Chapter Text
The rain no longer hit with force—it simply slid down the pool windows, like it was too tired to keep trying. Yunho no longer knew if the signal was back. His battery had died hours ago. The sound of the outside world felt distant, muffled, as if everything was trapped in the same warm daze that filled the air of that stuffy room.
Yunho was sitting on the floor, legs spread, Mingi's body lying between them, head resting on his thigh. The damp cloth on his forehead was already too warm—he’d have to change it again soon.
“What the fuck, Mingi…” he muttered, leaning forward to grab the water bottle he’d improvised earlier. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
He soaked the cloth and wrung it out quickly. He’d found the alpha like this after realizing he’d been in the shower for way too long. Spending that much time naked in the cold of the early morning, combined with freezing water and the constant heatwaves of rut, had likely caused the damn fever.
The heat radiating from Mingi’s body wasn’t the same as before. It wasn’t that primal, animalistic warmth that made the floor vibrate or made Yunho angry at how much he craved control.
It was the heavy, suffocating heat of a real fever.
Yunho sighed and gently ran the cloth across Mingi’s forehead, avoiding eye contact with the face so close to his own. Mingi was pale, though his lips still held some color. His long lashes barely fluttered, and he was breathing heavily, chest rising slowly, lazily.
“You really like being a handful, huh?” Yunho muttered with a humorless half-smile.
Silence. The kind that leaves way too much room for your own thoughts. And thinking—for Yunho—was always dangerous.
He lowered his eyes slowly. Mingi’s jawline, the curve of his neck, the sweaty collarbone beneath the crumpled shirt. He looked so different from the arrogant alpha who usually tried to pin him against walls with sharp words and insolent glares, always acting like some fight-loving brute.
So different... yet still the same.
Yunho’s fingers brushed Mingi’s forehead again, and then, almost casually, let his palm slide into the damp hair.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me, Mingi,” he murmured, like confessing a crime. “But if you're trying to break me too… you’ll have to do better than this.”
The late afternoon light painted everything in orange hues—almost beautiful. Almost, because nothing felt right in that room. Not the heat. Not the confusion. Not the way his chest tightened every time Mingi whimpered weakly in his sleep.
Yunho closed his eyes for just a second. Then he felt a faint tug at his shirt and frowned.
Mingi was waking up—or at least trying to.
His eyes opened slowly, small and heavy, unfocused like he had no idea where he was.
His voice came out hoarse, choked, almost childlike. Mingi blinked a few times, confused, then reached for his own forehead.
“There’s… a pool in my head…”
“What?” Yunho blinked, confused, then laughed.
“I’m serious… everything’s… floating… even my brain…” Mingi groaned softly, nuzzling against Yunho’s thigh with a muffled giggle. “Are you wet or is it me?”
“Oh, great… delirious on top of everything.” Yunho replied dryly, though a corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. “And sweaty. And gross.”
“I smell good…” Mingi mumbled, eyes closing again. “I smell like… a man.”
“More like wet towel and rotten lemon,” Yunho rolled his eyes.
“Rotten, my ass…” Mingi opened his eyes again, half-lidded, and pointed a trembling finger at Yunho’s chest. “You love my smell.”
Yunho laughed—he couldn’t help it, head falling back with a quiet chuckle. It wasn’t a lie. He just never thought Song would have to be delirious to realize it.
“You… you’re the rotten one. Got that good-boy face... but you're filthy. Filthy and you smell like… bitter coffee,” Mingi kept mumbling, his eyes barely open.
“Bitter coffee?”
“It’s sexy… I like it.”
Yunho blinked, caught off guard for a moment.
“Right.” He quickly reached for the cloth again. “Let’s lower that fever before you start proposing.”
“Not a chance…” Mingi muttered, eyes already drifting shut. “I’ll only marry you if you promise to let me win the fights…”
“Forget it.” Yunho smiled, pressing the towel to his forehead. “You’ll die single.”
Mingi chuckled softly, nestling deeper against Yunho’s thigh like it was the coziest pillow in the world.
“You’re warm…”
Yunho looked down at the top of his head, breath hitching, heart racing, and all his walls crashing down at once.
“You’re the one burning up, idiot,” he muttered, and almost automatically, his fingers slid back into Mingi’s hair.
“…I’m thirsty.” Mingi’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Drink slowly.” Yunho shifted, pulling the water bottle over.
He cradled Mingi’s neck, helping him drink. The alpha accepted silently, eyes locked on Yunho’s over the bottle, more lucid now. When he finished, he licked his lips slowly, like he hadn’t tasted water in days.
“Thanks.”
“Wow, that hard to say?” Yunho teased, raising a brow.
“Very.” Mingi smiled. “The fever must’ve fried my arrogance.”
Yunho chuckled, and Mingi just lay there, staring ahead. Thoughtful. His hands clutched the cloth on his chest like it could anchor him to something, his eyes lost in no particular spot.
“Hey.” Yunho nudged his forehead gently, worried about the look on his face. “What is it?”
Mingi took a while to answer.
“I don’t know… this thing you do to me.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Yunho didn’t dare speak. Mingi didn’t seem delirious—he seemed fragile. Like he just wanted to be heard without judgment.
And even though Yunho always had a smartass or sarcastic remark ready, he chose to stay quiet.
“When I look at you… I get angry,” Mingi confessed, his lips trembling slightly. “Angry at you, at myself... Angry at the freedom you have to be whatever you want without pressure.”
“Angry?” Yunho repeated—not mocking, just confused.
“Yeah.” Mingi bit his lip. “Since I met you, I’ve felt it… You make me want things I never allowed myself to think about.”
“Like what?”
The alpha hesitated.
“To be… smaller. Less...” He made a vague hand gesture. “Less of what they expect me to be.”
Yunho stayed quiet, just listening. Mingi was opening up in a way he never imagined. This wasn’t the time for games or pretending there was nothing deeper between them. This was the time to just be there.
“I’m an alpha,” Mingi continued, almost like trying to convince himself. “Raised to be one. To be strong. To lead. To never yield.”
“But you yield,” Yunho said quietly, trying to follow the path of Mingi’s thoughts.
“With you,” the alpha admitted, eyes on the ceiling.
The silence stretched—too thick to cut through.
“And you hate that?” Yunho asked, voice soft, trying to break through the walls without force.
“I hate it with everything I have… because I like it.”
The confession came choked, like it hurt to say. Mingi raised an arm to cover his eyes.
“I like how you make me feel small. Weak. Like you’re stronger than me…” he whispered, trying to keep his voice steady, though it trembled. “I like your scent, even when it pisses me off... I like when you shut me up with a look…” He laughed softly, like recalling something. “Even when you tease me… I like it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking that, Mingi…” Yunho’s voice was soft, careful, like Mingi’s feverish body in his lap was made of glass. “It doesn’t make you any less… It just makes you more honest.”
“And what if that’s all I am?” Mingi lowered his arm, revealing teary, intense brown eyes.
“All what?”
“Just an alpha who hates being… an alpha,” he whispered. “An alpha hopelessly obsessed with the idea of… being tamed.”
Yunho leaned closer, expression serious—but not judgmental. No surprise. Just a quiet tenderness forming on his face.
“Then be.”
“Even if it’s because of some cocky-ass beta?” Mingi teased weakly.
Yunho smirked, that strange warmth blooming in his chest again.
“Especially because of that.”
In a calm motion, he leaned in, thumb brushing sweat from Mingi’s cheek. For the first time in a long while, Yunho felt restless. Stirred. Completely and irreversibly in love.
“You don’t have to fight what you feel,” Yunho whispered. “Just... let me guide you.”
He was still close—so close Mingi could count the strands of his fringe, feel the heat radiating from him like a promise. Mingi knew if he didn’t say everything now, he never would.
“And what if… what if all I want is you?”
Yunho’s eyes widened—not with surprise, but impact.
“What if my deepest, dirtiest, most desperate desire… is you?”
“Mingi…”
“I get it now, Yunho…” He let out a breathless laugh. “It took a while, but… I spent so long pretending to hate you, because it was easier than admitting how I felt... Admitting that, sometimes... I wished I were different. So maybe... I could be yours. That all these feelings started after I met you.”
It was raw. Too sincere to fit into mere words. Like Mingi was placing all his emotions in Yunho’s hands, hoping he’d handle them with care.
Yunho looked at him like he was watching something beautiful fall apart—or finally fall into place.
With his hand on Mingi’s face, thumb tracing gently over his feverish skin, he whispered:
“I always knew.”
Yeah, he always did.
Mingi smiled, lips parted, and that was all it took. Yunho leaned in, and the kiss came fast, wet, overwhelming.
No teasing. No games.
It was real.
And full of everything they’d tried to hide behind punches, screams, and provocations since the moment their eyes first met. Mingi responded hungrily, one hand gripping Yunho’s neck, pulling him closer. Their bodies shifted on the makeshift mattress, heat rising between crumpled towels and shaky breaths.
The taste was salty, sweet, feverish. Pure.
Yunho bit softly at Mingi’s lower lip, pulling gently, and the alpha let out a low moan, almost pleading. But when they finally parted, Yunho’s eyes were still glowing.
“I… I don’t really know what I want,” Mingi confessed one last time. “Or how to handle all this… But I want it.”
Yunho rested his forehead against Mingi’s, breathing hard, smiling softly.
“I’ll take care of every part of it, Mingi… I promise.”
The game was never fair.
But now, they were finally playing with all their cards face-up.