"Professor, wake up, or we're gonna be late for work again!"
"Mmm... five more minutes" moaned the professor who turned to snuggle against me.
"Hey, I mean it," I hold his face and kiss his forehead, "I still have to work on an experiment when we get to the lab."
"Just a bit more... I still wanna snuggle..." Eric rubs his face on my bare chest. I sigh and stroke his shoulder length hair.
It's been four years since we started living together, and still, the professor is as hard to wake up as the day I first moved in.
"Hey," I pull away from him, "you really need to get up now."
"Ughn, my Habibi's so cruel..."
"There you go again, calling me Habibi, when you would not even tell our colleagues that we are actually sleeping together," I mumbled as I put my underwear on.
"O, are you sulking again?" He gently kissed my shoulder. "You know that I just don't want things to get complicated at work... weren't you the one who said that you didn't want some rumor to spread about us?"
"That was years ago," I answered back. "Besides, everyone already knows that we are in a relationship, they are just waiting for us to confirm it."
"Well, if that's the case, then we don't need to broadcast it anymore." He stood up and left the room before I did. "What matters most is that we're happy together," he told me with a grin.
He always walks out on me when I try to talk to him about our relationship.
I don't know if he's just shy about it, but seriously, we've been living together for four years now, what is there to be shy about? Even Pedro and Pilar have started calling me Mrs. Antonio when the professor is not around.
"Habibi, the toothpaste is almost out," he called from the bathroom. "Remind me to buy one when we go to the grocery."
"Don't call me Habibi," I called back.
It's not like he's hiding it, since he calls me Habibi in public, and even flirts with me in the open, but the mere fact that he refuses to acknowledge that we're actually a couple, irritates me sometimes.
When we got to our work place, the first thing I did was to make some coffee.
I placed some in the professor's kalabaw mug, the one that his niece gave him on his 27th birthday. The old one is currently resting on a shelf back home, right next to a picture of his deceased brother. He still refuses to get rid of it.
"Ahh... Habibi, thank you for your delicious coffee!" he said as I handed him the cup.
"Did you see the report for the SGT Kits' test subjects? Aren't there any who manifested their secondary gender yet?" he asked. "Four years have already passed, the kids are approaching puberty, they should be exhibiting secondary traits soon."
"Of course, professor, Pedro and Pilar are always checking on the families on a regular basis," I replied while checking my notes. "We have just sent the monthly allowance for the 154 omega candidates, and 78 alpha candidates. The remaining 768 beta families will receive their allowance tomorrow."
"Good."
"I am currently in touch with the finance division to discuss about the additional budget we requested for when they manifest," I added. "I mentioned it in the monthly meeting you refused to attend last week."
"Ah, thank goodness my Habibi is such a diligent assistant!" he told me with a grin. "I was right to leave everything up to you!"
"Don't call me Habibi," I answered back. "Now, if there isn't anything else..."
"Okay, okay, I'll call you if I need more coffee!"
I glared at him. He chose to ignore me as he sipped his freshly brewed coffee. I left his work station, thinking that nothing much has really changed in the past four years. Honestly, I sometimes think that the professor is incapable of change. He's still the same lazy, bossy, obnoxious slob he has always been. In fact, because of this attitude, no other researcher had stayed long enough to be a permanent member of our team. Only Pedro and Pilar have ever been good enough for him.
It helps that they have worked with the professor long enough to know his personality. They know that he is not as bad as he seems.
Their generous salary is also a big factor, no to mention, the fact that working with the professor has given them the same amount of fame that he enjoys.
Or rather, tries to run away from.
The professor is a very private person, after all, and prefers to let Pedro, Pilar, and myself get most of the lime light.
So, what am I still doing here, running errands for this sociopath?
Well, a year after releasing his new improved omega suppressants, he shared with me a formula that neutralizes the harmful effects of alpha pheromones on omegas.
He called it 'A-Neutralizer'.
The formula has the ability to cancel the effects of forced heat resulting from illegal drugs as well as from dominant alphas who release their pheromones to prey on omegas.
"It's an injectable formula, much like an inhibitor," he told me excitedly, "but instead of inhibiting or stopping the omega's forced heat, it actually cancels the effect of the illegal drug or the alpha pheromone that caused it. That way, the omega does not feel weak or incapacitated due to side effects as compared to regular inhibitors and suppressants with strong formulations. It's more like an antivenom for alpha pheromones."
I was impressed very with his discovery. Sadly, majority of the stockholders insisted that dominant alphas do not attack omegas on a regular basis, and that estrus inducing drugs are mostly bought and used with the couple's consent, thus, only a small market was set for the 'A-Neutralizer', with the prize so high, that only elite omegas can afford it.
This gravely disappointed the professor.
They had to produce more of it, though, since it sold out in less than three days, making the professor, as well as the company, millions of profit in just two months.
The next year, he asked for a sample of my anti-dominant alpha perfume, and created a synthetic version of it a month later.
"It was no joke, trying to come up with a synthetic substitute for the dominant omega pheromones you used for the formula, but I was still able to replicated it! And since only dominant alphas can smell its foul stench, it can be used to get rid of those depraved dominant alpha perverted bastards in the premises!"
"Please do not say that during the meeting, professor," I remember reminding him.
He called it 'A-Off', which according to him, stood for Assholes Fuck-off. He planned to market it to the public, but then again, the stockholders insisted that dominant alphas do not harass omegas. That they are all respectable individuals in high places who have better things to do.
The project was also made in small batches and released with an even higher prize tag.
Until It out-sold the initial release of A-Neutraliser and was even featured in international news as an unwanted alpha deterrent. It was even handed out to omega students in ivy league universities, debunking their theory that dominant alphas do not harass omegas.
Still, the professor was not satisfied.
What he wanted was to make something that the general public could afford, and so, for last year's project, he asked me for a sample of my pheromone canceling spray, the one I sampled on Dr. Heathlow years ago.
Two days later, he came up with a synthetic replica of my spray, using all natural, renewable ingredients that could easily be acquired locally.
I was literally blown away.
He placed it in an aerosol can that could be readily sprayed in areas where an omega had gone into heat and have spread his pheromones, canceling it instantly, so that alphas and other omegas within the vicinity would not be affected by their scent.
He called it 'Clear-O'.
"You bring that one to the next general meeting. I'm not going to another fucking meeting again! I'll just end up cursing those ass licking, tail wagging, mother fuckin' alphas who love to suck cock just to siphon the company's funds through the executives' dicks.
This time, the company agreed to mass produce it on a price range that could be afforded by the general public. The professor was very happy with this, and again, our division was given additional funding to start the project.
What can I say?
He just keeps thinking of different ways to make me fall even more in awe of him as the years pass.
That is why I am still here, infatuated with my professor, and waiting for the SGT Kits to push through, so that I could finally take him home with me to the United Arab Countries of the Middle East.
I get the feeling, though, that he's doing it on purpose.
He's releasing one fascinating project after another every year, just to keep the company happy. I noticed this, since he usually introduces a new project in the first quarter of the year, producing it in time for his birthday in June, and hardly does anything else for the rest of the year.
I sigh as I sat down on my desk.
I entered my password on my laptop to check my own pet project.
I released a book a year ago about my findings concerning fated pairs, entitled `The Fated Pair Syndrome: Fact and Fiction'."
I wrote that the fated pair myth could be scientifically explained. In fact, I did explain it, from an idea of the professor's.
"If I were you, I'd just get rid of the insula in my hippocampus to get rid of the problem. Then, I won't be bothered by scents anymore..."
He once told me that while I lay sick in bed.
It was partly in jest, after he caught me sniffing him, but as usual, even the professor's ramblings were full of useful information.
You see, the insula is the part of the brain that controls autonomic functions.
It is responsible for the body's addiction to certain substances, as well as for the primal reaction of an alpha to go after an omega who is in heat.
It also regulates the heart rate, respiratory rate, and sexual arousal, though, which is why you cannot simply destroy the insula like the professor suggested.
No. It is not that simple.
It is true that alphas and omegas are bound by their sense of smell.
With the use of pheromones, an omega in heat can send an alpha into rut. The alpha then releases pheromones of their own during rut, and in turn, sends the omega further into heat.
Likewise, mates in a fated pair relationship smell a different kind of pheromone from their pair which is unique only to those two individuals.
Therefore, my theory is to bombard the insula of the hippocampus with a much stronger stimuli. By doing so, it could cancel their bond, thus, the couple in a fated pair relationship, may no longer be affected by each other's unique scents.
Let's take, for example...
Test subjects OmegaX and AlphaX find each other's unique scents irresistible, making them crave for each other, and causing a powerful attraction which they might mistake for passion.
This yearning or obsession can be likened to an addiction, thus, when forced apart, it could turn into a neurotic disorder that may cause both AlphaX and OmegaX to go through withdrawal and depression which might eventually lead to a catatonic state and even death.
For this experiment, I forced fated pair volunteers to live apart. During this period, I noted that most alphas and unmarked omega pairs, try to find sexual gratification from other partners.
Marked omegas, on the other hand, exhibit separation anxiety which lead to depression and suicidal tendencies. Others go through a period of lethargy and fall into a coma, spending the rest of their days wasting away in a catatonic state.
These are the same symptoms found in patients with 'Pair Withdrawal Syndrome' or PWS, where omegas who are forcibly separated from the alpha who marked them waste away and eventually die.
The only difference is, in 'Fated Pair Syndrome' or FPS, both alphaX and omegaX show signs of separation anxiety. Both fall into depression, lethargy, and eventually lead to coma, even if the omega was not marked by the alpha.
Of course, we always bring the pairs back together before their physical and mental state deteriorates any further, but 99% of the test subjects all acted the same way.
Needless to say, the book I released was a success.
It became an instant best seller in more than a hundred countries and was translated into at least 60 different languages worldwide.
Medical professionals started to use the term `Fated Pair Syndrome' or FPS to diagnose the myth, and some doctors even used my theory to try and cut the fated pair connection.
None of them succeeded, though.
To cut the connection between two fated pairs, you need to overwrite the scent of their pair with a much stronger stimuli. Their test subjects merely ended up losing their sense of smell.
Like I said, you cannot simply 'destroy' the subjects' insula, but I have not been given a chance to investigate this further. No one wanted to be separated from their fated pair, after all. No one wanted their connection severed, or at least, I haven't found a pair that would be wiling to do so.
None the less, coming to this conclusion was enough to earn me my professor's respect, and that was more than enough for me.