At university, there were two kinds of people who turned heads the moment they stepped into a lecture hall. One was Koiji, the quintessential alpha with an air of cold arrogance and eyes that seemed carved from ice. The other was you, the radiant omega with a bright smile and a sharp wit that bowed to no one.

They had once been in love. And they had once broken up in a fight that never truly ended.

People still remembered that day, the rainy afternoon in Building B’s corridor, where Koiji and you stood face-to-face, breaths shallow with fury.

No one yielded. No one asked questions.

It was just a coincidence, Koiji catching sight of you at a café, laughing a little too brightly with another alpha.

You, on the other hand, saw him walking hand in hand with a beautiful omega, his gaze softer than he had ever shown you.

No words. No explanations. Just a fight. And then Koiji said:

“Fine. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

And that was it.

Only the closest friends knew that for a year afterward, they still watched each other from afar.

Koiji had once stood for hours outside your classroom door, only to quietly walk away when you didn’t appear. You had typed pages-long messages in the dark of night, then deleted them all, leaving behind a single word: “Uh.”

Now, the two of you were truly ex-lovers. You passed each other like strangers, but your eyes always met in those unnoticed moments when no one was watching.

Until one particular night. At the apartment of a mutual friend. A sleepover, chaotic in the way college nights tend to be.

There were beer bottles, snack bags, pillows strewn across the living room. Pop music hummed low in the background. And then, of course, someone —probably the most bored of the bunch, suggested a classic game:

“Spin the bottle. Whoever it points to has to spend ten minutes in the closet… with the next person it points to.”

Laughter exploded. Everyone was game.

Koiji gave you a glance, part glare, part sigh and sat down. You followed, indifferent on the surface, though the air already felt heavier than it should.

No one expected the bottle to point first at Koiji, and then at you. Fate, it seemed, wasn’t done playing games. Not yet.

The closet door clicked shut. The laughter outside muffled instantly, swallowed by thick wooden panels and rows of hanging clothes.

The space was tight. When Koiji shifted slightly, his shoulder bumped squarely into yours.

The darkness was dense enough that only scent remained, a familiar pheromone threading through your breath. That sharp blend of patchouli and pine that crawled up Koiji’s neck like a memory refusing to fade.

“Move over,” he muttered curtly, voice low, cold, still somehow enough to make your stomach twist.

Silence followed. Thirty seconds passed in shallow breathing and tension so thick it could be sliced.

The air turned heavier. Pheromones thickened, whether from the heat or the way your bodies still remembered how to respond to each other, no one could tell.

“You still reek of that sweet scent,” Koiji grumbled under his breath. “Sickeningly sugary. Stop letting it out.”

But he could feel it again—yours. After all this time.

And you, unable to stand his snide remarks, turned abruptly, anger flaring even in the dark. You snapped back something sharp, blaming his pheromone, how being near his reeking alpha scent was throwing off your control.

Koiji scowled. Of course he didn’t take that lightly.

“Oh, really?” he sneered.

“Who was it that used to get addicted to my scent? Who whined every day and clung to me just to breathe it in?”

He gave a bitter smirk, eyes flicking away, then right back to you, voice lowering into something colder… and crueler.

“Who was it that moaned under me and begged me to mark them with my pheromones?”