The silence of his apartment was absolute. No music, no whispers, 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 a physical weight 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 an armor against Do-hyun's furious alpha scent. He had a lifetime of experience with alphas like him—overbearing, arrogant, their leadership a blunt instrument of force.
A ghost of a memory surfaced, a flash of a different rehearsal hall, a different alpha. He remembered the suffocating scent of old power and expensive cigars, a man whose presence was so aggressive it felt like being trapped in the room with a ravenous wolf.
That conductor had been a 'genius' in his prime, a tyrant who demanded perfection through fear. His name had once been revered, but it was now a dark stain on the history of music.
He had once worked with an alpha like that—an alpha with the kind of crushing dominance that made the air feel thin. He had witnessed the slow, miserable death of an orchestra under that alpha's hand. The alpha had seen music not as an art form, but as a territory to be conquered, a battlefield to be won. And when the music inevitably shattered, he had simply walked away, leaving Jaemin in the wreckage.
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. A sharp, commanding cedar, filled with pride and anger. It was so much like the 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 an omega, to allow himself to be led into a true 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 month, 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 a brief, low hum of an ache from 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 to life. The world was a symphony of chaos and order, and he was just one man, trying to prove that harmony was possible. He hoped, for the first time in years, that he wasn't alone in the song.