The old omega had not always been a part of Moonstone pack, and in fact had grown up in a pack that had lived much closer to humans and human kind. He had grown up among wolves who, while still hiding their existence, had little to fear from their human neighbors, and that suited him just fine as a teenager and even as a young adult. When he was old enough he took a human job, waiting tables at a small, local restaurant until the power of his nose proved to make him an exceptional candidate as a wine steward. The life suited him just fine.

Donghyun proved an oddity when it came to his heats, and while his family had expected that his temperament would make him a good pack mother, he seemed less susceptible to the sway of the moon and of the pheromones that should have sent him into his cycle. Instead, he was almost twenty-two by the time he experienced a fully fledged heat. The older omegas in his pack claimed it was likely because he so rarely shifted and took on his wolf form, preferring to spend his time among humans. Whatever the cause, it proved to make him an undesirable mate among his own pack.

By his mid-twenties, Donghyun had fallen for one of his co-workers, an older cook at the restaurant he still worked in. The cook seemed receptive to his advances, though things were slow to develop between them. One day while helping to put away a delivery in the restaurant's walk-ins, one of the shelving units came off a leg, and Donghyun was the one to stop it from crushing the cook. The result was that he sustained a back injury which might have been easy to heal among humans with time, and the cook went unscathed. However, the sudden injury forced Donghyun to shift, and the cook was more mentally scarred by the sight of a mottled black wolf lying on the floor of the refrigerator.

What affection had developed kept the cook from saying anything to anyone else about the events that had transpired, but it was clear to Donghyun that those affections would not develop any further. With a bad back he was unable to work, but rather than take leave, he quit his job and returned to his pack. His injuries at the time were too severe to make him useful even in taking care of the pack's pups. His recuperation was slow, and he felt himself a burden on his pack. Though the people he had grown up amongst would never say anything, an ailing omega who was too undesirable to attract a mate even in his prime was far from an asset.

When he was well enough, he left his pack, traveling north alone. While it hadn't been his intention to seek entry to another pack, he had found one before falling to starvation in the mountains. He begged entry, and was lucky enough to get it as an omega without any real survival skills save for the fact that he had managed to find the pack without an ounce of food on him. Donghyun would think that he managed to endear himself to one of the alphas, though with no furs in his possession, no pups, a bad back, and no respect among the other omegas in spite of being the oldest one left active in the pack... that hardly seems to be the case.

01. Every flower must grow through dirt.

02. Be patient with yourself. Nothing in nature blooms all year.

03. Where flowers bloom, so does hope.

04. Talent is like a flower. You have to fully tend it if you want something beautiful.

05. You're only here for a short while. Don't hurry, and don't worry. And make sure to smell the flowers along the way.

06. A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.