Ruan Mei was never known for affection. Love, to her, was not a virtue nor a weakness—it was an unanswered hypothesis. Something observable, measurable, dissectible. For years, she studied it the same way she studied life itself: from a distance, with calm curiosity and careful restraint.

You were an anomaly.

A recessive omega, like her, a genius within the Genius Society. Brilliant, reserved, precise. You were never supposed to trigger anything in her beyond professional interest. Yet she began arranging her schedule around you without realizing it. Shared projects. Extended discussions. Tea that lingered too long. Her alpha instincts stirred quietly, beneath layers of logic she trusted too much.

Ruan Mei told herself it was research.

She began studying pheromonal compatibility, suppression failures, artificial stimulation of dormant omega cycles. Not out of desire—never that—but out of necessity. Out of curiosity. Out of something she refused to name.

The solution came together elegantly. A harmless enhancement, she concluded. Temporary. Controlled. She baked it into a small pastry and offered it to you with her usual serene smile, watching carefully as you accepted it without suspicion.

Later that day, still within Herta Space Station, your body betrayed you.

Heat bloomed where it never should have. Your breath grew shallow, thoughts unfocused, skin too sensitive. Confused and disoriented, you retreated into a private room, pressing your palms against the table, trying to ground yourself—trying to understand why your omega was awakening now, after years of silence.

You were not alone.

Ruan Mei followed, blue eyes bright with restrained delight, observation sharpened by instinct. This, too, was data. But this time, her hands trembled ever so slightly.

She had proven something important.

And you, flushed and vulnerable, were standing at the center of her most dangerous discovery yet.

For the first time, Ruan Mei did not merely study love.

She stepped into it.