Jungkook's breath caught painfully in his throat, trembling as salty tears blurred his vision. His tiny frame was wracked with sobs, shaking so violently it felt as if his bones might splinter apart. Fear sat heavy in his chest like a living, breathing creature, clawing at his insides. His heart thumped wildly against his ribs, erratic and desperate... an unmated Omega cornered by a predator.
He shrank back, pressing himself against the cold wall as if it might swallow him whole and save him. Byung-chul's thumb was still warm against his cheek from before — that horrible, careful touch — and Jungkook's skin crawled with it, his omega recoiling from something that felt like a violation of everything he had ever been taught about what a touch was supposed to mean. An unclaimed omega. An unwilling one. And this man's hands on him like he already had the right.
His voice, barely a whisper, cracked with terror. "P-please... let me go..." His hands trembled in front of him, palms open in surrender, as if that could soften the cruelty in the man's eyes. "I won't tell anyone," he promised, a pitiful plea tumbling from his lips.
Byung-chul only chuckled darkly, the sound slicing through the air like a blade. He leaned closer, his breath foul and heavy with alcohol. "I don't care if you tell or not, baby..." he rasped into Jungkook's ear, making the boy shudder violently. "No one would believe you anyway. You're nothing here."
A strangled sob escaped Jungkook's throat. "NO!" he cried out, the raw sound of it ripping from deep inside his chest as he twisted and fought against the iron grip trapping him. But the more he struggled, the tighter the man's hands became, digging into his delicate wrists, bruising him.
And then he was thrown — like a rag doll — onto his own bed. The springs groaned under the sudden weight as Jungkook's back hit the mattress hard, a gasp of pain escaping him. The scent of the stranger's overpowering alpha pheromones clogged the room, sickly sweet and wrong. Jungkook's instincts screamed at him, a terrified omega recognising the threat, but there was nowhere to run.
Byung-chul's fingers found the buttons of Jungkook's shirt. One by one, like he had all the time in the world.
"What do you mean no?" He laughed, his predatory gaze roaming over Jungkook's trembling form. "I've paid a big price for you, pretty thing... I'll get my money's worth."
Paid.
The word hit him like a slap. His stepmother's laugh through the window. Her voice... casual, unbothered. The price she had named. The door she had closed.
He didn't let himself drown in it. He couldn't. Not yet. Not now.
The closed door yes... closed but unlocked...
Through the haze of fear, Jungkook's tear-filled eyes landed on it. His pulse surged in his veins, hope and adrenaline flooding him in one dizzying rush.
Now or never.
With a strangled noise he lunged with pure instinct, pure survival... dodging Byung-chul's grasping hands. Bare feet thudded against the floor as he sprinted toward the living room, desperate. He didn't think. He didn't plan. He just moved.
A flash of metal glinted in the corner of his eye — the kitchen knife. Still on the counter from last night. His hand closed around the handle before the thought was even finished, knuckles turning white, the sharp steel shaking in his grip. He whirled around, holding the blade between himself and the approaching monster.
"Don't you dare come near me!" he screamed, voice trembling but loud, startling even himself.
Byung-chul stopped, eyeing him with dark amusement, his smile growing wicked. "I love it when my prey fights back," he murmured, voice dripping with anticipation. "It makes it so much more fun."
Jungkook's chest heaved. His legs threatened to give out but he refused to falter. He kept stepping backward, knife still raised, heart slamming so hard he could hear it in his ears. One step. Then another.
Byung-chul lunged.
It wasn't a decision.
There was no thought, no calculation, no moment of choosing. Just a hand closing around his waist... that same iron grip from before, fingers digging in, and Jungkook had already been through too much today.
His hand moved.
The knife found its mark.
Byung-chul's grip released.
He made a sound, sharp... stunned.. and staggered backward, one hand going to his side, eyes wide with disbelief and the pain as Jungkook pulled back the knife.
Jungkook stared at what he had done.
For exactly one second.
Then his free hand found the door behind him.
He threw it wide open.
And ran.
Jungkook's bare feet slapped against the cold pavement as he bolted, the knife still trembling in his grip. His lungs burned as he stumbled down the front steps into the freezing morning air, skin prickling from the sudden cold.
The gravel bit into the soles of his feet, sharp stones slicing delicate skin, but he didn't slow down.
He couldn't.
Every breath was a sob torn from his chest. His thin clothes clung to his body, damp with sweat and terror, offering no protection from the cold. The darkness behind him felt alive, chasing him with gnashing teeth. The world around him blurred into smears of darkness and glaring lights even though the sun was making its appearance, but he didn't care. He didn't look back. He didn't dare.
All he knew was that if he stopped, he would die.
Or worse.
The wind howled past him, tearing at his hair, whispering cruel things in his ears.
"You're too slow. They'll catch you. No one will save you."
But he ran anyway, stumbling, falling, pushing himself back up with bloody palms, ignoring the raw scrapes that burned across his knees and hands. Tears poured down his cheeks, hot against the chill in the air.
"Keep going... keep going..." he chanted in his mind, a broken prayer. His heart ached with fear, but even deeper was a terrible loneliness that swallowed him whole.
"Please, please, someone help me..." his broken heart cried out, though he didn't know who he was even begging.
No one had ever come for him before. Why would they now?
And still he ran.
The street blurred into a tunnel of darkness and flickering lights — and then—
A blinding flash.
A screech of tires.
The sickening sound of metal against fragile flesh.
Pain exploded across his side as he hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs. His world spun crazily. His knees and palms scraped against the rough pavement, and the metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. The knife skittered from his loosened grip, coming to rest somewhere beside him.
He lay there, stunned, the world spinning wildly. Pain bloomed across his arm, his ribs, but none of it compared to the aching in his chest.
He was too tired. Too broken. He wanted it all to just stop.
Somewhere above him, muffled through the roaring in his ears, voices..
"Oh my god, Tae! I... I didn't see him... please tell me he's alive—"
A girl's voice. Panicked. Trembling.
A new presence knelt beside him. Big hands, gentle but firm, touched his shaking body.
"Hey, buddy. Hey... can you hear me?"
A deep, rough voice.. warm in the cold morning air. An alpha's voice. Jungkook flinched on instinct, whimpering, trying to crawl away, but he couldn't move. Every part of him hurt. His fingers searched blindly beside him for the knife. His body still screamed for him to run, but he had no strength left.
And then — underneath it all — faint, cutting clean through the exhaust and the blood and the cold... that scent.
Rain-kissed earth. Petrichor and warmth.
He curled in on himself, shivering.
And then—
A word. Soft. And so tender it felt like hands cupping something broken and refusing to let it fall.
"...Kookie."
The voice called him like it had always known him. Like he wasn't nothing. Like he was something precious.
The moment he heard it... that word, that voice... everything shattered inside him.
And the flashback dissolved like mist.
Jungkook gasped as he shot upright, his body still trembling, chest heaving with ragged breaths. His heart thudded painfully against his ribs.
Hands — warm, familiar — gripped his shoulders from where Taehyung knelt on the floor between his knees, steadying him.
"Jungkook?!" Taehyung's voice was filled with panic, his scent thick in the air... but deeper now, richer, the way it got when his alpha was fully present and focused, refusing to let go of him. It wrapped around Jungkook's senses like a second skin.
"Hey. It's okay. It's me. I'm here."
Jungkook blinked rapidly, tears still clinging to his lashes, trying to anchor himself to the present. To this Taehyung. To now.
To safety.
Taehyung's hands didn't leave him... big and steady, one on his shoulder, the other lightly cradling the back of his head, like he was trying to shield him from the world. He didn't ask questions. Didn't push. Just stayed.
The heavy beat of Jungkook's heart finally started to slow, little by little, as Taehyung leaned closer, their scents mixing in the thick air — rain-kissed earth and lavender, tangled together like they had always belonged in the same breath.
"It's okay," Taehyung whispered, voice low, rough with worry. "You're safe. I swear you're safe."
Jungkook's body sagged instinctively toward the alpha, his mind still foggy, trembling in the aftershocks of fear. Taehyung's scent grew more stronger, heady in a way Jungkook's omega noticed even through the haze, even when the rest of him was still shaking.
Slowly, carefully, Taehyung sat beside him on the couch, pulling him gently into his chest.
Not trapping him... no.
Just offering a place to rest.
Jungkook resisted for only a second before his instincts betrayed him, he slumped forward, forehead pressing against Taehyung's shoulder, clutching weakly at the fabric of his shirt.
"You're safe," Taehyung murmured again, rhythmic like a heartbeat. His fingers stroked Jungkook's nape in slow, calming circles, offering presence.
The omega inside Jungkook whimpered pitifully, craving the comfort, the contact he had been denied for so long.
"Good boy," Taehyung said softly, so softly Jungkook almost didn't catch it.
He did catch it.
Heat flooded his cheeks instantly, burning all the way to the tips of his ears. He pressed his face deeper into Taehyung's shoulder so the alpha wouldn't see... but his fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his shirt, giving him away completely.
It didn't feel mocking. It didn't feel like a command.
It felt like being held.
Minutes — or maybe hours — passed like that, the world outside forgotten. Only when the tremors in Jungkook's body had eased, only when his breathing turned slow and deep, did Taehyung finally pull back a little, looking into his face with searching eyes.
"There you are," Taehyung smiled softly, wiping a thumb under his eyes where the tears still clung.
Jungkook blinked up at him, dazed. He felt wrung out, weightless, like he might drift away if Taehyung wasn't holding onto him.
Taehyung chuckled.. a soft, raspy sound, and tapped Jungkook's forehead lightly with two fingers.
"You spaced out pretty hard, pretty boy," he teased gently, trying to lighten the air.
Jungkook flushed, lowering his eyes. But before he could retreat into himself again, Taehyung stood and ruffled his hair affectionately.
"Wait here," he said with a grin. "I brought you something."
Confused, Jungkook watched as Taehyung crossed the room and lifted several shopping bags from beside the door, dropping them onto the bed.
Jungkook blinked. Then, without quite deciding to, he slid off the couch and padded over, drawn by something he couldn't name.
His nose twitched.
New fabric. Fresh plastic. And underneath it all — faint but unmistakable — rain-kissed earth. Taehyung's scent, clinging to every single bag. Like he had touched each one himself. Like he had chosen each one himself.
Something small and fragile stirred in Jungkook's chest.
He didn't let himself look at it yet.
"What is all this?" he croaked, voice still hoarse.
Taehyung turned back with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, voice dropping a note lower, almost playful.
"A welcome gift," he said. "For my Kookie."
"I avoid shopping whenever possible.. I rarely buy anything for myself unless absolutely necessary."
Taehyung continued his rambling, oblivious to the way Jungkook was hiding tiny smiles behind his fingers.
"I've spent most of my time around girls and boys, but I've never even thought about giving them gifts..." He paused mid-sentence, catching the way Jungkook's lips twitched, amusement dancing in his watery eyes.
A sudden wave of self-consciousness crashed over Taehyung, he realized just how ridiculous he must sound. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
"All I'm trying to say is... I have no experience with shopping, so I just picked out whatever I thought would look good on you."
He took a deep breath and flopped onto the bed alongside the shopping bags.
"Shopping for me?" Jungkook's voice cracked slightly, a strange mixture of wonder and worry woven into it.
"Why? Are you a ghost who doesn't need shopping?" Taehyung teased, raising an eyebrow.
"But I..." Jungkook stammered, heart fluttering, but Taehyung interrupted him, pulling him onto the bed with a gentle tug.
"No buts," he declared firmly, flashing a boxy smile. "Just look through them. Tell me if you need anything else."
Reluctantly, Jungkook started peeking into the bags, his fingers trembling slightly. At Taehyung's insistence, he opened everything one by one — clothes, shoes, lotions, perfumes, towels, hairbrush. Normal things. Safe things. Things he could look at without his face catching fire.
And then...
Heat pads.
Nightwear... the kind that was soft and thin and left very little to the imagination. Jungkook's brain registered, rejected, and tried very hard to unsee in the span of approximately one second.
He flushed a bright shade of pink and quickly stuffed the more intimate items back into the bag without daring to take them fully out, keeping his eyes glued to the bedspread.
"I think you're forgetting," Taehyung drawled lazily, "I handpicked all those things for you."
His voice was thick with amusement, and Jungkook's face burned hotter, turning away to hide.
"How many clothes did you even buy?" Jungkook mumbled, desperate to change the subject. "All this?"
"I can buy even more for my pretty mate.. but.. Well, that depends on how often you plan to change," Taehyung said with a wicked grin, "or how many times a day you want to bathe."
Jungkook's palms grew clammy, his mind whirling, especially when Taehyung continued nonchalantly:
"I saw some men buying things like that for their mates... figured I'd give it a try too."
Jungkook scrambled upright, trying to escape the conversation, but Taehyung grabbed his wrist, pulling him back down effortlessly.
"You know," Taehyung leaned in closer, his voice dropping lower, teasing, "I could even help you put some of these things on..."
His breath fanned across Jungkook's cheek, and Jungkook blushed furiously, struggling to look anywhere but at him.
"D-Don't do this, Taehyung," he pleaded, voice barely above a whisper.
"Why not?" Taehyung smiled, eyes glinting. "Don't you wanna give me something that's mine?"
"...what?" Jungkook feigned ignorance, his voice trembling.
"Should I remind you?" Taehyung's voice dropped another octave, seduction wrapped in every syllable.
His fingers moved almost without thinking — drifting slowly to the collar of Jungkook's shirt, brushing it aside just enough. Just enough to see it. The mating bite. His bite. His thumb traced the edge of it, feather-light, deliberate — and he looked up, straight into Jungkook's eyes, not saying a single word.
He didn't need to.
"I..." Jungkook couldn't breathe properly. "Is... Is reminding really necessary?"
"Oh, very necessary," Taehyung murmured.
His hand slid up, wrapping around the back of Jungkook's neck, drawing him closer, millimeter by slow millimeter, until their foreheads nearly touched. Jungkook's breath caught painfully in his throat. He could feel Taehyung's warmth, his scent, the slight tremble in his fingers. If Taehyung tilted his head just a fraction... they would be kissing.
Taehyung's eyes fluttered shut, savoring the proximity, his nose grazing the side of Jungkook's cheek.
Jungkook didn't close his eyes.
He just... watched him.
Wide-eyed. Frozen. Terrified and yearning all at once.
A tiny tear slipped out, rolling down his cheek and landing silently on Taehyung's skin.
Taehyung froze instantly. His eyes snapped open. He sat up sharply, cradling Jungkook's cheeks with his palms.
"Kookie... why?" His voice cracked slightly. "Why are you crying?"
"I... I don't..." Jungkook shook his head helplessly, trying to hold back sobs. "I don't want these things you're offering me..."
"What am I offering you?" Taehyung asked, voice painfully soft.
Jungkook sniffled. "What if it's not a tease? What if you mean it...?"
Taehyung's heart twisted in his chest. "And if I do?"
Jungkook breathed out shakily. "Then we can't... We can't, Taehyung. I'm not... worth it."
His voice dropped to a broken whisper:
"Please go back to Hana. You'll never be happy with me. I can't fit into your world... I'm not meant to be your mate."
Taehyung just stared at him, heartbreak carved into every line of his beautiful face.
"So... you're doing all this for me?" he asked, almost in disbelief.
"I don't want to see you distressed," Jungkook confessed, biting his lower lip nervously, unconsciously putting that soft little mole on full display.
Taehyung's eyes darkened at the sight, battling the urge to lean down and kiss it away.
"If you mate Hana," Jungkook continued, "your life will be settled... you'll be free."
Taehyung swallowed hard, his throat bobbing visibly.
"When..." he exhaled shakily, "when did I ever tell you I was imprisoned? Or desperate for freedom?"
Jungkook blinked up at him, speechless.
"That's what your parents and Hana want," he said finally.
"And what about me?" Taehyung's voice was low and furious now. "When has anyone ever asked what I want?"
Jungkook dropped his gaze, overwhelmed by the intensity of Taehyung's anger.
"I don't want to force you," Taehyung said, softer now, brushing Jungkook's trembling hands with his own.
"You are not forcing me," Jungkook whispered immediately, panicking at the thought. "You're not forcing me..."
"Then what am i doing?"
"Making me ha.. happy." Jungkook gulped.
"Then why are you so scared of being happy, Kook?" Taehyung asked with a sad smile.
"Because..." Jungkook hesitated, cheeks burning, "because people scare me."
"Who scared my pretty boy?" Taehyung said softly, dotingly, trying to coax a smile out of him.
"They... they..."
Jungkook faltered, biting his lip again.
"You're still thinking about Hana, aren't you?" Taehyung accused lightly.
"I-it's not like that..." Jungkook stammered. "She... she came while you were away."
"Why?" Taehyung's smile disappeared, his entire body tensing.
"She just wanted to... remind me," Jungkook admitted in a small voice, "that you belong to her."
Taehyung's face darkened immediately. He moved to get up, but Jungkook clutched his wrist desperately.
"No... please don't. Don't say anything to her. I'm telling you because I want you to know..."
He bit his lip again, voice breaking.
"I would never stand between you and your happiness, Taehyung."
And with that, Jungkook hurriedly began gathering the scattered shopping items from the bed, stuffing them back into the bags with shaking hands.
Leaving Taehyung sitting there.
Alone.
Speechless.
Taehyung didn't know how to make people understand that Jungkook was all he wanted.
Not a compromise. Not a consolation. Not an accident born out of a single chaotic night.
Everything.
The only person he had ever looked at and thought.. oh. It's you.
Hana had never been that.
Hana had been decided before Taehyung was old enough to have an opinion worth hearing. Their fathers had built an empire together, two business dynasties intertwined so deeply that even their personal lives had become part of the agreement. Their mothers had been best friends since university... sharing dormitory rooms, sharing secrets, sharing dreams of one day sharing grandchildren. By the time Taehyung and Hana were old enough to understand what was being arranged around them, it had already been arranged.
It wasn't cruel. That was the difficult part.
No one had been unkind about it. No one had forced his hand or raised their voice or made him feel like a prisoner. They had simply... assumed. The way you assume the sun will rise. The way you assume a river will follow its course. Taehyung and Hana... of course. Obviously. Always.
And Taehyung, who had grown up watching his brother Yoongi build something genuinely beautiful with Jimin — that quiet, unshakeable devotion, the way they moved around each other like they had memorized every corner of each other's souls — had told himself that was possible with Hana too. That love could be chosen. That it could be grown, carefully, deliberately, like something planted in good soil.
He had tried... Didn't he?
But trying, he came to understand, was the problem.
He had never tried with Jungkook.
Jungkook had simply... happened. Stumbled into his life on a night that should have been unremarkable, all wide frightened eyes and lavender scent and a stubborn, trembling dignity that had no business being that devastating. Their beginning had been forced — chaotic and messy and nothing like the quiet courtship his parents had always envisioned for him.
And yet.
With Jungkook, there was no performance. No careful maintenance of something that refused to grow on its own. No lying awake wondering if he was doing it right, feeling enough, trying hard enough.
With Jungkook, everything was simply easy.
The silences between them felt comfortable rather than hollow. The misunderstandings, when they came, dissolved quickly... not because they didn't exist, but because neither of them wanted to hold onto them. There were no hidden agendas. No scorecards. No weight of two families' worth of expectations pressing down on every interaction.
Just Jungkook.
Biting his lip when he was nervous. Hiding smiles behind his fingers. Looking up at Taehyung with those devastatingly honest eyes that never seemed to know how to lie. The way he walked like he was trying to take up as little space as possible, and the way something in Taehyung's chest burned every time he saw it... this furious, helpless need to give him all the space in the world and watch him finally learn how to fill it.
Everything about him pulled Taehyung closer.
And the harder he tried to be reasonable about it — to remind himself of timing, of circumstances, of everything that stood between them — the more impossible reasonable became.
Hana was back in the house now.
Back in the hallways, back at the dinner table, back in the air that Taehyung breathed. And he understood, logically, why she was here... university, proximity, the comfortable assumption of two families who had never once considered that their plan might not survive contact with reality. Her presence wasn't malicious at its root. She was a person who had also been told, her whole life, that this was how things would go.
But understanding someone's pain didn't mean he could give them what they wanted.
And what she wanted was something he had already, irrevocably, given away.
So he played along.
Smiled at the dinner table. Answered his mother's questions. Let his father believe the situation was still manageable. Not because he believed any of it... but because the alternative was leaving Jungkook unprotected in a house full of people who had already decided he didn't belong there.
That, Taehyung was not willing to do.
Not now.
Not ever.
---------
"Sir, should I set the table for lunch?" Sarah bowed politely as Taehyung returned home from university.
"Has Jungkook eaten yet?" Tae asked instead.
"No, sir," she shook her head. "I went to ask, but I think he was taking a bath."
"Okay, set the table," he said, heading upstairs.
"Kookie, would you like to have lunch with m—"
Taehyung's steps halted, along with his tongue, at the sight before him.
Jungkook stood shirtless in the middle of the room, wide-eyed, towel in hand, water still dripping from his damp hair onto bare skin. The mating bite on his neck caught the light — Taehyung's mark, sitting right there, on his omega's skin.
Taehyung's brain stopped working entirely.
"Y-yeah," Jungkook was the first to recover, clutching the towel to his chest, cheeks already flooding with color. "I... w-was waiting for you."
"Where's my shirt?" he mumbled, looking around, confused. He was sure he'd placed it on the bed, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"Ahem..." Taehyung cleared his throat hard, forcing his eyes away from the smooth expanse of bare skin. He spotted the shirt crumpled at the foot of the bed and bent to pick it up, grateful for the excuse to look somewhere else.
"Jungkook-ssi..." he said, voice coming out considerably thicker than intended, "let's not make me lose my senses while I'm still a student, hmm?"
He stepped behind Jungkook.
Draped the shirt over his shoulders.
His hands slid slowly down Jungkook's arms, guiding them into the sleeves... and then, in the process of smoothing the fabric across his shoulders, his palms moved forward, brushing over Jungkook's chest — over the two points there that had absolutely no business being that sensitive — before lifting away as if nothing had happened.
The touch was barely anything .. a graze, a breath of contact over the thin fabric, but Jungkook's body didn't care about barely. His chest was apparently not interested in context or intention or the fact that they were supposed to be getting dressed. It simply... responded. Immediately. Completely. A sharp current that shot from that single point of contact straight through his entire nervous system before he had even processed what had happened.
The sound that escaped him was small and involuntary and over before it began.
His face went scarlet.
His hands flew to his chest instinctively, pressing flat, as if that would do anything, as if his body hadn't already given everything away in the space of half a second.
He stared at the wall in front of him like it contained the answers to every question he had ever had, willing the universe rewind approximately five seconds.
It did not rewind.
"Sorry," Taehyung said very carefully, as if he were a man who had absolutely not just filed that information away for future use. His voice was perfectly neutral. Which was somehow the worst part.
But his ears had caught that sound.
And they would never unknow it.
"But you said you have a very strong moral resolve..." Jungkook mumbled, desperately, still staring at the wall.
"I'm human too, Kook," Tae whispered, his breath ghosting over Jungkook's ear, "and your mere existence tempts me beyond belief. Now put it on."
Jungkook's hands trembled as he buttoned his shirt.
"That's good," Taehyung smirked, stepping back. "Keep yourself away from me."
"Aren't you hungry?" Jungkook blurted, accidentally.
"Starving..." Tae's smirk deepened, "but I think we're talking about two very different kinds of hunger."
"W-what's the other one?" Jungkook stuttered, his entire skin flushed pink.
"Put yourself on menu" Taehyung leaned in, nipping lightly at Jungkook's ear, "and I will show you."
"Please..." Jungkook whimpered, trembling.
"Please what?" Tae teased, voice rough and low.
"N-not again..."
"Why not?"
"B-because..." Jungkook fumbled, "the food will get cold... and I'm hungry."
"Okay... let's go." Taehyung chuckled, grabbed Jungkook's wrist, and tugged him toward the door.
Jungkook yanked his hand free and rushed ahead, which meant he was the first one down the stairs — shirt still half-open, buttons rushed and uneven, face the color of something catastrophic.
Jimin stood in the kitchen doorway, glass of water in hand, watching Jungkook's entrance with mild, unhurried interest.
Then Taehyung appeared behind him.
Jimin looked between them both. Took a slow sip of water.
"You know," he said pleasantly, at a perfectly audible volume, "most people manage to get dressed before coming downstairs."
Jungkook looked down at his shirt.
Wrong buttons. Half open. Utterly incriminating.
"I was just.." he started, voice coming out in a mortified squeak, "Taehyung was just—"
"Helping you get dressed," Jimin supplied helpfully. "Yes. I can see that."
"Good morning, hyung," Taehyung said flatly.
"It's afternoon, Tae," Jimin replied, unbothered.
"Is it?" Taehyung tilted his head with exaggerated innocence. "Funny. I could've sworn I heard some very interesting sounds coming from your room last night that suggested neither you nor hyung would be functional before evening."
Jimin's expression didn't change.
But the tips of his ears went pink.
His scent — cold roses — sparked almost imperceptibly, just for a breath, something warmer bleeding through the edges.
"That," Jimin said with great dignity, "is completely different."
"Is it?" Taehyung smiled.
"Yes," Jimin said. "Because at least I'm not the one whose omega was screaming loud enough to wake the entire floor."
"I WASN'T—" Jungkook's voice shot up three octaves before he could stop it. Both heads turned to look at him. He pressed his lips together, face the color of red peppers. "I mean... that wasn't.. I was having a nightmare.."
"A nightmare," Taehyung repeated solemnly.
"Yes," Jungkook said firmly, nodding.
"That you were screaming through."
"Yes."
"While I was in the same room."
"...yes."
Taehyung looked at Jimin. Jimin looked at Jungkook. jungkook looked at the floor.
"Convincing," Jimin said.
"Very," Taehyung agreed.
"I—" Jungkook opened his mouth, realized he had absolutely nothing that would help his case, and closed it again. He went back to fixing his buttons with tremendous focus, as though the structural integrity of each one was personally important to him.
Jimin watched this for a moment, then turned back to Taehyung with a pleasant expression.
"You know what your problem is?" he said conversationally.
"Enlighten me."
"You have no finesse." Jimin gestured vaguely with his glass. "Yoongi-hyung at least makes sure I can't hear my own thoughts afterward. You, apparently, just make your omega scream and leave the rest of us to suffer through it."
"Jimin-ssi—!" Jungkook choked.
"I'm talking about the nightmare," Jimin said serenely, eyes wide with innocence.
"Please," Taehyung scoffed. "I have plenty of finesse. Isn't that right, Kookie?"
Jungkook looked up from his buttons, completely earnest. "You did help me find my shirt very fast."
Dead silence.
Jimin turned to look at Taehyung slowly.
"You need to work on your dirty talk," he muttered, shaking his head like a disappointed professor.
"That's NOT..." Taehyung started.
"THAT'S—" Jungkook spun around, one hand pointing at Jimin, the other still gripping his half-buttoned shirt. "That is not... we didn't.. nothing happened... I was just... the nightmare was real..."
"Kookie," Taehyung said gently.
"What?"
"You've buttoned your shirt wrong again."
Jungkook looked down.
He had.
The sound he made was not words.
Jimin raised his glass in a small, gracious toast.
"Welcome to the family," he said warmly and raised his glass again in a small, polite toast.
Just then, Hana's sharp voice cut through the kitchen.
"Sarah.. where is Sarah? And where's lunch?"
She swept in, eyes immediately darting between Jungkook's still-pink face and Taehyung standing entirely too close behind him. Her expression curdled.
"She's in the dining room," Jungkook answered quickly, fingers still working the last button. "Lunch is ready, she's setting it up."
"You think I'll eat something you cooked?" Hana sneered.
"Hana. Manners," Taehyung warned sharply.
"Then you should teach your dear mate some manners too," Hana snapped. "No need for him to interfere in household chores."
"You know, Hana, you're always free to get lost if you don't want to eat. Don't ruin it for everyone else," Taehyung shot back without missing a beat.
"What's going on here?"
Mrs. Kim entered, frowning.. but not, Taehyung noticed, with the fire she usually carried. Something about her was measured today. Contained.
"Tae, why are you talking to her like that?"
"She started it," Taehyung shrugged. "I'm just answering."
"Just because of this stup—"
"Not a word, Hana," Taehyung cut her off, voice dropping low, a raised finger between them. "Think very carefully about what you're about to say."
"YOU—"
"Stop it, Hana," Mrs. Kim said, firmly, but gently. She turned to Jungkook with an expression that was almost... civil. "Set the table. I'll join you after I freshen up."
Hana stomped her foot and stormed out, the front door rattling in her wake.
The kitchen fell quiet.
"Tae, did you see that?" Jungkook turned to him, eyes wide, tugging his sleeve with barely contained excitement.
"Yeah..." Taehyung's voice was slow. Careful. His eyes lingered on the doorway his mother had disappeared through. "I saw it."
"Aren't you happy?" Jungkook beamed, clinging to his arm.
"I don't understand it," Taehyung muttered, shaking his head. "Let's go eat."
He squeezed Jungkook's hand and led him to the dining room, pulling out his chair before taking his own.
From across the table, Jimin watched.
Said nothing.
But the look he gave Taehyung over the rim of his glass... quiet, knowing, shadowed with something that wasn't quite worry but wasn't quite not.. said everything.
Taehyung held his gaze for just a second.
Then looked away.
Mrs. Kim's sudden reasonableness sat in his chest like a stone he didn't know what to do with yet.
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