The silence of his apartment was absolute. No music, no murmur of voices, no clatter of plates. It was a silence he had grown accustomed to, a quiet fortress built against the noise of the world.
Tonight, however, it felt hollow. He sat at his small table, the worn leather folder containing his copy of the Brahms score weighing heavy in his hands.
His head throbbed, a dull ache behind his eyes and at the nape of his neck. He had held himself together all day, his composure a thin shield against Do-hyun's furious alpha scent. He'd already had his share of dealing with alphas like him—arrogant, overbearing, trampling over everything and everyone else to get their way, wielding their power to cut through anything in their path.
A ghost of a memory surfaced, a flash of a different place and time, a different alpha. His hand rubbed the ache in the back of his neck and he remembered the suffocating scent of black tea and bergamot, a man whose desire to attain his goal was so aggressive it felt like being trapped in the room with a ravenous wolf.
Jaemin had once known an alpha like that. He had considered him to be a friend, a confidante. Had thought that he had been found by someone who would walk beside him to unearth new melodies in their song. But that alpha had seen music as territory to be conquered, success a battlefield to be won. Their harmony had inevitably shattered, leaving Jaemin in the wreckage. and that friendship was now a dark, aching stain in Jaemin's past.
Jaemin's own scent, a subtle, meticulously chosen sandalwood, was his greatest defense and his greatest vulnerability. Alphas could not smell his strength. They only smelled the absence of a threat, a scent he had created to seem like a harmless beta.
But Jaemin knew that his power had nothing to do with his scent, but his mind. He didn't lead by force; he commanded through a deep understanding of the music, a willingness to listen.
He closed his eyes, remembering Do-hyun's scent today, just like all the days before since Jaemin had arrived at the SPS. A sharp, commanding cedar, filled with pride and anger. It was so much like so many other alphas from his past. Yet, there was something different, a frantic undercurrent that spoke of a deep, profound loneliness. Do-hyun's music was beautiful, but it was a song sung alone.
That was why he had chosen the Brahms. The concerto was more than a challenge. It was a test. He was not just asking Do-hyun to play. He was asking him to put down his alpha pride and be vulnerable.
He was asking him to trust, to allow himself to be led into partnership. He was offering Do-hyun a way to save his orchestra, and in a way, to save himself.
Tomorrow would be the ultimate test. He had agreed to the challenge of whipping the orchestra into shape within the time leading up to the Gala, to perform in front of a disbelieving audience, ready to criticise and abandon them. The fatigue of his suppressants and the long day made his thoughts hazy, and he felt again the brief pang of pain in the back of his neck, which he ignored.
He had thrown a perfect, beautiful trap, a gauntlet that Do-hyun had chosen to accept. But a part of him was terrified. If Do-hyun couldn't make this leap, if he refused to meet Jaemin in that vulnerable space, the orchestra, and Jaemin himself, would be left in the wreckage of a different kind of failure. He was betting everything on the small, lonely boy behind the alpha mask.
He stood and walked to the window, watching the city lights flicker in the quiet night. The world was a symphony of chaos and order, and he was just one man, trying to make sense of his place in the harmony. He hoped, for the first time in years, that he wouldn't end up singing alone in the song.