treated Nathan like an Omega. While Alex’s deeply ingrained compulsion to act like a strong, traditional Alpha was occasionally visible, it never crossed into territory that made Nathan uncomfortable.

In fact, watching Alex instantly step up and take the heat whenever someone tried to pick a fight with them often left Nathan feeling remarkably, strangely grounded.

The most profoundly impactful incident had occurred two years ago, right after they had first become friends. While walking down the hallway, Nathan had been abruptly cornered by an Alpha classmate attempting to confess to him. As the idiot spewed the incredibly stupid, offensive line that no Omega in the entire school was as pretty as Nathan, Alex had instantly exploded in pure fury.

—”Did you seriously say that thinking he’d want to hear it? Nathan isn’t an Omega.”

Deeply offended by the public humiliation, the boy had lunged, and Alex had mercilessly brawled with him until a teacher finally sprinted over to break it up. That was the very first time Nathan realized that the boy who always acted so gentle and docile around him actually knew how to throw a devastating punch.

If he were being completely honest, he hadn’t actually needed Alex’s help. Nathan had trained in martial arts long enough to effortlessly dismantle the vast majority of the Alphas who foolishly viewed him as a cute, defenseless Omega. He trained because he was fiercely determined to become an investigator, just like his father had been.

After losing her husband in the line of duty, his mother had developed a severe, phobic aversion to her children joining the police force. Consequently, his eldest brother Nick, who had originally dreamed of becoming a cop, had chosen to become a lawyer instead, and his second brother had pivoted to mechanical engineering.

Even though he knew perfectly well that his mother hated the idea so intensely she threatened to die if he pursued it, Nathan simply couldn’t let go of his lingering attachment to the police force, which was why he relentlessly continued his training. By now, it was simply a fundamental part of his daily routine.

“So, you’re really not going to tell me what’s eating at you?” Jonah pressed, falling into step behind him.

Regardless of his teasing, Nathan knew the older man genuinely cared for him, so he paused, carefully weighing his words. His thoughts were chaotic, scattering aimlessly in every direction. Jonah waited with quiet, practiced patience as Nathan kept his lips pressed firmly together.

Knowing exactly how to wait in silence was a skill Nathan had actually learned directly from the man standing before him.

“You’re an Alpha, Jonah,” Nathan began slowly.

Even though it was a dynamic he couldn’t physically sense or relate to in the slightest, Jonah was undeniably an Alpha.

“I am,” Jonah agreed easily.

“Do you remember your first rut?”

“Oho.” Jonah’s face split into a wickedly teasing grin as he lightly nudged Nathan’s shoulder. “Is our boy hitting late-onset puberty?”

Think whatever you want. Nathan flawlessly ignored the bait that wasn’t even worth a response.

“I remember it,” Jonah confirmed, dropping the teasing tone.

“What exactly does a rut feel like?”

Jonah’s expression shifted into something decidedly more troubled, his brow furrowing as he fell into contemplation. “It’s just pure, absolute chaos. You lose your mind completely. It’s nearly impossible to string together a single, coherent thought.”

Perhaps hyper-aware of Nathan’s young age, the older man deliberately glossed over the more graphic details.

“Then what exactly do you think about when it happens?” Nathan pressed.

“You’re asking some really strange questions today, kid,” Jonah noted suspiciously.

Nathan merely stared up at him in silence. Jonah let out a booming laugh, roughly ruffling Nathan’s hair before offering a casual shrug.

“Usually, you think about the person you like. Given the situation, and because your mind is completely shot to hell, your body just instinctively latches onto whatever surfaces first. Why, did a friend ask you?”

A brief, heavy silence fell between them.

Staring intently at the hand clutching his towel, Nathan slowly shook his head.

“I was just curious,” Nathan lied.

As Nathan turned his back the absolute second the conversation concluded, he heard Jonah affectionately laughing and calling him a cold, heartless brat.

Returning home, Nathan meticulously completed his scheduled textbook revisions before finally sitting down on the edge of his bed. He scrolled through the messenger app, his eyes dragging over the chat history with Alex that had abruptly died a week ago.

Jessica’s message notifications repeatedly popped up and vanished at the top of the screen. Without even a flicker of intent to open them, Nathan simply stared at the cheerful greetings Alex had reliably sent through the screen every single day.

Alex’s face surfaced vividly in his mind. Hi, Nathan. Those long, sharp eyes always curved into impossibly soft, gentle crescents whenever he looked at the Beta. The way the corners of his eyes drooped to form perfect half-moons made him look exactly like a fierce fox suddenly transforming into a harmless puppy.

If he let his gaze drop just slightly from those eyes, he could picture the pale skin that always flushed a deep, feverish red under the sun. He thought of the pitch-black hair with its faint, hidden undertones of brown, the lips that always seemed to curl into a shy smile before quickly dipping back down, and the voice that pitched noticeably higher whenever he called Nathan’s name.

That last detail absolutely wasn’t something he had intended to recall. Perhaps it was simply because this was the longest they had ever gone without seeing each other. Countless, vivid memories just kept relentlessly bubbling to the surface.

Nathan thought back to Jonah’s words. The older Alpha’s assertion that one instinctively thinks of the person they like violently collided with the young Alpha’s desperate, stuttering confession that he had only used to like him. The two statements seemed frustratingly similar, yet possessed an entirely different, contradictory texture.

Jonah had spoken of the present, while Alex had strictly framed it in the past. I wonder which one is the actual truth?

Even though there was absolutely no logical need to uncover the answer, Nathan felt a burning, inexplicable need to know exactly how Alex viewed him right now.

His analytical mind pushed the thought even further. If Alex truly had only liked him in the past, then the Alpha should currently be treating Nathan strictly, exclusively as a platonic friend. However, Nathan had absolutely no reference point for how Alex acted around someone who was just a friend. He desperately needed a control group for comparison. To truly understand the difference, he needed to observe exactly what Alex looked like when he was with someone else.

However, Alex didn’t seem to have anyone he currently liked. He didn’t even have a superficial Omega partner to manage his cycles. Judging by the fact that he had desperately begged Jude to set him up, it seemed like he was at least interested in finding someone, but…

Hitting that specific thought, Nathan snapped his mouth shut. A strange, twisted surge of genuine displeasure flooded his chest, and he abruptly tossed his phone onto the mattress.

He debated sending a text, but quickly decided that seeing his face in person would be vastly better. He wanted to hear his voice.

Meanwhile, Jessica’s texts continued to pop up and disappear on the screen, detailing her plans to go to a party with her friends and insisting he join them tomorrow. It was exhausting. He had deliberately ignored the issue because he knew perfectly well that officially breaking up with her would only result in her becoming exponentially more annoying, but it seemed it was finally time to cleanly sever the tie.

Sinking into that resolution, he slowly turned his gaze toward the window.

A damp, moisture-laden breeze drifted through the slightly open gap. He slowly laid his body back against the bed. It felt like it was definitely going to rain tomorrow.

Just before drifting off to sleep, Nathan pictured Alex standing perfectly still on the yellow safety line at the station, faithfully waiting for him.

And a soft smile finally broke across his face.

☂