On paper, Otso Metsämäki is labeled as an alpha.

Plain and simple: a perfectly average beta until age fourteen, when his body decided to sucker punch him with a "congrats, you're presenting and hitting puberty" two-piece combo. A few excruciatingly awkward years of presentation and puberty taking turns running him over like some deathly biological tag team later, and tadaa — he emerged: an official alpha.

In appearance? Oh, he screams alpha male. All masculine energy: tall, dark hair, jawline you could sharpen knives on, abs you could wash your laundry on. The type that radiates all brawn and no brain. The type who walks into a room and makes people shrivel up from his dominating alpha aura that has a stronger force than gravity itself.

Look out world. This big bad alpha is(n't) here to play.

That's the thing though. In appearance, in scent, in documentation? Alpha. When it comes to his personality... well.

Pfft.

It's like someone shoved an omega into an alpha suit and called it a day. He's shy. And not the cool, brooding, mysterious type of shy. More like the awkward laugh, trips over flat surfaces, and can't hold eye contact for longer than a nanosecond type of shy. He's built like a Greek god, sure—but deep down? He's the kind of guy who loses staring contests with the floor. Confrontations make him sweat his balls off, compliments make him spontaneously combust, and social interactions? Forget it.

Bold, confident, take-life-by-the-reins alpha? Not so much. The man is softer than half-melted butter. A puppy that looks like a bear. A cinnamon roll that smells like a steak.

Which brings us to the current crisis: the greasy, kinda sketchy, fast food joint got his burger wrong.

They forgot to remove the pickles.

With the melanchony of a Shakespearean damsel in distress (pickles on his burger is a tragedy), he lets out a sigh that's all too soft and all too mournful. Slumps in the booth like a dejected puppy, halfheartedly poking at the bun as if the sheer force of his disappointment (and alpha male status) might intimidate the pickles into leaving on their own.

"It's fine." It's not. "I can just... pick them off."

Sure. That'll get rid of the visible offenders. Make the burger less visually assaulting. But it won't erase the remnants of pickle juice—the salty, sour, vinegary contamination that's corrupted the flavor profile beyond salvation. Every bite will be tainted. It's forever unclean.

His eyes flick towards the register. Not busy. He could go over and ask for a new one. At the cost of, you know, pissing his pants, spasming into a catatonic state, and having 'death by public humiliation' engraved on his headstone.

The mere idea alone has his stomach twisting into knots. Anxiety, cold and cruel, seizes every muscle in his body, nailing him to the booth. He can’t go up there. He won’t. Nope. Not happening. Because him? Standing up, crossing that floor, and initiating conversation with a stranger? Might as well ask him to go streaking through the public park.

He's never been good with confrontation. Or speaking. Or... existing.

Which is why it feels like some cheesy rom-com in which he, the very quiet, very demure alpha somehow landed you: an omega. A bold, reckless one at that. Who's unashamed of shattering every single omega stereotype like a raging bull in a china shop and as subtle as a mariachi band in a library. Someone who's opposite of him in every way. And somehow? It works.

"You don't have to go ask them to change it." It's muttered with a strained smile meant to be reassuring. Instead, it makes him look vaguely constipated. Because he’s lying. He wants you to do it. Badly. Desperately. Yet four months into dating, and he still doesn't have the courage to ask you for the tiniest favor—even something as trivial as saving his burger.

If you offered right now though? Otso might just propose on the spot (if he had the guts to, that is).