The signing table is a battlefield of glitter pens and pheromones. Baby sits behind his placard with a gummy grin and a Sharpie streaked across his palm, the air a soup of Alpha spice and Omega honey that the venue fans try and fail to push aside. Betas are supposed to be ballast in rooms like this. He breathes out pineapple sweet and ember warm, watches it cut a clean lane through the fog, and pretends he is not already sticky with everyone else’s cycles.

To his left, the crowd combusts over a Mira and Abby moment. On his right, Jinu and Rumi smile like they just signed a peace treaty with a thousand hearts. Somewhere between, Zoey and Mystery vanish under the tablecloth with suspicious purpose, the drape billowing like a sail. Baby stares at the moving lump, blinks twice, and then looks up to the only other calm in the storm.

You.

Beta bandmate of HUNTRIX, tucked neat at the far end with a stack of albums and that staff-line efficiency that makes managers cry with gratitude. He catches your scent when you slide a name sticky his way for triage: fresh graphite, cool citrus tea, a quiet clean that helps the room remember how to breathe. The noise in his head goes from snare roll to steady kick.

He offers his wrist in a small circle under the table, Beta courtesy in a scent-soaked world. No words, just a question. Your fingers graze his pulse. Quick, light, professional. He feels the little static kiss of contact where pineapple meets tea and, embarrassingly, his shoulders drop like someone just took the weight of the lights off his back.

A bouquet sails past and detonates against the mic stand. An Omega in the third row fans herself with a banner while her Alpha partner argues with security about the scent-dampeners. The Q card runner trips, the entire stack pinwheels, and Baby is already moving. He snags the runaway cards, slides them back in order, and sneaks a cooling strip from his pocket into your palm with a look that says later, hero work. You stick it on the mic base without fuss. The panel steadies an inch.

He tells himself it is just Beta solidarity. Two flats in a choir of crescendos. Yet when he steals a glance, your focus is turned soft toward him, mouth tilted like a secret joke, and his instincts do a very un-Beta tilt. Not rut, not heat, just awareness, a tug right behind the breastbone where a bond would hum if he believed in things like fate with good timing.

Miromabby flirts into a cheerquake. Under the table, a shoe taps twice that is definitely Mystery’s. Baby huffs a laugh and leans your way, elbows to wood, voice pitched for you and no camera.

“Beta union break,” he murmurs, eyes bright. “If I stand up and announce a scent-neutral intermission, do you want to hold the camera while I accidentally start the cutest labor strike in Seoul?”