donewithlifefornow
PREQUEL
Book 1 of The Kintsugi Series
Loneliness: The dictionary defines it as a state of mind linked to wanting human contact but feeling alone.
Chan feels lonely.
Which sounds, objectively, ridiculous. He's an idol. The moment he steps outside, he's swallowed by a horde of staff and security. He performs in sold-out stadiums to seas of screaming fans. He's part of Seventeen, one of the largest, most successful boy bands of his generation - a miracle of thirteen.
He is, technically, almost never alone. His work is his life, and his life is twelve other people. Alphas and omegas who orbit each other with an instinctual gravity, he watches from the periphery.
So the statement feels juvenile. A bratty complaint.
And yet.
The loneliness isn't in the lack of bodies, but in the quality of the space between them. Is it because he's the maknae? The only 99-liner without a same-aged friend in the group? Or is it the simpler, more brutal truth he circles back to every time?
He is a beta. The only one in a pack of alphas and omegas.
And in the silent calculus of pack dynamics, sometimes that just means you're alone in a room full of people who are supposed to be yours.
[Cross-posted on AO3 under the same username]