5

"Not so fast."

Kai wished he could take it back the moment he said it.

Too late.

The door flew open and slammed against the wall.

Marco stood in the frame, chest heaving, eyes wild. He didn't ask questions. He crossed the room, grabbed Emma by the collar, and dragged him backward like he weighed nothing.

"Get away from him."

Emma stumbled, nearly hit the floor.

Marco already had Kai by the wrist, pulling him upright, scanning him head to toe.

"Are you hurt? Did he do something?"

Kai pulled his arm free. "Are you insane right now?"

That made Marco pause.

His grip loosened. His eyes narrowed. "You're... speaking clearly."

"Yes."

"You're not  " He faltered. "Someone told me you got dragged up here drunk."

"I walked up here on my own two feet."

Dead silence.

Emma stood a few feet away, shirt in hand, watching the two of them like he'd stumbled into a different conversation entirely. "Should I... come back?"

"We're not a thing," Kai said.

"Never," Marco said.

Both at once.

Emma looked between them, deeply unbothered. "Sure." He pulled the shirt over his head. "I'll head out."

"Hold on”

Emma was already moving toward the door.

Kai stood up. Opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Emma glanced back, reading the silence easily. One corner of his mouth lifted. "Saturday. The carnival. Come find me." He didn't wait for an answer.

The latch clicked.

Kai hadn't even agreed.

Or had he?

He sat back down heavily. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

Marco dropped onto the bed beside him, rubbing his jaw. "So you and Emma  "

"It's nothing."

"You just made plans."

"I don't even like him."

Marco turned to look at him fully. "Then what are you doing?"

Kai was quiet for a moment. "He's the kind of person who shows up. Who remembers things. Who doesn't make everything complicated?"

"That describes a good coworker, not a boyfriend."

Kai didn't respond.

Marco sighed. "Alright. Fine. Whatever."

A pause.

Then he said it.

"Mom called earlier. Said something about Alex."

Kai's head snapped up so fast Marco actually flinched.

"I knew it." Marco stood, shaking his head. "Four years, Kai. Four."

"What did she say."

Not a question. A demand.

Marco looked at him for a long moment. "She thinks he's getting serious with someone. Met her during his last deployment. An omega."

Something cold dropped straight through Kai's stomach.

He didn't speak.

Didn't move.

Sat completely still while the information rewired something behind his ribs.

"Kai."

"I heard you."

"You're doing the thing."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Your jaw is tight."

Kai exhaled slowly and stood. "Let's just leave."

Marco didn't argue. He grabbed his jacket off the chair, and they walked out without another word.

The hallway was loud. The party downstairs was louder. None of it touched Kai.

Because buried under every rational thought was one question he couldn't shake loose 

Had Alex already chosen someone else?

And was Kai only just now realizing he'd never had a chance to begin with?

Kai picked up the bowl. Black and orange glaze, smooth edges, heavier than it looked. His mom's birthday was next week. This was perfect.

Marco's hand came out of nowhere and took it from him.

He set it back down on the table with a quiet thud.

"Three weeks to graduation and you're buying ceramics." He looked genuinely offended. "Professor Lee would cry."

The vendor    a small elderly woman    had stopped pretending to arrange her display. She was just watching them now.

"Or," Marco said, tilting the bowl slightly, "studying the competition?"

Her eyes went flat.

Kai grabbed Marco's arm and walked. Fast.

"One normal afternoon," Kai said. "That's all I'm asking."

"Define normal."

"You. Quiet. Not insulting strangers."

"That sounds miserable."

They cut through the crowd and passed a stall loaded with pastries. Kai didn't say a word. He just slowed down slightly.

Marco saw it. "I'm not five."

"You're already looking at the éclairs."

Marco handed over coins without another word and joined the small queue.

Kai moved ahead alone.

The Moonbeam Market had taken over every inch of the square    color and noise stacked on top of each other, vendors competing at full volume, the smell of food and incense mixing into something that was almost pleasant. Spirit Walk had been running four days. Five left until the Night of the Apparition.

Weekday. Thin crowd. Good.

He had three more gifts to find.

The All Hallows tradition started as spirit offerings. Leave something at the threshold, keep the wandering dead moving. Somewhere across generations it flipped    now people bought things for the living instead and called it the same holiday. Most used it as an excuse for bonfires and bad decisions.

And couples used it for everything else.

Kai watched two of them share something from a paper bag, heads bent together, completely sealed off from everyone around them.

He looked away.

He wasn't bitter. He just knew the feeling didn't exist for him    had never existed    and watching it on strangers' faces didn't make it easier to accept.

Nobody had known what he'd present as growing up. Too lean for a typical alpha, too composed for most omega predictions. His friends had argued about it for years. Marco kept a running tally in the notes app on his phone.

Omega. Final answer. Kai had presented at seventeen.

After that, the interest arrived fast.

He wasn't unaware of what people saw    the green eyes, the sharp jaw, the way he carried himself. He'd been asked out enough times to understand he wasn't the problem on paper.

But every attempt collapsed in the same place.

The moment an alpha got close    close enough for scent to travel, for skin to brush, for that particular pull to either ignite or not    nothing happened. His body went completely cold. Didn't matter how decent they were. Didn't matter how hard he tried.

The reason had a shape. He just couldn't put a name to it.

A festival. Years back. A man in a mask whose face he never fully saw and whose scent embedded itself somewhere under his sternum and never left.

Kai had told himself, repeatedly and without conviction, that it didn't count. That you couldn't spend your life waiting on a memory.

This year he'd meant it.

This year he was going to be serious about moving on. Emma was proof of that. Saturday plans. A real start.

He almost believed it.

Then the air changed.

One breath, and every thought evacuated his head.

His feet stopped. His chest locked. Something deep and involuntary surged up through him like a current hitting a live wire    his omega instincts clawing awake after years of silence, violent and certain and completely beyond his control.

That scent.

That scent.

Kai turned slowly.

Somewhere in this crowd, within maybe thirty feet, stood the only person who had ever made him feel anything.

And he had no idea what to do with that.