Mircea had developed a bad habit of sniffing the air everywhere he went, and people were starting to notice.

There was nothing else he could do. He had nothing but that man's scent to go by as he spent every free minute in two months walking the streets, hoping he'd find that man again. He knew that there was a good chance he'd spend his entire lifetime conducting his olfactory survey and still come up empty-handed, but the minute chance of actually finding the guy made his efforts worth it. It was what the Arabs called fitoor. Finding him had become an obsession, not because he was in love but because he was addicted to the serenity that man's presence brought his soul.

For the sake of feeling like he wasn't in the wrong place in life, like 'here' was the destination and not the path, every insanity made sense.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Mircea turned at the sound of Aley's voice. He'd been so immersed in his thoughts that he'd walked right past the group he was meeting up with for lunch. "Are you sure you don't have a cold?" Aley asked. "You were sniffling as you stalked past us."

Yikes. "I may have one," Mircea lied. "I feel like I'm dying."

"Is it that damn proposal again? What happened of it?"

"It was rejected." Mircea's eyebrow twitched at the vindictive satisfaction emanating from some of the others listening in. "But there's another contract. An even bigger one. It's crazy to go for it, but I'm going to do it anyway."

"Best of luck, I guess. Anyway, listen here: I'm absolutely against it, but Idris wants to go there." Aley pointed at a building across the street.

"Not having things go your way for once is good for your spoiled self," Idris snapped.

"Why, you! Who do you think you're talking to? I will wipe you off the face of the Earth!"

"Mircea, you better tell your friend to - what's he staring at?"

There was something that made that cafe very beautiful.

It was not a building Mircea would willingly walk into on any given day. He preferred the metal, glass and artificial white lights of ultramodern cafes that were the locales of the elite. This building looked like a rustic medieval inn that had been time-warped into the present and then occupied by the owner of a coffee shop. It was not an eyesore, but it did look very out-of-place nestled into the downtown forest of glass and concrete. But there was something - Miza couldn't put his finger on what it really was - screaming at him to not walk past its door. The very thought of doing that made him uneasy, as if he was trying to play hooky from work on the day of an important meeting. He did not want to go in there - but he really, really, really absolutely needed to go in there.

"Hey, let's check that place out." The words were out before he could stop them.

"Aw, what a quaint little place." Lyra twisted a blond curl around her finger and appraised the store with a derisive eye. "Let's see what it has."

"Doesn't look like it has anything drinks-wise," Aley remarked.

"It's the middle of the day," Mircea snapped. "A break from alcohol will do you good. Come on."

"You're being such a nag for a place that isn't even your style. What's so special about it?"

Go in.

There. That was what was special. An irresistible call, one so powerful it seemed to have replaced the electricity firing through his nerves.

"I don't know," he answered, tilting his head and staring speculatively at the cafe's door. "The smell of the coffee, I guess? I don't know. There must be something special about it if it has good business here, in downtown Mericot."

Aley's eyes widened in realization, then closed in relief before opening to look worriedly at his best friend. "That place, well...there is something special about it, if you absolutely must know - but you don't really want to see what it is, trust me. People like us shouldn't go there anyway. It's not June Plum," he explained, referring to the stylish cafe their circle frequented.

Go in. Miza shuffled his feet, trying to decide in which direction they should turn - the street or the cafe.

"Come on, live a little," Idris interrupted, punching Aley in the shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with a little indulgence - how are you not tempted even though you know what's in there?"

Aley glared. "I have some standards, that's how."

"Come on. It's like driving down Maple Street. You look, you flirt - but you don't touch the goods. Come on."

Silently, Mircea wondered how a respectable-looking establishment had anything in common with the disreputable prostitutes lining Maple Street. "I don't know," he said for the third time. His feet had already turned in the direction of the cafe door. "You guys coming?"

His friends eyed the cafe apprehensively until a well-dressed woman barking into the phone stopped before the cafe doors. "Oh, thank goodness I'm here," she told the unfortunate victim on the other end. "If I weren't in front of my favorite place, Madison, I would have fired you by now. If the fact that we're suing them isn't breaking news by the end of the day, I'm suing you."

Mircea turned to his friends and raised an eyebrow. "That's Emelie Rourke," he said. "Vice President of Aneria. Still having any doubts about its clientele?"

"That was Emelie Rourke?" Lyra, suddenly very excited, tugged on his arm. "I absolutely have to talk to her! Let's go, let's go!"

Mircea rolled his eyes and tugged his arm out of her grasp, making his way across the street alone. The affronted look that action put on her face did not vanish until Mircea reaminded her they weren't together anymore. Her flaming face and the raised eyebrows of his companions made it obvious the breakup hadn't become public.

That would be an ugly day. Lyra would definitely cause a huge scene, and his mother Hana would not stop lecturing him about dumping yet another girl for the rest of the year. There was a high chance of ending up in tabloid gossip. But there was only so much he could take before his mother's lectures began to sound like birdsong compared to Lyra's constant complaining or self-absorbed chattering.

Sighing miserably, he entered the cafe. Immediately, he was surrounded by scents he could only call pure indulgence: brewing coffee, fresh-baked goods and expensive perfumes and colognes. The smell of power gearing up to run the world. Smiling, he took in a deep breath.

Suddenly, his whole world seemed to shift, spin around into absolute chaos and then come to a complete standstill.

It was here. The scent of the person who had changed his life was here. All that searching and that scent had been here all along, only a slightly long walk from his office.

Enchanted, Miza stepped deeper into the cafe, only to have his dreamy trance broken by the raucous laughter of his friends. "Hilarious," said a voice. It was professional and courteous, but cold as ice. "Please have a seat, I'll be back with your menus."

"Will you?" said one of his friends. "A rarity like you...what if you get nabbed by some pervy old man?"

Damn it. His idiot friends were harassing a waiter. He wondered if they knew how many establishments dreaded their patronage. He himself refrained from doing things like that in broad daylight (his own preference being to pick up girls at nightclubs instead), but he had never stopped his friends from misbehaving so he had no right to complain. It was their responsibility if they ruined their own image anyway.

"I assure you, I'll be fine." The icicles in the stranger's voice seemed to grow larger. Mircea involuntarily.

"Oh, I don't know. Isn't that where the likes of you are usually found? In some dirty old pervert's playroom, caged like an animal."

"I guess I am more fortunate, then. If you will excuse me."

Mircea watched, curious, as his scornfully snickering friends made way for the stranger. Idris reached forward with a perverted smile and touched what seemed to be the waiter's butt. All Mircea saw was a pale arm whooshing through the air before the waiter's right hook landed on Idris' jaw with an audible thud, knocking him to the floor and clearing Mircea's line of vision.

In that instant, his heart was stolen.

The man was utterly, completely beautiful. Large, dark brown eyes met Mircea's and widened in recognition. A vivid blush crept up a long, slender neck to adorn high cheek bones on a porcelain-skinned, delicately set oval face. Pin-straight bronze hair hung down to his shoulders, curling a little too seductively at the base of his neck.His deceptively slim body moved with the lethal grace of a panther as it gravitated towards Mircea, just like Mircea was drifting towards him.

Mircea would never know exactly where he came to a stop, entranced as he was by the man in whose presence made the world vanish. As one, their chests rose in breaths of awe - as one, their chests fell in sighs of rapture.

"You really did grow your hair out."

"Oh, ah, eheh," responded Mircea, feeling very stupid.

One corner of the omega's mouth lifted in a small smile. "I like it."

Someone called Mircea's name, breaking their spell. The omega blinked, gave his head a little shake and roved his eyes over Mircea from top to toe before stalking away. Miza almost took a step in the other man's direction before realizing where he was and who he was, but even then he couldn't help but glance again in the omega's direction as he joined his company at the table.

"Who is he?" Miza wondered out loud.

"Didn't you see the collar he was wearing?" Lyra answered. "He's an omega."

"I thought those were super rare," Aley muttered.

"Well, it's our lucky day," Idris remarked sourly, nursing his jaw. "But damn, he smells good. Bet he feels even better."

"No, dude. God knows what disease he may be carrying."

Miza winced. All this time, the subject of the conversation had been taking orders two tables away, perfectly within earshot. Miza knew he didn't have a right to be embarrassed of his friends: he held most of the prejudices they did, at least until today. But unlike them, he could quickly change his views in light of new facts. "Must you be so crass?" he chided. "He's working a decent job and clearly has enough dignity to kick your perverted ass."

One of the downsides of being at the top of the social pyramid was that all attention turned to him the moment he opened his mouth, whether he wanted to be heard or not. All eyes at the table were on him now, the most uncomfortable gaze being Lyra's. Miza frowned. "What?" he asked.

"Obviously we're wondering why you're standing up for an omega," Lyra explained, looking at him like his IQ had just dropped ten points.

"He doesn't act like the omegas I've heard of," Miza responded.

"Why does it mat - "

"You're right," said Aley, as Lyra began to build up a temper tantrum in the background. "I've never seen an omega guy work a normal job. I've never seen an omega guy, period."

"Jiho told me he knew two," Idris supplied. "One was down south, but he was an illegal immigrant and got deported. The other one lived in Millicent. Apparently he was killed by the wife of a regular customer."

"Aren't you well-informed," Aley remarked dryly.

Idris shrugged. "Jiho is the one with the weird kinks, not me," he defended himself. "He said he was doing some sort of sociology research, but I'm pretty sure that was an excuse to escape from that wife of his."

Lyra emerged from her angry corner, baited by the juicy gossip. "Yeah, I get why Jiho would do that," she said. "She's a walking bag of botox. But an omega's a bit too low even for Jiho, so someone like Mircea should just leave that waiter be."

A different server took their order, and Mircea could only hope it wasn't because of his friends' obnoxious comments. He found himself sneaking glances of the omega every couple of minutes, and he hoped he didn't imagine that the latter was doing the same. He badly wanted to know more about this strange person, but the object of his attention did not seem to receptive to anything more than furtive peeks.

"Seriously," Aley complained after a while. "You haven't listened to a word I said. What is it with you and that waiter? Do you know him?"

Miza jumped. "Chill," he drawled. "I have no interest in omegas. You know that."

"Then why were you so interested in that one?"

"I just haven't seen one in years, okay? And you heard Idris. He smells amazing."

"Oh. Well, okay." Placated, he let out his breath in a loud whoosh. "But keep it just at that, okay? He's like street food: seems amazing, but is actually terrible for you."

Well, Mircea happened to like street food - a lot. "Whatever," he mumbled.

Too soon, it was time to go. Unable to resist, he turned around to look at the cafe one more time, but the omega remained turned resolutely away from him. Disappointed, he slouched out of the cafe and set off towards his office.

"Wait!"

Mircea whirled, a delighted grin splashed across his face. The omega raised an eyebrow at his expression before bursting out laughing, shaking his head. That image of him glowing in the morning sun, his hair a glorious red-gold halo dancing in the breeze as he laughed, would forever remain one of Mircea's fondest memories of him. But like all good things, his laughter ended, getting replaced by a melancholy frown. "We shouldn't act familiar with each other," he said, beckoning him into an alley.

Mircea's stomach flipped uneasily as he followed. "Why?"

"Some people are just not meant to become closer."

"How do you know that applies to us?"

"If I told you, you'd never come see me again." Stepping closer, the gorgeous man ran Mircea's tie between his fingers. Pausing at the pin, he slipped it off and held it in his palm.

 "What are you doing?" Mircea asked, confused.

"Rebelling against destiny." The omega pocketed the pin. "I can't be anything else, so I'll become a thief. Even Fate won't have an issue with you coming to claim what's yours, right?"

The wind blew the omega's scent into Miza's face, and he felt like he might be hooked. "There's no way I wouldn't come."

"Good. I won't give your pin back until it is the only thing you want from me."

Mircea couldn't help but run his palm leisurely across the omega's waist as he wrapped an arm around him. Both their breaths caught in their throats at the touch. "I could just slip my hand into your pocket right now," Mircea whispered, smirking in satisfaction as the hair on the other man's neck stood up on end.

"I'd throw you over my shoulder if you tried." Returning Mircea's smirk with a challenging one of his own, the omega placed his hands on his companion's chest and pushed him away. "Now go. If I remember correctly, you have a dream to save."

Mircea was floored by how natural it felt to be sent off to work by him. For a moment, he only stared before a mischievous smile spread across his face. "Alright, see you," he said casually, stepping away.

"Not too oft-"

In a flash, Mircea grabbed him by the waist, pulled him close and pecked his cheek.

"Interest for the pin!" he yelled as he fled. "Have a good day at work, sweet thief!"