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"So," Mina begins bracingly halfway through dinner one night, with the air of having to deliver bad news, "My heat is coming next month."

Too lazy to dress up for their regular Friday dinner date, they've decided to remain at Mina's and order take-out—which means that at least there's no one around to witness Chaeyoung choke on her mouthful of ramyun and spend the next few moments coughing near hard enough to hack a lung out.

"Aigoo, aigoo." Through watering eyes, she senses Mina hurrying to pour her a glass of water, which she accepts gratefully.

"Oh?" she manages to rasp out between gulps of water, and feels immediately guilty when she looks up to see the shuttered expression on her girlfriend's face. Out of all the ways she could have reacted...this is probably the worst. She steels herself against the burn of spicy soup going down her windpipe, and schools her expression into something hopefully resembling composure.

"So...um. Your heat is coming. Okay. Wow." She curses herself the moment the words leave her mouth, because fuck, she hates that her instinctive reaction to feeling flustered is to become flippant.

They've never discussed the eventuality of Mina's heats before, and considering how sensitive an issue it is, Chaeyoung's been loathe to bring it up herself. They've only been dating just shy of half a year, after all, and she wanted to wait until Mina felt comfortable enough to confide in her. And now that she has, this is how Chaeyoung is reacting?

Stop being an asshole, what's wrong with you, she screams internally as she scrabbles for something else to say, but the damage is done.

"I—you know what, never mind. Forget I said anything," Mina says stiffly, and Chaeyoung starts to panic.

"No, unnie—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to react like that—I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. Please," she says beseechingly, reaching across the table to take Mina's hand. Chaeyoung counts it as a win when she doesn't pull away, and instead just glances down at their clasped hands, expression unfathomable. "I'm sorry," she repeats earnestly. "Please, talk to me?"

Mina bites her lip and stays stubbornly silent.

"Come on," Chaeyoung wheedles, sensing an opening, "Didn't you promise to never get mad at me anymore? Remember, when I got you that signed copy of Atlantis Princess ?"

It works. "I don't know what possessed me to say that," Mina grumbles with a put-upon sigh, but there's a small smile teasing at the corners of her mouth.

"You know why," Chaeyoung replies breezily, then hesitates.

Her first instinct is to offer, because she's given it serious thought before...and yet she feels suddenly anxious, now that Mina has finally broached the topic, because she isn't sure what Mina wants, and she doesn't want to put her in a spot, or pressure her, or worse still, force her into an arrangement she's uncomfortable with, and perhaps the only reason Mina brought it up in the first place was to tell her that she's made other arrangements, and Chaeyoung honestly isn't confident that she'll be able to pretend like she's unaffected if that's the case—

"I was wondering. If you would, by any chance, like to spend my heat with me?"

It's the tentative phrasing, and the way she's chewing nervously on her lip despite the formal evenness of her tone, that instantly makes up Chaeyoung's mind.

"It's okay if you're not comfortable with it," Mina adds hurriedly, cheeks pinking, "no pressure, really, I've gone through it on my own countless times before, and I can do it again—"

"Of course I want to," Chaeyoung interrupts. She squeezes Mina's hand comfortingly, even though her heart is beating fast. "Of course I want to spend your heat with you."

"Oh. Okay." Mina seems stunned, as if she hadn't prepared herself for the possibility that Chaeyoung might actually say yes, and so easily at that. She continues, flustered, "I mean, you don't have to decide now, you know. You can, like, think over it for a couple of days first?"

"I can, if you want me to. But my answer won't change. And I wouldn't say yes now if I didn't mean it." She resists the urge to add but are you sure? She knows that Mina would never ask if she wasn't. And yet. She can't quite wrap her head around the fact that Mina actually trusts her enough for this. It's a heady notion.

"Plus," she adds with a smirk, to try and lighten the mood, "it's not like I haven't thought about it before."

It's not a lie; because Mina is beautiful, and Chaeyoung would truly have to be some kind of...sex-repulsed puritan to not have fantasized about her girlfriend in the throes of heat: lost in a lust-fuelled frenzy and entirely dependent on Chaeyoung to satisfy and take care of her. She's only vaguely embarrassed by the number of times over the last few months that she's woken up, already hard, from hazy dreams of Mina moaning and begging to be fucked, when all she can do is shove off her underwear in sleep-addled desperation and jack off to the thought of the expression on Mina's face when she comes around her knot for the first time. Her orgasm usually hits within minutes.

"Oh." Mina flushes with shyness and pleasure both, obviously clued into what's running through her mind.

"I mean, how can I not? When it comes to you..." She shakes her head with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm not some sort of saint, you know. What can I do about the fact that my girlfriend is the hottest, sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world?"

"Eurgh, don't be gross," Mina complains, despite the huge smile breaking across her face.

"It's true!" Then, more seriously, because Chaeyoung feels a sudden urgent need for Mina to understand how completely she has been ensnared by her, both body and soul, "And it's you. Of course I'll be there for you. I can't say no to you. You know that." She swallows hard. "I'm glad that you asked. I'm really touched, and I—just. I'm glad. Really."

It's not a trivial thing, to go through a heat together as an unpaired alpha and omega. Not so much for propriety's sake—the traditional view is that an omega ought only to entrust their heat to an alpha they intend to properly settle down and start a family with, but neither of them were raised half as conservatively as that—but because it's such a huge step to take in any relationship.

Omegas are incredibly vulnerable once they enter heat: once the heat takes over their physical and mental capacities, they become almost completely at the mercy of whomever they choose to entrust themselves to. And at the heart of it, intimacy and trust is really what sharing heat is about. About being willing to show your most raw, uninhibited self to another person, and about being ready for the responsibility of witnessing that side of someone.

So the fact that Mina, who's so fiercely independent and hates showing any hint of vulnerability, would willingly surrender herself to Chaeyoung for the duration of her heat, speaks of how highly she regards their relationship. How highly she regards Chaeyoung.

She snaps out of thought when Mina speaks. "I trust you," she says simply. "I've never gone through a heat with someone before, but it just seemed right, to have my first time be with you."

She hesitates, looking down at her abandoned bowl of ramyun, then continues in a rush.

"Ever since I got my first heat, I've been afraid of this happening. In school, all my omega friends would fantasize about one day sharing their heat with an alpha, but there I was, just terrified at the thought. Even in songs, and movies...it's always painted as this grand, exciting, romantic thing?

"And I just...I couldn't understand it. I could never buy into that, because the thought of—of losing control like that, in front of another person—god, it was so daunting. Even back when I was with Bam, and with Tae. And it really made me feel like...like I wasn't normal. Like there was something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Chaeyoung says fiercely, heart aching at the way Mina's voice thins on her last sentence. "It is scary. It's normal to be afraid. It doesn't make you any less of an omega. And Minari––you know you don't have to force yourself to do anything you don't want to, right, because if you're not comfortable, then—"

"No, but that's the thing." Mina looks up at her, chewing on her lip. "When I think about doing it—going through my heat—with you, well. It doesn't seem so scary anymore."

Now it's Chaeyoung's turn to be dumbstruck. "Oh," she manages.

"Everything's different with you. When I'm with you—it just feels right. And I feel so sure about it."

They've only been dating for half a year, but sometimes when Mina smiles, or laughs, or when she's so engrossed in doing something that Chaeyoung has to call her name multiple times just to get her to notice her, the thought 'I want to be with this woman for the rest of my life' crosses Chaeyoung's mind. Sometimes she feels almost helpless against the magnitude of that possibility, against the depth of what she feels for Mina. Surprisingly, it scares her a lot less than she expected it to.

And to realise that Mina may feel the same way...words can't describe the emotion swelling in her chest.

"It's the same for me," she blurts out, a little breathlessly. "I mean—mina, meeting you is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Nothing—no-one—makes me happier than you do."

"Oh, Chae," Mina says softly, looking as though she might cry. "Me too."

They stare at each other for a few seconds, and then—

"Oh my god," Chaeyoung half-chokes, half-laughs, and just like that the tension breaks. "Ah, this is driving me crazy," she jokes, as Mina's face breaks into a huge smile.

She's mine, Chaeyoung suddenly realises, giddy with delight, and the next thing she knows she's moving to the opposite side of the table to kiss her girlfriend, too impatient to wait any longer. Mina throws her arms around her neck and kisses back so passionately that Chaeyoung stumbles backwards and almost smashes the back of her head into a kitchen cabinet.

"Oops," Mina whispers, once they've regained their balance, before sealing their lips together again.

Everything is a blur after that, a whirlwind of hungry kisses and roving hands and Mina's fresh, omega-sweet scent clouding her senses and making arousal pool quick and heavy in her groin.

Somehow, they make it to the bedroom—wherein proceeds the best sex Chaeyoung swears she's ever had in her life.

It's only later, when they've both calmed down somewhat from their frantic lovemaking, that they return to the topic of Mina's upcoming heat.

They're lying shoulder-to-shoulder on their backs in bed, and Chaeyoung's chest is still heaving when Mina turns her head to look at her. There's a faint sheen of sweat over her face, and errant strands of hair falls over her flushed cheek. She's positively glowing, and Chaeyoung can't help marvelling, for what must be the billionth time, at how fucking pretty her girlfriend is.

"What about you?"

"What about me, what?" Chaeyoung replies lazily, reaching out to push the hair back from Mina's face.

"Have you been through a heat with anyone, I mean."

"Once," Chaeyoung admits. "It was with Somi. We'd been dating for so long, so we thought we were ready, and, well—you know how that turned out." She chuckles ruefully at the memory of her first ever proper relationship, way back in college. It was painful and messy and ended in the worst possible way, and she spent a good two years after that falling in and out of depression and dangerous self-loathing; but she's relieved to be able to say that she's moved on completely now.

"Oh. I didn't know there was a heat involved."

"Yeah. We broke up for so many reasons, but the heat was the tipping point? The stupidest part is that we thought that doing it would actually help us to salvage our relationship. Ah, but that was ages ago; we were both way too young and immature and it would never have worked out between us anyway."

"So I take that the heat was...a bad experience?"

Chaeyoung grimaces. "Honestly? I don't remember very much of it. I think I essentially just wiped it from my memory, because everything that followed after that was so traumatic."

Mina rolls onto her side to face Chaeyoung, looking concerned. "I'm sorry things with Somi ended so badly," she says softly. "I wish you didn't have to go through that."

"No, it's okay. I mean, you don't have to worry that it'll affect how I am when your heat comes. I'll take care of you."

Mina shakes her head with a rueful smile. "I wish it hadn't happened to you. I wasn't worrying about myself, silly."

"Oh."

"I'm not worried. I trust you, remember?"

A frisson of pleasure runs through her. "Okay."

Mina smiles, leans in to press their lips together. "You always take good care of me," she whispers, after she pulls away. "I'm not worried about that."

A question suddenly pops into Chaeyoung's head. "You said just now that you've never been through a heat with an alpha before. So how've you been managing your heats, all this time?"

"In the past few years...heat modulators, mostly. I've tried suppressants a couple of times, but the side effects were awful—and the itch never really goes away, you know? Plus they say that it's not good for your body, to completely do away with your heat like that. I went to heat clinics for a few years, early on, but they're so cold and sterile and..." she trails off, shudders. "Modulators work best for me. They make my heats shorter and less intense, enough for me to manage fine alone."

Chaeyoung nods, processing this. "So you haven't had a full heat in... how long?"

"About...five years?" At Chaeyoung's expression, she makes a face and adds, "I know, I know what everyone says about going back to full heats after modulated ones."

"Have you seen your doctor about this?"

"Yeah. I told her that I was thinking of going through a full heat with my partner," and here Chaeyoung feels a pleased thrill run through her at being referred to as Mina's partner, "but at that point I hadn't even decided whether or not to ask you yet, so she told me to settle my arrangements before seeing her again. I have an appointment for next week, actually."

"I'll come with you," Chaeyoung says immediately. "I should be there too, in case there's anything important I need to know."

Mina's face brightens. "That would be nice."

"We're in this together," Chaeyoung promises, wriggling closer to Mina so she can slot her leg between hers and slip an arm around Mina's bare waist. The lingering scent of slick and arousal clings to her deliciously, and Chaeyoung inhales deeply, still a little intoxicated by it. They should probably head to the toilet to clean up, but she still feels loose-limbed and lazy from sex, and the thought of just staying in bed and cuddling for the rest of the night is such a tempting one—

"You know, the ramyun's still on the dining table. We never finished dinner."

It takes a second for the words to register. "Ah."

"The dishes need to be washed..."

Chaeyoung flops onto her back with a dramatic groan, seeing where this is going. "Noooo. No dishes."

Mina sits up with a sly grin. "Come on, we're in this together, right?"

"Don't twist my words," Chaeyoung complains, but when Mina tugs on her hand to try and drag her up, she doesn't resist.

--

There's a distinct shift in their dynamic, in the weeks leading up to Mina's heat. Chaeyoung finds herself checking up on Mina more often than usual, overcome by a strange protective urge to know where she is and what she's doing at all times. When they're out in public, she can't help but sling a perpetual arm over Mina's shoulder or around her waist, filled with an irrational but persistent desire to let the world know that Mina is hers, that they belong to each other and no one else.

Meanwhile Mina, who's never been the most physically demonstrative, becomes unusually affectionate. It's small things—like threading their fingers together and leaning her head on Chaeyoung's shoulder in the queue to get into Sulbing, or opting to sleep in and cuddle in bed on weekend mornings instead of bustling around the house cleaning like she normally does—but they stoke the flames of an ever-growing contentment that Chaeyoung has come to associate with Mina's general existence in her life.

There's a new generosity and openness in their conversations; a new slowness, a new tenderness, in the way they touch and kiss and make love. The euphoria from their mutual confessions never really fades. It feels like a bright, pulsing secret embedded in Chaeyoung's chest, its inescapable glow permeating through her entire body and bleeding into her days.

I'm in love, she wakes up most mornings thinking. I'm in love I'm in love I'm in love. She's dizzy with how good it feels; intoxicated by the knowledge that Mina might feel the same way.

Amidst that dizzy glow, they begin the rather more uninspiring, yet necessary, preparations for heat: applying for heat leave; registering to get their contraceptive shots done; preparing a take-out meal plan and ensuring Mina's kitchen is well-stocked enough to last them a foreseeable week without leaving the house; purchasing disposable linen made for heating couples so they don't have to worry about washing the sheets.

Unlike Mina, who delights in the minutiae of life's many chores and stays any course with unwavering, attentive zeal, Chaeyoung has always been impatient for the grand finish and dismissive of everything in the interim—yet there's something about the sheer domesticity of preparing for heat together that makes her engage in these ostensibly tedious tasks with unexpected enthusiasm. And there's no doubt that her alpha instincts are rearing up as Mina's heat draws near, because she's hit by increasingly forceful surges of protectiveness and determination every time she thinks about Mina's impending heat.

The next week, Chaeyoung accompanies Mina to her doctor's appointment. Dr. Lee is a well-dressed, brisk-looking beta with silver-framed spectacles and greying hair pulled back into a chignon, and she counsels them on managing a heat with such clinical frankness that Chaeyoung fortunately feels less self-conscious than she expected to.

She explains that even though Mina's heat may last a day or two longer than the four-day average, and peak more intensely seeing as she hasn't gone through a non-modulated heat in a while, there's nothing to worry about.

"I know countless couples in your exact situation who have managed fine, so don't get too anxious about it. I'll still prescribe you a low dose of modulators, for just in case your heat doesn't calm, but I recommend not to take them unless absolutely necessary. It will be good for Mina's body to get used to a full heat, especially if the two of you are thinking of conceiving within the next few years.