Chapter Text
If one were to ask Hyunjin what his life was like as a child, he would easily be able to speak positively of it. He’d grown up in a large pack, one of the biggest in the country, surrounded by many people he cared for. It was hard to imagine how things could so suddenly and painfully flip, forever changing his course in life.
Hyunjin’s story
Hyunjin wasn’t born into his pack, although he might as well have been. At merely a couple of days old he was found wailing, screaming his tiny lungs out in the middle of the forest, surrounded by snow with only a thin grey blanket cocooning him from the harsh and peculiar spring snowstorm.
It was the pack alpha who had found him, wrapping the boy up in his arms as his loyal alpha and beta soldiers went out looking for his family; anyone who could explain how a poor defenceless baby had been abandoned in the snow. It wasn’t the most traditional entry into a pack, but Hyunjin was welcomed in immediately.
After years of waiting to be ‘old enough’ to hear the story, the pack leader finally opened up and told him after his questions seemed to multiply each year.
Hyunjin’s birth parents hadn’t been part of a pack when he was born. It was just the three of them, two terrified new parents without a pack’s protection and their defenceless newborn pup.
That day, Hyunjin’s parents had been found a few kilometres away, blood mixing with melted snow as it pooled around their transformed bodies, staining their fur a gruesome red.
The alpha told him that his parents both had lingering scents of a broken pack bond and that it was likely they hadn’t been without a pack for very long, but no one could ever determine why they’d left. An alpha and omega pairing with a strong scented connection, even in death, with a healthy newborn son, was the perfect situation for any pack. Hyunjin had always wondered why they couldn’t have stayed, why they’d put themselves in the danger that left Hyunjin without parents and even the slightest memory of what they looked like. But, he couldn’t bring himself to hold any resentment, trusting that whatever the reason was, it must’ve been important enough to risk it all. The pack leader assured him of that and even though the man never knew his parents, he had often told Hyunjin that he felt their connection through him.
Hyunjin liked his pack back then, when he was a happy kid, at a time where the dangers of the adult world hadn’t crossed his radar yet. His pack were his family and while there were many members, their alpha was strong and held everyone together like glue. They had a defining culture, their own dialect and a strong sense of community within their lush pack territory. Hyunjin’s fondest memories were filled with running around in the long fields of grass and daisies with his friends, dreaming of the day he’d transform and get to explore the forest as a wolf. He could almost taste it; the freedom he perceived his wolf form to be. He wanted so badly to embrace it already, childhood impatience being the bane of his existence.
Hyunjin’s pack valued each subgender in their roles, albeit their values were very much on the traditionalist side, but Hyunjin had grown up never knowing anything else. Because of the traditionalist nature, his role had been ‘planned out’ for years.
Growing up, everyone was completely certain that he would present as an omega. He showed all of the signs the pack deemed fitting for that subgender. Hyunjin was soft natured, gentle and sensitive. His closest friends were also predicted to present as omegas, and when he wasn’t with them he was following the older omegas around, helping them with chores to learn how to provide for an alpha when that became his role in the future. He was dedicated to growing up and becoming the best omega he could be, wanting nothing more than to fit in with the traditions of his pack.
He could distinctly remember how the older omegas would always remind him not to try to grow up too fast; that being a child was wonderful and filled with the memories he would treasure for the rest of his life. Looking back, their words seemed naïve; but how could they know what was destined to become of their pack?
When Hyunjin was sixteen years old, the pack alpha died in a sudden and unfortunate fight against a neighbouring enemy pack. He’d been torn to pieces, a vindictive assault that took away someone who Hyunjin had treasured and looked up to. The alpha had always fought on the front lines when it came to defending his pack, refusing to hold back from protecting what was his. Hyunjin had always admired him for that but after his death he wished the alpha had just stayed safe and away from danger that day.
Merely an hour after the alpha was pronounced dead, the pack broke into chaos. Without an alpha, the strongest alphas in the pack turned on each other, fighting for the right to be the next pack leader. It was a bloodbath, a fight to the death with no one to control them. The betas treated the wounded and got rid of the bodies and the omegas protected the children, trying to hide them from the destruction.
Despite their attempts the pups away, Hyunjin could still vividly remember how it all unfolded; the alpha being carried back to the village, limbs lying lifelessly, blood and flesh dripping and hanging from his body as his passing was announced, the snarling and snapping that grew stronger until the explosion of an alpha brawl took over their village centre. They were merciless, feral in a way Hyunjin had never seen before. That was the day he considered himself no longer a child.
Their new pack leader wasn’t anything like the old one. He was vicious and cruel. One toe out of line and the punishments could range from public lashings all the way to a death sentence. If the pack was traditional with its values before, it was much worse now. Alphas were on top, they had the freedom to do whatever they wanted as long as it didn’t threaten the pack leader's position. They were allowed, or more so encouraged to act as brutally as ‘a good alpha should’, and the whole dynamic of the once close-knit pack shifted.
Betas were deemed almost purposeless. They couldn’t birth pups and it was difficult for them to impregnate an omega, making them ‘far less superior’. Their title became the ‘workers’; they were the ones who provided for the village; cooking, cleaning, building, repairing, providing medical assistance.
Worst of all, was the omegas. Under new leadership, omegas were only deemed fit for one thing; breeding.
“They were made for it! Why else would they be begging for a knot every three months?” The new alpha would laugh with his devout alpha followers.
Hyunjin hated it. ‘Hate’ wasn’t strong enough of a word. He despised it so much that the physical ache in his chest never seemed to ease. He hated watching the abuse the omegas received. Over time it was his friends who started to receive it, now newly presented and just a couple of years older than Hyunjin. They’d come home bloody and bruised and broken, both physically and emotionally. When they were not ‘used for their purpose’, they were being paraded around as an accessory or on display for alpha entertainment.
From growing up as a child who couldn’t wait to present, dreaming of the day he’d be paired with an alpha who would take care of him for the rest of his life- he now absolutely dreaded it, the sharpness of the whiplash caused by a single event so sudden and painful that it almost seemed tangible. The day he presented was the worst day of his life.
Subgender presentations started off in a similar way, head and body aches that were paired with a fever and nausea, uncomfortable but not unbearable.
For presenting betas, this dissipated after a couple of days and there was a natural shift that could be identified as their presentation. This was because betas didn’t experience heats like omegas or ruts like alphas. Betas had it easy, in Hyunjin’s opinion.
For alphas and omegas, this was where the experience diverged. Omegas became wet with slick, desperate for an alpha knot to make the burning, cramping sensation in their abdomens relax; seeking the euphoria and comfort that came with it. Their bodies were hardwired to submit, to give everything they could over to an alpha. To Hyunjin, this was the only way omega’s could be, he’d never imagined or witnessed the possibility of an omega not abiding by these characteristics.
Alphas however, entered their ut. Their fevers ran high, a burning, unbearable heat that could only be sedated by burying their knot inside a tight, wet omega. Alphas could become aggressive, feral even, It was sheer, undeniable dominance.
The wolf transformation came within days of the presentation, two or three for the betas, and four or five for alphas and omegas.
Hyunjin presented two months after his eighteenth birthday, in the usual timeframe of a presenting shifter. He’d had all the usual symptoms, spending the first two days restless in the bed of his assigned room, omegas patting his skin with cool wet cloths to help with his rising fever. The presenting clinics were cold and sterile, the only place in the village that valued more modern technology. It was like being in one of the cities south of the territory but those thoughts were easily ripped away by the discomfort that demanded to be felt.
Then the need set in. His skin burned and it felt as though someone was trying to stab him from the inside out, all over his body, prickling under his skin and making his bones throb. Worst of all, his cock ached. This should have been the first signal that his presentation wasn’t about to go the way everyone expected it to.
His brain went hazy as everything felt too stifling. His cock was too dry . He needed pressure, he needed to be inside of something warm and slick so the stabbing feeling could subside. He craved security and safety; someone to hold him, to be attached to him.
He was too out of it to know what was going on but he vaguely remembered the worrying murmurs of the omegas as they called in a beta doctor to inspect him. Initially they thought that he was having complications with his omega presentation, that that was the only explanation- not that Hyunjin could ever possibly be anything but an omega…
The doctor noted that he wasn’t presenting any slick, yet he was still a whimpering mess, crying, reaching out to be held. Looking back, Hyunjin thought he must have looked pathetic.
“Touch yourself,” The doctor instructed with a deep set frown on his face.
Hyunjin had let out a pathetic whine. He’d have been humiliated if he had the emotional capability to process the situation. His hand shakily extended down between his legs, fingers twitching as they hovered over his hole.
“Not there–” The beta snapped sharply, grabbing his hand away and moving it up to his cock. Hyunjin let out another noise, a whimpered gasp, high and trembling as his hand made contact with his weeping cock.
It was the first time Hyunjin had physically touched himself since his presentation began, his body too confused to know what to do until now. As he stroked himself the pain slowly but surely began to dilute into a lighter more bearable throb. It was a deep ache but he no longer felt like tearing his own skin to shreds anymore.
His drooling precome lubed the glide of his hand, elevating the sensation. Within two minutes he felt something expanding at the base of his cock, sensitive and growing until his hands were squeezing it with a pressure that felt too good to let go. His hips bucked into it before he cried out in sobbing desperation, come shooting off in thick ropes that landed over his stomach and chest. Gasping out breaths, he’d managed to crack his eyes open to see his cock twitching in his hold, come still spurting out in amounts too large to be an omega’s. Only then did he register the feeling of his knot, brain defogging as terror made its way in. He wasn’t an omega. He was an alpha.
Eyes moving upwards, he was met with shocked expressions. The diagnosis was clear and he was on display for all the eyes in the room to see.
“I want to test something,” The doctor spoke up, inspecting Hyunjin’s knot after the need for pressure had subsided enough for him to let it go. How could he be an alpha?, his brain supplied between waves of hazy arousal. It didn’t take long for the heat to start to subtly build again now that he knew how to relieve it. He craved the return of the euphoria desperately.
“One of you take his knot for the next wave,” The beta instructed, looking over his glasses at the group of omegas.
This snapped Hyunjin out of his daze completely. He growled. It was distinctly one of warning but it wasn’t commanding or dominating the way alpha growls usually were. It was whimpered, laced with fear and unbelievable submissiveness; as though he knew that he could be dominated by any one of them and was begging for mercy.
“How strange,” The beta commented, eyes narrowing in on Hyunjin again, walking around the bed like a circling predator.
“We were so sure he would be an omega,” One of the omega’s supplied, the others nodding in agreement as they stood together, naturally huddling now that a presenting alpha was among them. They’d never have all been in the room if everyone hadn’t been certain that Hyunjin would present as an omega.
The doctor hummed, “His notes were very clear…even his physical appearance is one akin to an omega, besides his height, but outliers aren’t uncommon in any subgender. However, being an alpha makes him a complete outlier in all his other traits. I’ve never come across this before,” He said, shaking his head as he flipped through Hyunjin’s file as though there could’ve been something he missed. Hyunjin was the way he was, there was no explanation.
When his next wave hit, Hyunjin was begging for help, crying pleadingly at the omegas. His pupils were blown out, hair fanned around him, longer than he was supposed to have it under the pack’s guidelines, and tangled with sweat. His lips were parted, flushed red and slick and if one were to look at him without being able to smell the growing alpha scent that was making its mark on his newly presented body, they’d believe he was an omega.
Despite how much he pleaded and how much his cock ached for the relief an omega could provide, whenever the omegas tried to approach him to help, he’d growl again, snapping out at them to “Go away”. “Leave me alone”. “Don’t touch me”.
It wasn’t just the omegas, it was the thought of anyone getting near enough to him. He felt disgusted, repelled by his own being, his own desires. Terrified and confused. As much as he wanted his cock buried deep in someone, he also craved to be filled. He wanted the heat of someone, slicked up inside of him, drawing pleasure out of him as they radiated lust and dominance.
He craved an alpha as much as he craved an omega.
Alphas weren’t meant to want to submit to other alphas, or so he’d been told by his pack, but if an alpha entered the room right now he’d be begging to be filled with their cum. To be bred. None of it made sense, how was he supposed to live his life now? As an alpha ?
After days of pain and pleasure in an unbearable cycle, he got through the worst stages of his rut and into his wolf transformation.
His shifting experience was nothing like he’d always dreamed it to be. He’d envisioned rolling around amongst the daisies with the giddiness of being a new omega. But, as he watched the newly turned omegas doing what he wanted to be doing, he felt a cold, jealous ache radiate through him, distracting him from where his attention was supposed to be focussed on.
While the omegas yipped, playfully tackling each other in the grass, the alphas were thrown right into their first hunting lesson. It was the alpha’s right to provide fresh meat to the pack, keeping everyone strong and healthy. They always brought back hares or deer, sometimes mutton, with a look of pride on their wolfish faces as they dragged them into the village.
Hyunjin felt sick to his stomach as he followed his group into the woods. He didn’t want this. He didn’t like hurting other animals and he was awfully squeamish. Unsurprisingly, he was not good at hunting.
The other new alphas were excited and boisterous, ready to catch anything that rustled through the bushes. Hyunjin hung back, his head lowered. He didn’t even know what his wolf looked like, but from the looks of his paws it seemed he had a white coat, possibly speckled with some hints of warm blonds and greys. Going by any of the looks he got from the others around him, even his appearance stood out. A white wolf expected to hunt in a deep green forest? Not exactly ideal. He wasn’t as toned and sturdy as they looked either, rather more slender and light on his feat. He would later be told he was far too elegant to be a hunting alpha, and it wasn’t said in the way of a compliment.
He didn’t catch a single animal from the hunt. That's when the bullying began.
Over the following days word spread around that Hyunjin was an alpha and even those that hadn’t met him were enthralled in the gossip that had taken over the community.
The omegas who’d previously been teaching him how to provide for an alpha distanced themselves from him. His friend group, who all ended up presenting as omegas, told him they weren’t comfortable around him anymore. He smelt too much like an alpha and they didn’t like feeling on edge. He smelled strange. So, if smelling like an alpha when he didn’t want to be one wasn’t bad enough, apparently he also didn’t smell like a good one.
The group of alphas that’d taken it upon themselves to make Hyunjin’s life exponentially harder, gave him a bit more of an idea of what he smelt like. “How can an alpha smell so fragile? You smell like those flowers out in the damn field. You might as well just smell like grass,” They’d laugh mockingly.
Smelling like grass turned into smelling like dirt, which had the group yelling out "Hyunjin's dirty, Hyunjin’s dirty!” every time they’d spot him. None of the older members of the pack did anything, and the younger, not yet presented kids were encouraged to pick on him. Hyunjin’s abnormalities became everyone's favourite conversational pastime.
How could people go from finding him sweet and kind, to downright repulsive? He’d look at himself in the mirror and no longer admire the features he used to love about himself. He’d sob, watching the tears stream down his soft skin that was ‘too pretty yet too ugly’ to be alpha skin. And one day, after having his ‘once been beautiful’ hair yanked back painfully to the point where his eyes stung and his scalp burned, he finally snapped. He took a pair of kitchen scissors to his long locks and chopped them off.
It was one less thing they could hate about him and one more thing he could hate about himself.
Under the new ruling, newly presented shifters couldn't mate for two years after their presentation. The pack leader had proclaimed that alphas needed to try out all the potential omegas they wanted before they decided on the best mate.
This ruling actually gave Hyunjin the only relief he’d had since presenting. He wasn’t forced into a mating bond so he could choose to not sleep with anyone at all. He was allowed to spend his ruts alone, despite the judgement he received, but no one could force an omega on him. Not for two years. Just two years.
Despite being told he was ‘far too disgusting for an omega to want him’ by his alpha tormentors, Hyunjin wasn’t actually without courting requests. Over the following two years, from time to time omegas and betas would shyly request to be courted by him, all sharing a similar liking to his more gentle personality, compared to the alphas who primarily took what they wanted, when they wanted.
Hyunjin declined every request. He wasn’t unattracted to them, per se, biologically they were a good fit but they all looked at him with the expectation of an alpha; that he would be the mate an alpha should be. It wasn’t their fault, everyone in the pack was raised that way.
What if he wanted to be courted too?
Over time, the words others threw at him seeped into his skin and became his reality, his mantra. He’d settled into a state of acceptance, that who he was and how he was treated would be his life and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d never be the alpha his pack wanted him to be but if he didn’t get in the way then maybe he could live in peace and solitude. To him, that seemed like it was as good as it was going to get.
After Hyunjin’s twentieth birthday, everything came to a crashing, burning, exploding halt when the alpha announced to everyone in the village square that mating would become mandatory, meaning, Hyunjin would be forced to mate and breed an omega whether he wanted to or not. And he did not. His head spun as he listened to the announcement, proclaimed with such excitement that it made him want to throw up. He was trapped.
An event was scheduled a week from the announcement. Those who hadn’t already found a mate would take part in a mating run. All participants would come back mated, whether it was by choice or by force.
Hyunjin couldn’t shake the feeling that the announcement wasn’t coincidental with the timing of his birthday. He was widely known about in the community, even with how expansive the pack had become. If it wasn’t for being distinctly recognisable as the alpha who didn’t look or act like an alpha, it was for his reputation alone. He was the only alpha of his age group who had never experimented with anyone, in or out of his rut.
Hyunjin’s suspicion was confirmed on the day of the event. As he was preparing with the other alphas, the pack leader’s attention followed his every move with a glint of anticipation in his eyes. A shiver ran down Hyunjin’s spine. It seemed that everyone was eager to see who he would mate with.
He’d become accustomed to the sick feeling in his stomach by now, but his nerves prickled like needles over his skin. He’d bitten his nails down until they hurt and had made the inside of his lip bleed countless times over the past few days. This was it, this was when even the slimmest chance of freedom would be ripped out from under him forever, snatched from his feeble grasp. Spineless, he thought himself to be.
Was he really that spineless to believe that this, this life was all he could ever have? That he was so scared of everything around him that he didn’t dare try to free himself from the prison his life had become?
He was terrified.