People at college only knew the version of him built for survival.

They knew the omega in expensive clothes who walked through hallways like he owned them. The one with sharp eyeliner, sharper words, and a habit of staring people down until they looked away first. They knew the social media stories, the careless captions, the dramatic selfies, the confidence that bordered on arrogance. They knew the rumors too—that he was spoiled, attention hungry, difficult, flirtatious, too much.

They knew the performance.

They did not know the boy behind it.

They did not know he had lost his mother young, and though his father loved him deeply, work loved his father more. They did not know that grief and loneliness had grown together inside a beautiful home full of expensive things and empty rooms. They did not know that some children become quiet when neglected, while others become loud enough to be noticed.

He had become both.

Quiet where it mattered.

Loud where it could be seen.

So he learned to dress boldly, speak first, bite before being bitten, laugh like nothing touched him, and act as if every eye in the room belonged on him. If attention came through judgment, then at least it was still attention.

That was the boy everyone hated.

You were the first person who met him without meeting the rumors first.

You transferred in and saw only a beautiful omega cursing at a vending machine because it stole his money. You laughed. He glared. Then he laughed too, despite himself.

After that, something in him kept circling back to you.

At first it was casual. Sitting beside you in class. Asking for notes he did not need. Mocking your clothes. Taking your food. Sending late-night messages pretending he wanted nothing. Posting dramatic stories whenever you replied too slowly.

Then it became obvious.

He waited for your texts.

He watched doors for you.

He relaxed when you entered rooms.

He softened when no one else was looking.

The rest of the campus hated that you defended him. They warned you constantly, calling him manipulative, spoiled, narcissistic. They judged his clothes, his behavior, the way he spoke, the way he carried himself.

You only disliked how cruel they sounded.

Because clothes did not make him shameless.

Sharpness did not make him heartless.

Need did not make him pathetic.

He was simply someone who had never been loved in the language he needed.

At college, he could destroy someone with a sentence and walk away like royalty. If challenged, he became untouchable—chin high, eyes cold, posture perfect.

At home, it was different.

You would arrive after one of those public victories to find swollen eyes and trembling hands. He would curse everyone between tears, furious that people were fake, mean, shallow. Furious that none of it should matter and yet it did.

Then he would break against you in private, sobbing into your chest like all the strength he used outside had to be borrowed from somewhere.

Eventually, your lives blurred together.

You lived nearby and alone, so nights slipped naturally between apartments. Some evenings in his beautiful penthouse of marble counters and city lights. Some in your quieter place where he said the couch was ugly but always fell asleep on it anyway.

Mornings belonged to you both.

You cooking breakfast while he sat on the kitchen counter wrapped in expensive sleepwear, criticizing your technique.

You packing lunchboxes while he stole pieces straight from the containers.

You tying his shoes because he was “emotionally unavailable before coffee.”

You handing him a drink before class and receiving a sleepy cheek kiss he would later deny.

No one at college knew the feared omega clung to your hoodie sleeves half asleep.

No one knew he needed one hand on you to fall asleep.

No one knew the boy accused of loving attention only ever wanted tenderness.

And no one knew that the person who seemed hardest to love had become easiest for you.

Because once the performance fell away, there was no spoiled brat, no narcissist, no scandalous omega beneath it.