Wanting Huo Jin

"I want it so badly."

"Can I... find an Omega? I'll take responsibility..."

"Ji Chi." Huo Jin's tone was stern. "No."

"But I want to have sex."

Then come to Huo Jin.

Huo Jin left those words unspoken.

Ji Chi's faint voice took careful listening to make out. "Your voice... sounds so nice..."

"A little like Huo Jin's."

Huo Jin's heart clenched.

He hadn't noticed.

For a moment, Huo Jin felt relieved, but then his worry for Ji Chi deepened. He had no idea how far gone he was.

"Chi-Chi..." Huo Jin's voice grew gentler still. "Listen to me."

"Pull open the purple ribbon on Little Bunny's ear."

Ji Chi furrowed his brow and tried to fiddle with the bunny's ear. Inexplicably obedient, he rubbed at it, feeling around. "Why?"

"Pull the ribbon open," Huo Jin repeated. Ji Chi desperately needed soothing right now.

"But it'll break."

"It won't break," Huo Jin said. "Have you opened it?"

After a long moment, Ji Chi pulled the ribbon open. "It's open..."

The next second, Ji Chi flared up. He stared at the bunny's ear where he had pulled it open, panicked and hurt, as though something precious had been smashed to pieces. "My bunny... it's torn..."

"It's torn..."

"Replace it... replace it..." Ji Chi spoke those words with particular clarity. The misery and resentment in his voice made one want to hold him and coax him.

"Chi-Chi... be quiet," Huo Jin soothed gently.

"Quiet."

"The bunny isn't torn. You just have to tie the ribbon back on later."

That seemed to help. Ji Chi grew less agitated, though he still didn't quite understand what Huo Jin meant.

"You see that little hole, right? There's a bracelet with a teardrop on it inside. Take it out."

Huo Jin tried to make himself as clear as possible, especially with Ji Chi in his current state. He had to make sure he understood.

"Have you got it?" Huo Jin asked about half a minute later.

Ji Chi followed Huo Jin's instructions, rummaging inside the hole in the bunny's ear.

Weak as he was, Ji Chi moved very slowly.

A minute later, his soft, low voice sounded.

"I've got it..."

Ji Chi lay sprawled on the floor, holding the bracelet Huo Jin had described.

In the dim, uncertain light, the teardrop shone with extraordinary brilliance, its rippling colors flashing like a gemstone's fire.

So pretty...

"Be good and bite through it. Bite through that teardrop-shaped Springstone."

The softly coaxing voice reached his ear again.

Ji Chi stroked the Springstone in his palm. It looked as though a pool of liquid lay inside.

When he shook it gently, it rippled like water.

With trembling hands, Ji Chi brought the bracelet to his mouth and obediently bit into it.

He was so weak that it took several bites before he managed to break the Springstone.

The instant that teardrop-shaped Springstone shattered.

Fierce, unrestrained cold purple sandalwood pheromones surged in like sea winds and towering waves-!

They were so potent they nearly submerged Ji Chi.

Snowy mountains crumbled, streams brushed past, and an endless snowy wind drifted and swirled around him, like a shot of adrenaline given to someone on the brink of death, a drowning fish surfacing, a suffocating person coming back to life.

At its very core was cold purple sandalwood.

It was Huo Jin's scent...

The cold, aloof pheromones enveloped him.

Ji Chi breathed heavily. That comfort felt less like saving himself than finally being born anew.

The sensation overturned mountains and waters, a hundred times more concentrated than the pheromones Ji Chi had smelled at Huo Jin's side.

Raging fire sank into an icy cavern, and even some of his strength seemed to return.

It feels so good...

"Chi-Chi..." After hearing nothing for a long while, Huo Jin called out in a low voice.

Though Ji Chi's body felt better, his thoughts remained lost in a haze.

All he knew was that the voice on the other end sounded lovely.

"I'm here..." Ji Chi answered.

"Do you feel better?"

Ji Chi curled around Little Bunny and lowered his eyes. "Mm..."

Huo Jin let out a long breath. "Then tell me, what do you want to do right now? What do you want?"

Huo Jin had placed that pheromone bracelet inside from the start, so Ji Chi wouldn't hurt himself because of his heat.

As long as he held the bunny, his heightened sensitivity during heat would ensure he discovered it.

He didn't want to hurt Ji Chi again.

No matter the circumstances.

Whatever choice Ji Chi made, he wanted to make sure he had a way out.

This beginning was twisted.

And it was destined to be nothing but twisted.

An Alpha in heat was irritable and difficult to soothe, every need magnified thousands upon thousands of times.

Huo Jin wanted to know what was on Ji Chi's mind right now.

Ji Chi fell silent for a long time. Finally, somewhere between lucidity and delirium, he said, "I want... Huo Jin."