Trying To Solve Every Puzzle

The room is smaller than it was this morning.

Which doesn’t make sense, architecturally, because rooms don’t shrink. Walls don’t migrate inward while you’re downstairs eating drugged brownies and letting boys in bath robes corner you against kitchen counters. That’s not how buildings work. That’s not how physics works. You took a science elective. You passed it. Barely, but the point stands.

And yet.

The blue suite feels different. The ceiling’s lower or the bed’s bigger or the air is thicker or maybe—maybe it’s just that Jason closed the door behind him with a click instead of letting it drift shut, and the click had a sound to it. A punctuation.

You didn’t like it.

You haven’t liked any of it walking behind him up the stairs.

He didn’t reach for your hand. Didn’t put his palm on the small of your back the way he usually does in hallways.

He just walked. And you followed.

And now you’re standing three feet inside the door and he’s by the window and the bed is between you like a negotiating table, and everything was fine earlier. It was fine when you got dressed in this room. It was fine when Irya did your collarbones and Jason called you incredible and held out his hand and you took it.

It was fine twenty minutes ago.

So why does the wallpaper look like it’s breathing?

…Okay. That one might actually be the weed.

This was definitely not your best pharmaceutical decision.

Jason turns from the window. Faces you. Brings both hands together in front of his mouth—fingertips touching, pressed to his lips, the prayer gesture. The one people do when they’re organizing a thought they’ve already finished thinking and are now just choosing the delivery method.

He holds it there.

Drops his hands.

“Okay. So.”

A breath. Through his nose.

“What’s going on with him?”

Something catches in your throat. Not a sound—a shape. The shape of a word you weren’t ready for, or the shape of being caught, or the shape of every single moment from the last forty-eight hours compressing into a single syllable that sits behind your tongue and refuses to move.

Fuck.

He noticed.

Fuck fuck fuck.

He saw you at the counter. He saw the way you were standing—how close, how angled, the chocolate on your fingers, the laugh you didn’t authorize—and now he’s standing in this room with the door clicked shut and his hands in that prayer thing and he’s asking, and—

The shower. The orange. The hallway.

«Circles, Nix.»

The bracelet. The fucking bracelet that’s still on your wrist pressing the little rain charm into your pulse point.

He knows. He doesn’t know how much but he knows something.

Act normal.

You are a normal person who does normal things and has normal friendships with her normal roommate and none of those things involve coming in adjacent shower stalls or the word cookie being used as a double entendre in a kitchen full of witnesses.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Nailed it. Completely nailed it. Meryl Streep would weep. Oscar-worthy. Standing ovation.

Jason looks at you.

“Don’t do that.”

Okay. Fuck.

No. Don’t be discouraged bitch. Make Meryl proud, come on.

“Do what?”

“The thing where you act like you don’t understand the question.” His voice is level. Measured. Patient in a way that somehow makes it worse. “You know exactly what I mean. He’s constantly in your space.”

Okay, Meryl, girl. There was an attempt.

Your fingers find the bracelet.

Automatic. Unconscious. The way your hand goes to a bruise to check if it still hurts—you don’t decide to do it, you just do, and by the time you realize you’re doing it you’re already pressing the charm into your wrist and looking to the side, away from his face, at the lamp on the nightstand that is doing absolutely nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve to be stared at this hard.

“We’re friends.” You say it to the lamp. “That’s it.”

“Friends.”

“Yeah. Friends. People who talk to each other at parties. Groundbreaking concept.”

“Y/N.”

“What?”

“Can you look at me?”

You look at him. Force yourself to do it—drag your gaze from the lamp to his face like it’s a physical act, like your eyes weigh something they didn’t weigh ten minutes ago.

He’s not angry. That’s the thing. He’s not doing the thing you’re braced for—no raised voice, no visible frustration, no clenched jaw or sharp edges.

He looks calm. Concerned. Reasonable.

For some reason, it feels like his most dangerous version.

“I’m not trying to start a fight,” he says. Opens his hands. Palms up. The universal gesture of ’I come in peace’ that people only do when peace is not, in fact, what they came with. “I just—I think it’s worth having a conversation about boundaries.”

“Boundaries.”

“Yeah. About what’s appropriate. In front of other people.”

Something hot flickers in your chest. Not guilt anymore. Something meaner.

“What exactly was inappropriate?”

“I didn’t say inappropriate. I said—”

“You literally just said what’s appropriate, Jason, which means something was inappropriate, so what was it?”

He takes a breath. The patient one. The one that says ’I’m going to let that tone slide because I’m the mature one here.’

And god, you hate that breath. You hate it the way you hate being corrected by someone who’s technically right but fundamentally missing the point—that specific, grinding frustration of being managed.

“I just don’t think it’s a great look,” he says. “Having another guy’s hands all over you at a party where we’re here together.”

Hands all over you.

Hands all over you?

The kitchen counter flashes—Jungkook’s palms flat on either side of your hips, the heat, the proximity, the vanilla bottle sitting there like a prop in a play about your bad decisions—and your stomach drops because okay, maybe from across the room that did look—

“That’s not what was happening.”

“From where I was sitting—”

“Then maybe you were sitting at a bad angle.”

“Y/N.” The patient breath again. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying—as someone who cares about you—I don’t think you realize how it looks. To other people.”

His eyes drop. To your wrist.

“And—I wasn’t going to bring this up, but since we’re talking about it.” He gestures. A small tilt of his chin toward your left hand. “That thing.”

You don’t need to look down to know what he means.

“What about it?”

“You’ve been wearing it all week. I couldn’t help but notice.” His voice is still calm. Still measured. Still wrapped in enough reasonableness that the words almost sound like concern instead of what they are. “And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to—but it’s a bit childish, no? The colors. The beads.”

Yellow. Orange. Red. Little silver letters spelling ‘Rogue’ across.

“It’s a bracelet, Jason.”

“It says Rogue.” He says it amused in a way that’s worse than mean—condescending, like he’s being generous by only finding it slightly embarrassing. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s an inside joke.”

“With who?”

“With—people. It’s a friendship bracelet. People have those.”

“At your age?”

The question hangs. Rhetorical. Already answered by the tone he used to ask it.

His eyes move from the bracelet to your hand. To the back of it. To the fleshy part below your thumb where—

“And—is that a bite?”

Your hand snaps behind your body so fast you nearly throw out your shoulder.

Too fast. Way too fast.

The speed of it is its own confession—nobody hides an innocent injury like they’re palming evidence at a crime scene—and you watch Jason clock the reaction the way he clocks everything: slow, but sure.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s a bite mark.”

“It’s not. I just bumped into something.”

“That’s teeth.”

“It was—the brownie thing. In the kitchen. It was stupid, someone was—it was a joke.”

“A joke.” Flat. “Someone bit you. As a joke.”

And the way he says it—someone—makes it clear he doesn’t need you to fill in the name.

His jaw works once. Controlled.

“So you’re out there getting drunk and high and—what, bitten by people at a party? Randomly? While we’re here together?”

“It wasn’t—”

“That’s the kind of behavior you think is—”

“It was a joke, Jason, we were fighting over a brownie and it was dumb and it lasted two seconds—”

“I just—”

He runs a hand through his hair. Looks at you with an expression that’s trying so hard to be gentle it comes full circle into something sharp.

“That’s not the girl I know. The beads and the nicknames and the—getting bitten in kitchens at midnight—it’s not you.”

Not you.

Not the version of you he knows.

Not the version he built in his head from seminar answers and coffee dates and the careful, polished, composed woman who shows up when he’s watching.

The version that wears matching jewelry and speaks in complete sentences and doesn’t have an inside joke with her roommate spelled out on her wrist in colored beads like a kid at summer camp.

“Maybe you’ve just never known me.”

You say it quiet. Looking right at him.

His mouth opens. Closes.

And for one second—half a second—surprise cracks in the diplomacy.

Then the composure reseals. The crack plasters over. The expression returns to its default setting: concerned, measured, slightly wounded.

“I think you should be more mindful. That’s all. About how you carry yourself. I think you should—”

A pause. Careful. Choosing.

“—respect yourself a little more.”

Respect yourself.

Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

“You deserve better than being someone’s—I don’t know—physical prop. Being grabbed and hung on and—it’s not how someone treats a person they respect. And I think you know that.”

The hot thing in your chest is spreading. Climbing up your throat. Making your heartbeat louder in your own ears, which might be the weed or might be fury or might be some volatile combination of both that’s going to end in either tears or property damage and you genuinely do not know which.

“Nobody was grabbing me. Nobody was hanging on me. I was talking to someone. At a party. Like a person. With a social life.”

“You were—”

“What? Finish that.”

“Can you let me finish a sentence?”

“Can you stop starting sentences that end with me not respecting myself?”

“I just don’t think Jimin sees it like that.”

Everything stops.

The room. Your breathing. The weed-warped wallpaper. The hot angry thing in your chest.

All of it hits pause, mid-stride, like someone yanked the needle off a record.

“What?”

“I said I don’t think Jimin sees it the way you think he does.”

Jimin.

Jimin?

He’s talking about—

This entire—every single word of this conversation—the boundaries, the appropriateness, the respect yourself—

“You think Jimin has feelings for me?”

It comes out flat. Incredulous. Like someone asked you to confirm the sky is blue.

Jason’s expression doesn’t change.

Same steady, reasonable, measured look.

Same concerned furrow between the brows.

Same ’I’m saying this because I care about you’ energy pouring off him in waves of cedar and bergamot.

“I think Jimin knows what it’s like to be a guy,” he says, “and have a girl draped all over him.”

Draped.

He said draped.

Like you were fabric. Like you were a decoration. Like the arms you had around Jimin’s shoulders—warm, platonic, the kind of casual affection you give to someone who just did your eyeliner and trusted you with the shape of his questions—were some kind of tactical maneuver. Some calculated display that poor innocent Jimin couldn’t possibly interpret as anything other than sexual, because you’re a girl, and he’s a guy, and apparently that equation only has one answer in Jason’s math.

Your fingernails press half-moons into your palms.

“Draped,” you repeat. Testing the word. Tasting it.

It tastes like your mother.

«You’re too much, you’re too loud, you’re taking up space in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and you’d know that if you’d just stop and think about how you look from the outside for once in your life.»

You feel the beginning of a compression in your chest.

One that you recognize from a long time ago, from fights in kitchens with marble countertops, from sitting at dining tables where every fork was placed at the correct angle and every word was placed at the correct volume and every version of you that didn’t fit the blueprint got folded up and put away.

Your lungs feel smaller.

That’s the weed. That has to be the weed.

“Jimin is my friend.” You say it slow, clear. “He did my eyeliner. I hugged him. I hug my friends, Jason. That’s a thing people do.”

“I’m not saying you can’t have friends—”

“Oh, good. Thank you. Permission granted. Really appreciate that.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about.” He gestures at you—at all of you, the sarcasm, the crossed arms, the whole defensive architecture of your posture. “This. Right here. I try to have an adult conversation and you immediately go to—”

“To what?”

“To this. The deflection. The sarcasm. The making me the bad guy for expressing a concern.”

And the fucked up thing—the really truly fucked up thing—is that he’s not entirely wrong.

You are deflecting. You are being sarcastic. You are making him the bad guy because the alternative is engaging with the actual content of what he’s saying and you can’t do that because the actual content requires you to either (a) explain that Jimin is not interested in you because Jimin is currently navigating something about his own identity that is private and sacred and none of Jason’s goddamn business, or (b) admit that the real problem isn’t Jimin at all, it’s the guy in the Ghostface robe who said circles to you across a kitchen like it was a promise—

And you can’t do either of those things.

Option A outs Jimin. Option B outs you.

So you’re stuck.

Trapped.

Standing in this room that’s getting smaller with every sentence, defending a position that isn’t the real position, fighting a fight that isn’t the real fight, and your chest is doing the thing and your hands are doing the thing and the wallpaper is definitely breathing now and you can’t—

“He was sitting down,” you say, and your voice is thinner. You can hear it. “I came up behind him and put my arms around him. The same way I’d hug Yeji. The same way I’d hug Irya. Are you going to tell me that’s inappropriate too?”

“Yeji and Irya are women.”

“So?”

“So it’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because it is. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a difference between how men and women interpret physical affection, and I’m not being old-fashioned by pointing that out, I’m being realistic.”

“You’re being controlling.”

Jason’s face does something you’ve never seen it do before.

He looks hurt. Real, actual hurt, the kind that flashes across someone’s face before they can catch it and tuck it behind something more presentable.

“I’m not controlling you,” he says. “I’m asking you to think about how your actions affect the people around you. That’s not control. That’s consideration.”

Consideration.

Your mother’s favorite word. Your mother’s number-one, gold-standard, go-to weapon for every single time you did something that embarrassed her or surprised her or reminded her that you were a separate person with separate wants—’have some consideration. Think about someone other than yourself for once.’

You can feel your heartbeat in your fingers, in your wrists, in the base of your throat where the gold chain sits against your skin.

You want to scream that Jimin is already interested in someone else, that possibly he doesn’t even like girls.

But you don’t.

Because it’s not yours to say. It’s Jimin’s. It belongs to him the same way the pink nail belongs to him, the same way the question in the bathroom belongs to him—’what if none of it fits, what if there isn’t a word for it’—and you don’t get to hand that to Jason Calloway like a hall pass just because you’re cornered and scared and your lungs won’t open all the way.

You don’t get to sacrifice someone else’s secret to win your own argument.

So you stand there. Hands shaking. Jaw shut. Pulse hammering against the rain charm on your wrist.

And you have nothing.

No defense that doesn’t betray someone.

No explanation that doesn’t expose something.

“I shouldn’t have to justify hugging my friend,” you say, and it comes out cracked.

“Nobody’s asking you to justify anything. I’m asking you to be aware.”

“Aware of what?”

“Of how you come across. Of the signals you’re sending. Of the fact that you’re at a party with me—with me—and you spent the last hour hanging off other men and barely looked in my direction.”

The compression in your chest is getting worse. Heavier. Like someone’s stacking books on your ribcage one at a time—each sentence another volume, another weight, another reason you can’t get enough air into your lungs to fight properly.

Your eyes burn.

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

You are not going to cry in front of Jason Calloway in a Medusa costume with two pot brownies dissolving in your bloodstream. That’s not happening. That is a thing that will not occur.

“I think,” he says—and there’s a softness to it now, a careful softness that’s worse than the accusations because it sounds like kindness, it sounds like concern, it sounds like someone who loves you explaining for the fifteenth time why you’re doing everything wrong, “that sometimes you don’t realize the way you act around men. And I don’t think that’s your fault. I think it’s—a pattern. And I think if you were a little more self-aware about it, a little more…”

He pauses. Looking for the word.

“…mature, you’d...”

You tune out the rest of the sentence.

Because that word.

Mature.

One single, careful, well-chosen, precisely deployed word that lands in the exact center of the thing your parents built inside you—the architecture of not-enough, the blueprint of every dinner table correction and every lowered voice and every ’when are you going to grow up and start acting like the person we raised you to be’—

And inside you something buckles—a load-bearing wall giving way, a structural failure that’s been building since the shower, since the orange, since circles, since the prayer hands and what’s going on with him—and you are not going to cry here.

You are not going to cry here, you are not going to cry here, you are not—

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“Y/N—”

“I need to use the bathroom, Jason.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

His expression is doing the thing again—the hurt, the confusion, the genuine inability to understand why his reasonable words keep producing unreasonable reactions—and part of you, the part that’s still rational, knows he doesn’t get it.

Knows he thinks he’s being fair.

Knows he genuinely believes that everything he just said came from a place of care and concern and wanting the best for you.

And maybe that’s the worst part.

That he means it.

That the cage is lined with good intentions and the bars are made of ’I just want what’s best for you’ and the lock is turned by someone who thinks love and management are the same thing.

You grab the door handle. Pull.

“Can we at least—”

The door closes behind you.

The hallway is empty. The sconce flickers. The fog machine’s output has crept up the stairs and is hanging in thin wisps along the baseboard and you walk through it on legs that don’t feel entirely connected to your body—one foot, then the other, mechanical, automatic, the way you used to walk from the dining room to your bedroom after the conversations that left you feeling like this, small and wrong and taking up too much space and not the right shape and never, ever, ever enough—

The bathroom door.

You push through it. Lock it behind you.

Slide down the door until you’re sitting on cold tile with your knees pulled up and the Medusa skirt bunching around your thighs and the snake cuff digging into your bicep and the gold chains in your hair pressing into the back of your skull against the wood.

The first sob comes out silent.

The second one doesn’t.

It’s ugly. Wrenching. The kind that starts in your stomach and rips upward through your chest like something with claws, and you press your hand over your mouth to contain it because there are thirty people downstairs and the last thing—the absolute last thing you need—is someone hearing you fall apart in a bathroom at a Halloween party because a boy used the word ’mature’ and your nervous system couldn’t tell the difference between him and your mother.

Tears streak through Jimin’s perfect eyeliner, wings dissolving, the careful symmetry ruined, and you think stupidly, absurdly, through the wet gasping wreckage of your breathing, that he’s going to be so disappointed when he sees what you did to his work.

That thought makes you cry harder.

Which makes you laugh.

Which makes you cry again.

You pull your knees tighter. Press your forehead to them. Let the gold chain belt dig into your thighs.

On your wrist, the rain charm catches the fluorescent light.

You don’t take it off.

He can taste purple.

Not like—grape. Not like candy or medicine or anything that’s supposed to be purple. Just the color. Just purple, sitting on his tongue like a frequency, and the ceiling is doing something interesting with its textures and Jungkook is pretty sure the decorative cobwebs have been moving for the last ten minutes but in a chill way. A friendly way. Like they’re also at a party and having a good time.

He shouldn’t have eaten that third brownie.

He knows this.

He also shouldn’t have taken that last shot of whatever Hobi poured out of a bottle with no label—a liquid the color of antifreeze that tasted like someone dissolved a green apple Jolly Rancher in paint thinner and then blessed it with a prayer and a middle finger.

But rational decisions have never been his forte and they’re not going to start now.

Not when the ceiling has this much going on, anyway.

“Hoseok deserves jail,” Taehyung mutters next to him.

He says it to the ceiling too. Both of them, heads tipped back against the couch cushions, staring up at the crown molding like it contains the answers to questions neither of them are smart enough to ask right now.

Jungkook chuckles. “Federal.”

“Minimum.”

“Consecutive sentences.”

“No parole.”

They sit with that for a moment. Satisfied with the verdict.

This lounge is on the far side of the house—quieter, dimmer, tucked away from the main party like a VIP section nobody asked for. Somebody dragged a floor lamp in here at some point and aimed it at the wall, which means the light is amber and indirect and makes everything look like a memory. There’s a smaller couch, an armchair with an afghan thrown over it, and a coffee table covered in jack-o-lanterns that Jungkook carved this morning with a steak knife and what he’d considered, at the time, artistic vision.

He looks at the decorations. The cobwebs he stretched across the doorframe. The battery-operated candles on the mantle. The little plastic spiders he positioned along the bookshelf with deliberate spacing because—film major.

Composition matters. Even in novelty arachnids.

“You know what,” he says. “I did a pretty good job with all this.”

He gestures broadly at the room. The gesture is meant to encompass the whole house but his arm is heavier than expected so it mostly encompasses the lamp and half of Taehyung’s face.

Taehyung snorts.

“Sure. If you don’t count the pumpkins.”

Jungkook’s head rolls sideways on the cushion. “What’s wrong with my pumpkins?”

Taehyung stops staring at the ceiling. Lifts his head. Rights himself into something approaching a seated position, which is a production—because Taehyung is currently dressed as Gomez Addams and the costume is committed.

Pinstripe suit. Actual pinstripe, not printed. A burgundy pocket square folded into something that probably has a name—triangle? pyramid? fabric origami?—that matches the deep red of Irika’s dress because of course it does, because Kim Taehyung looked at his girlfriend’s Morticia costume and said ’I will restructure my entire wardrobe around your color palette’ without a single beat of hesitation. The mustache is drawn on with eyeliner. Thin, precise, curling slightly at the ends. His hair is slicked back—every strand cemented into place with what smells like an entire can of product—and there’s a fake rose pinned to his lapel that Jungkook watched him steal from a vase in the entryway and present to Irika on one knee in the living room while she pretended to swoon and Hobi filmed the whole thing for Instagram.

Disgusting. Truly disgusting behavior from a man Jungkook respects and loves.

“Are you kidding me,” Taehyung says.

Jungkook rights himself too. Sits up. Squares his shoulders. The Ghostface robe shifts around him like a bathrobe at a very dramatic hotel.

“The pumpkins are perfect.”

“They’re not perfect. They look stupid.”

“They don’t—”

“Dude.” Taehyung points—hazily, finger drifting slightly left of center—at the jack-o-lantern sitting on the coffee table directly in front of them. “Look at it. Actually look at it.”

Jungkook looks at it.

It’s… okay, the mouth is a little wide.

And the eyes are slightly different sizes, which he’d thought was characterful at the time but might, in the current lighting, read more as neurological event.

And the nose—he’d tried for a triangle, landed on something more rhomboid—

“It looks like Willy Wonka,” Taehyung says. “Or some shit.”

“Willy Wonka’s attractive.”

The words leave his mouth before his brain clears them and he hears them land in the room and thinks, ’well, that’s a sentence I just said with confidence to another man on a couch.’

Taehyung’s entire head rotates toward him. Slowly. Like a surveillance camera.

“What.”

“What? He is. Didn’t you see that TikTok guy? The one who dressed up as Wonka and got like—millions of followers?”

“What the fuck is on your For You Page, dude.”

“Bro, I swear. He went viral. Hold on.”

Jungkook pulls out his phone. Unlocks it. The screen is brighter than the sun and he squints against it like a vampire encountering daylight for the first time—which, given the costume, feels thematic.

“Look. Wait.”

He opens TikTok. His thumb is slower than usual. The letters in the search bar are behaving strangely.

“How do you spell Wonka.”

“How do you—Jungkook.”

“No, I know how, I just—is there an H?”

“There’s not an H in Wonka. There has never been an H in Wonka. Where would the H go.”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking—”

“W-O-N-K-A. Five letters. No H. You went to college.”

“Technically I’m still going to college—”

“You—“ Taehyung groans, snatching the phone, “gimme the phone.”

Somehow, his friend manages to write with the efficiency of someone who doesn’t have three brownies and Hobi’s prison cocktail dissolving his neural pathways.

Two seconds later he’s scrolling through results.

Jungkook, on a sober note, would call that blasphemy.

“This one?”

He holds the phone up. A guy in a purple velvet coat and a top hat, abs out, doing a grinding motion to some remix of ‘I wanna love you’.

“That’s him! See?” Jungkook takes the phone back. Points at the screen. “Tell me that’s not attractive.”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not going to sit on this couch, in this suit, and confirm or deny the attractiveness of a TikTok Willy Wonka to you at midnight on Halloween. I have limits. I have a pinstripe situation happening.” Taehyung tugs his lapel. “Gomez wouldn’t do this.”

“Gomez would absolutely do this. Gomez would rate every man in a room if Morticia told him to.”

“That’s—” Taehyung pauses. Snatches his phone again. Narrows his eyes. “That’s actually accurate and I’m mad about it.”

“So the pumpkin looks like an attractive man. What’s the issue.”

“The issue is that a jack-o-lantern is not supposed to look like an attractive man, Jungkook. It’s supposed to look scary. That’s the—that’s the whole assignment. Scary face. On a gourd.”

“A gourd?”

“A pumpkin is a gourd.”

“Since when?”

“Since—botany? Since agriculture? Since the dawn of gourds?”

“I feel like you’re making that up.”

“Google it.”

“You Google it. You have my phone.”

Taehyung looks down. He does, in fact, still have Jungkook’s phone. He stares at it for a long moment, like he forgot how it got there and is now reconstructing the timeline.

“…Your wallpaper is still Griffin,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“From when he was a kitten.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cute.”

“I know.”

They look at each other. Two grown men on a couch. One dressed as a fictional serial killer, the other as a fictional husband. Both profoundly, catastrophically, beautifully stoned.

Taehyung hands the phone back.

“Your pumpkins still look stupid.”

“Noted. Rejected. Moving on.”

“The one in the hallway looks like it’s having an allergic reaction.”

“That one’s abstract.”

“It’s abstract in the way that a car accident is abstract.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but his brain has already lost the thread—gone, dissolved, replaced by the observation that the cobwebs on the ceiling are still moving and he’s kind of into it. Like a mobile. Like a very goth baby mobile.

He tips his head back again. Taehyung follows a beat later.

Ceiling.

Cobwebs.

“Hey,” Taehyung says.

“Yeah.”

“The decorations are good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Not the pumpkins. Everything else.”

Jungkook grins at the ceiling. “Thanks, man.”

“The pumpkins are, like, honest-to-god dog shit.”

“Got it.”

“But the rest is solid.”

“Appreciate that.”

They sit with it. Content. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who've known each other long enough that not talking is its own form of conversation.

Somewhere in the house, someone drops a glass. A cheer goes up.

Neither of them moves.

Then Jungkook's thumb finds the silver ring. Starts turning it.

He doesn't notice he's doing it. Never does. It's the kind of habit that lives below the threshold of awareness—a background process, automatic, the way some people tap their foot or chew their lip. He just spins the ring. Round and round. The pad of his thumb catching the flat edge, pushing, rotating, catching again.

"Jason bothers me."

He says it to the ceiling. Same way he said the thing about the pumpkins. Same way he said Willy Wonka was attractive. Just out there. A sentence released into the room without a permission slip.

Taehyung doesn't move. Doesn't look over.

"You've mentioned."

"No, I mean—" The ring spins. "He bothers me."

"Yeah. You've mentioned that too." Taehyung shifts on the couch. Gets slightly more upright. The jacket creaks. "Multiple times. Extensively. At length. I believe the phrase 'trust fund guidance counselor' was used. And 'discount therapist with a cologne budget.' And my personal favorite—"

"I'm not joking around right now."

Something about the way he says it—the flatness, the absence of the usual punchline, the punchline that should be there because Jungkook always has a punchline, that's the deal, that's the contract between him and every serious moment he's ever been in—makes Taehyung's head turn.

Jungkook is still looking at the ceiling. But he's not seeing the cobwebs anymore.

"Something's off about him."

"Off how?"

"I don't—" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way he—"

He stops. Starts again.

"She used eucalyptus soap."

Taehyung blinks.

"...What?"

"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."

Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustache—what's left of it—crinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.

"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."

"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "She’s vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesn’t—she still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actual—"

“Jungkook.”

"—but it's off. There's this—this layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anything—anything—that he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she just—adjusted. Without even—she probably doesn't even know she did it."

The silence that follows has a specific quality.

…The quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.

"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. You’re having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourself—"

"It's not—" He swats at Tae. "It’s not about the body wash. It's—" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that it—"

He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.

"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."

"Her tea thing."

"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Just—sitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."

He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.

"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Just—poof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing is—I should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because he—"

No, but that doesn’t sound right. Because he doesn’t know for sure, does he?

Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?

Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?

He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.

"I’m really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."

"It’s—it’s just—the way she is after she's been with him for a while. Like she’s been adjusted or something."

Taehyung is quiet for a second. Processing.

Runs a hand across the back of his neck, seemingly choosing words carefully, which is very unlike him.

"Look, man… She's a grown woman. People date shitty guys all the time. That's, like... a universal experience. It's not really—"

"I know."

"—your problem. She's your roommate. You guys argue about milk. It's not—"

"I know, Tae."

"So then why are you—" Taehyung's hand comes off his neck. Gestures at all of Jungkook. The ring spinning, the jaw set, the whole rigidness of a man who's clearly been carrying this around for longer than tonight. "Why are you like this about it? Since when do you even—I thought you guys just coexist. She leaves her shit around, you leave your shit around, Yoongi mediates. That's the dynamic."

The ring stops.

Spins again.

"We're friends."

Taehyung's eyebrows go up. Genuinely up.

"You're friends?"

"I think so. Yeah. I've been trying to convince her of that for like a month and she basically just gave in earlier tonight—anyway, that's not the point, dude—"

"No, I—I'm just—since when? Last I heard she was 'the menace in room three' who used all the hot water—"

"She's not a menace, she's—okay, she is a menace. With the hot water specifically. But that's a separate issue and it has nothing to do with—"

He's losing the thread. Can feel it unraveling. The way it always does when he tries to explain something that lives in the space between what he sees and what he can prove—the words come out wrong or come out in the wrong order or come out sounding like a conspiracy theory narrated by a guy who's had three pot brownies and a shot of Hobi's antifreeze, and he knows that, he can hear himself, but the alternative is shutting up and the alternative is worse because shutting up means the thing stays in his chest and eats.

"Okay. Forget the soap. Forget the tea bags. Forget all the—the individual things, because individually they're all nothing. Right? Each one is nothing."

He sits up. Slightly. Enough that his feet plant on the floor and he's not talking to the ceiling anymore. He's talking to his hands.

"But it's like—when you watch a movie. And you can't point to the one thing that's wrong with it. The lighting's fine, the acting's fine, the script is fine. But you walk out and you feel bad and you don't know why, and then two weeks later at three in the morning you sit up and go 'the pacing'—it was the pacing the whole time, the pacing was off and it made everything else feel wrong even though everything else was technically fine."

Catches his breath.

"Jason is the pacing."

Taehyung opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.

"That's..." he says slowly, "genuinely one of the most unhinged analogies I've ever heard you make. And I was there for the 'risotto is emotional labor' speech."

"It made sense in context—"

"It didn't, but go on."

Jungkook's face is on his hands now, resting his weight on his elbows. The way he does when the frustration of not being able to translate the thing in his body to the thing in the air hits critical mass.

"I'm not saying this right."

"You're really not."

"I just—I see her, Tae. I see her before she goes to his place and I see her when she comes back and she's different. And I can't—I can't point to the exact frame where it changes. But she's smaller when she comes back. Not like—not physically. Just... the volume on her goes down. And it comes back up when she's home for a while and then she goes back to him and it goes down again and I—"

He stops. Presses his palms flat on his thighs. Pushes down. Grounding.

"Something about him makes my skin crawl and I don't know if that's real or if I'm—"

«…making it up, Jungkook. You’re seeing things that are not there, baby. You’re projecting.»

"—or if I'm just... seeing shit that isn't there because of my own stuff. I'm aware that's possible. I'm aware I could be the problem here. But every time I try to talk myself out of it something else happens—something small, something that doesn't matter by itself—and the feeling comes back and it's—it's—"

He makes a sound. Not a word. The verbal equivalent of throwing a pen across the room because the sentence won't cooperate.

"I'm really not saying this right."

"Hey." Taehyung's voice has changed. Not all the way. Still casual, still on the couch, still Kim Taehyung at a Halloween party. But the tone is softer. "You don't have to get it perfect, man. Just say the part that matters."

The part that matters.

The ring spins.

"He—" he gulps down, the pronoun stumbling over itself, "he reminds me of—"

And the sentence stops. Not because he chose to stop it. Because the word that comes next has a weight to it—actual, physical, gravitational—and the weight wins. Holds it in his chest. Behind the sternum.

In the exact place where things live that he brings to Dr. Liao's office and puts on the table between them and says ‘I don't know what this is but it won't leave.’

He doesn't finish. Just turns his head. Looks at Taehyung.

The look does what the word won't.

Taehyung, who knows what lives on the other side of sentences Jungkook doesn't finish, nods softly.

"Mia?"

Jungkook takes a couple seconds. But then he nods.

Taehyung sits up. All the way up. Elbows on his knees. The stolen rose on his lapel bends sideways.

"What do you mean he reminds you of—like, specifically. What is he doing?"

"It's—it's just a hunch, man. I don't know him. I've barely talked to him, so for all I know I could be paranoid. I'm aware of that." He sighs. "But something about his presence makes my skin fucking crawl and—when I see her—when I see her after she's been with him for a while, every time she's..."

Loses it. The sentence. The thread. The bridge between the thing he can feel and the thing he can say.

Starts over.

"I feel like he makes her think she's the problem. Like the way she is—her personality, the way she takes up space, the way she's loud and leaves tea bags everywhere and wears vanilla everything—like all of that is this flaw he's generously helping her with. And she just—she takes it. She adjusts. And she doesn't even know she's adjusting, that's the—"

His hands are moving now. Not gesturing. Just moving. Restless energy that needs an exit.

"—and I can't say anything because we're barely—I've been her friend for like five hours, I don't get to walk up and be like 'hey, I think your boyfriend is psychologically dismantling you one tea bag at a time.' That's insane. That's—"

"Hey." Taehyung's hand on his knee. Firm. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. What specifically has he—"

The door to the lounge swings open hard enough to bounce off the wall.

Jimin comes through it like the hallway spat him out—fast, slightly off-balance, costume rumpled. The quill pen is gone from behind his ear. His eyes are wide and scanning the room with the specific urgency of someone who needs something and needed it thirty seconds ago.

"Sorry—sorry, is there water in here?"

Jungkook lifts one hand from the armrest. Swallows. Rubs the back of his neck. Points vaguely at the side table where someone abandoned a cluster of bottles and cups sometime around the second hour of the party.

"Over there."

Doesn't take long to notice Jimin's chest is moving too fast.

"Yo." Sits up.

The weed is still there—still fuzzing the edges, still making the room feel like it's wrapped in felt—but something underneath it is starting to sharpen. An instinct. The one that monitors rooms, reads exits, clocks the difference between someone who's out of breath from running and someone who's out of breath from something worse.

"What's up, Jim?"

Jimin picks up the cup. Puts it down. Picks it up again.

Licks his lips.

"It's—"

He says your name.

Everything in Jungkook's nervous system goes from THC-saturated haze to full alert in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

"She's—" Jimin swallows. Runs his hand through his hair and the careful side-part collapses, which he doesn't notice, which means whatever this is ranks above vanity. "She's in the bathroom. Crying. And Yeji and Irya are outside the door but she won't—they can't get her to come out. I think—I think her and Jason had a fight or something."

Jungkook is standing before the sentence ends.

He doesn’t remember deciding to stand. His legs just did it—unfolded beneath him, pushed him vertical, and now he’s crossing the room toward Jimin and Taehyung is sitting up behind him making a sound that means ’what’s happening’ but Jungkook’s already there, already in front of Jimin, already close enough to see the specific kind of worry on his face—not the general kind.

“What did he say?”

“What?”

“What the fuck did Jason say to her.”

Jimin blinks. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.

“I don’t—I don’t know exactly, she was crying and talking really fast and not making a lot of sense through the door and the music, but she said—” He stops. Regroups. His fingers are gripping the cup and the plastic crackles under the pressure. “She said something about feeling trapped. That he was being controlling, or she felt controlled, or—I couldn’t hear everything, she’s high and emotional and Yeji was yelling at someone to turn the music down so—”

Trapped.

The word hits different than the others.

The others—fight, crying, bathroom—those are bad, those register, those go into the filing cabinet under urgent and get processed accordingly.

But trapped doesn’t file.

Trapped doesn’t go into a cabinet.

Trapped goes into his chest.

Right next to the place where a different face lives—a word from a different room, a different year, a different woman, except it’s not different, it’s the same fucking word, the same four walls closing in, the same air running out, the same—

“—and so I wanted to grab some water because I thought maybe if she just has some water and—Jungkook?”

He’s already at the door.

“Jungkook, wait—”

He doesn’t wait. His tongue presses into the inside of his cheek—hard, pressure that’s keeping something behind his teeth that wants out, something with a shape and a heat to it that he recognizes from a long, long time ago.

Not anger. Anger is manageable. Anger is a thing he’s learned to sit with, to breathe through, to hand to Dr. Liao in pieces and say ’I felt this, I didn’t act on it, are you proud of me.’

This isn’t anger.

This is the thing underneath anger.

The thing that has no name in his vocabulary because he’s never let it stay long enough to need one.

The thing that only shows up when someone he cares about feels trapped.

His jaw clenches. The silver ring bites into his finger where his fist has curled without permission.

He rounds the corner into the hallway and the party noise swells and none of it reaches him.

Footsteps behind him. Fast. The pinstripe suit wasn’t built for pursuit but Taehyung’s making it work—long strides, dress shoes clipping the hardwood, and his voice has lost every trace of boneless ice and Willy Wonka and ceiling cobwebs.

“Jungkook.”

Doesn’t stop.

“Jungkook—wait.”

Doesn’t stop.

“Wait, man. Think this through—”

He cuts through the living room like it’s not there.

Beer pong table, fog machine, centurion, bunny, bodies in costumes he registers as shapes and colors and none of them are the shape he’s looking for.

The music is too loud and someone’s laughing near the speakers—high, a sound that scrapes the inside of his skull—and his hands are at his sides and his jaw is locked so tight the pressure reaches his temples.

Trapped.

The word keeps playing. Looped. Skipping like a scratched record.

«This is what men do.»

Not now. Not fucking now.

He reaches the french doors to the garden. Open. Night air. Cold enough that it should register but doesn’t. Patio stones under his boots. String lights overhead making everything amber and warm and the warmth is wrong—everything about this scene is wrong because it looks like a party and sounds like a party and somewhere upstairs you’re on a bathroom floor and the door is locked and you said trapped—

“You’re not doing this.”

Jungkook doesn’t turn. Steps off the patio onto the lawn.

“Hey. Hey. I’m talking to you.”

Doesn’t turn.

The grass is wet. His boots sink.

None of it registers as information worth processing because the only information that matters right now is the distance—a hundred feet, closing—and the shape of Jason’s silhouette against the string lights and the sound the word trapped makes when it loops inside a skull that’s stopped filtering anything else.

“Jungkook—you’re gonna catch a charge. You understand that? A criminal charge. At a Halloween party. In a costume. That’s what you’re walking toward right now. An assault charge in a Ghostface robe. That’s the legacy. That’s the headline.”

Eighty feet. The fountain is to his left now.

“And you know who’s not catching a charge tonight? Him. You know why? Because he didn’t do anything illegal. He was an asshole to someone. That’s it. That’s all it was. And you can’t break someone’s face for that, Jungkook, not—not in the way that counts, not in the way that a cop is gonna care about when they show up and see—”

A breath. Not a pause—a reload. Taehyung’s stride lengthens. He’s beside him now, not behind, shoes squelching on wet grass.

“—when they show up and see you. Standing over him. With blood on your hands. And they’re gonna look at you and they’re gonna look at him and who do you think—” His voice trips. Catches. Goes harder. “Who do you think gets the benefit of the doubt in that scenario? Huh? You? Asian? With the tattoos and the—and him with the PhD program and the glasses and the fucking vest? You think that’s a coin flip? You think that goes fifty-fifty?”

Jungkook doesn’t answer. Doesn’t slow down. Seventy feet.

“His parents probably have a lawyer saved in their contacts. You know that, right? People like him—they don’t fight back, they call their dad’s buddy at whatever firm and suddenly it’s not a Halloween party anymore, it’s depositions and court dates and you trying to explain to a judge why you—” Taehyung’s hand cuts through the air. “A judge who’s gonna see the exact same thing the cops saw. Who gets believed. I shouldn’t have to spell this out for you.”

He shouldn’t. They both know why.

They’ve both been in the rooms where it gets spelled out without anyone saying a word—where looking a certain way in a certain zip code means the margin for error shrinks to nothing and the assumption of guilt arrives before the explanation does.

Taehyung knows. He’s been in those rooms with him.

Same parking lots, same bloody knuckles, same cops who looked at two Asian kids with split lips and didn’t ask who started it.

“This is exactly what he’s not worth. You’ve been saying it for weeks. You said he was a prick, you said he was a snob, you said he gave you bad vibes—great, you were right, congratulations, and now what? Now you’re gonna prove it by giving him a reason to press charges? By handing him the one thing he actually needs to make you the problem? That’s the play?”

Sixty feet. Jungkook picks up speed.

“Because that’s what happens. That’s exactly what happens. You know this. I know you know this because we had the same conversation in high school after Joey Cho got expelled for defending himself in a fight he didn't start. Remember that? Remember what his mom said? She said it doesn't matter who started it. It matters who they believe. And they're not gonna believe you. Not over him. Not when he looks like that and you look like this."

A beat.

“You hit him and he’s the victim, Jungkook. He’s the guy who got attacked at a party by his girlfriend’s unhinged roommate and he gets to tell that story for the rest of his life and she—” He stumbles on the word. “—she becomes the girl it was about. The girl whose psycho roommate couldn’t keep his hands to himself. And that’s his version. That’s the version that wins. You get that, right? You get that his version wins?”

Taehyung is still talking and talking and talking and none of the words are landing because words are noise to him right now.

“Are you listening? Can you even hear me right now? Because I’m talking and you’re walking and I’m running out of ways to say the same thing which is that you’re about to fuck your entire life up and he gets to watch. He gets to stand there with his busted lip and watch you get put in the back of a car and that’s—” Taehyung’s voice goes mean with the effort of keeping it whole. “That’s not justice, man. That’s not protecting her. That’s not gonna make you feel any better, Jungkook, you know that. You know why you know that.”

Jungkook clicks his tongue and picks up speed.

Taehyung swears under his breath and matches it. “You’re not hearing me. You’re not—okay. Okay.”

Taehyung cuts in front of him. Gets there fast—one long diagonal stride and a pivot—and plants himself in the path with his hands on Jungkook’s chest.

“No.”

Hands. Flat on his sternum. Holding.

“No. I told you, bro. You’re not doing this.”

Jungkook tries to step left.

Taehyung shifts left. Blocks it. Doesn’t budge.

Tries right.

Same thing. Mirror image. The hands stay on his chest.

“Do not.” Taehyung’s pointing finger finds Jungkook’s chest. “Don’t play me right now, Jungkook. Back the fuck up.”

He grabs Taehyung’s wrist and shoves it off his chest. Sidesteps.

Gets two steps.

Taehyung grabs a fistful of the Ghostface robe from behind and hauls him backward.

Jungkook’s balance goes—boots sliding on wet grass, the robe yanking tight across his throat—and the stumble turns into a pivot and he rounds on Taehyung and swats the grip off the fabric, forearm connecting with Taehyung’s wrist hard enough to crack, and Taehyung doesn’t let go, just tightens his hold and braces and Jungkook shoves forward into his chest and Taehyung pushes back and for three ugly seconds they’re tangled—grunting, grabbing, both of them too angry for technique.

Taehyung gets both hands on the front of the robe and pushes—hard, this time, the full force of his weight behind it—and Jungkook’s back foot slides out and he catches himself and surges forward and Taehyung meets him and pushes again and they break apart.

Three feet of grass between them. Both breathing through their teeth. The pinstripe jacket wrenched sideways on Taehyung’s shoulders, pocket square crushed, and the Ghostface robe twisted half off Jungkook’s frame like someone tried to unwrap him.

“Alright, you know what.” Taehyung spreads his arms.“Come on then. You wanna fight so bad? Fight me. Right here. Let’s go. I’m right here, Jungkook.”

His chest is heaving. His hands are open. His chin is up in the specific way that means he isn’t bluffing and Jungkook knows damn well he’s not bluffing.

“Hit me. Come on. Hit me. Get it out. Because I promise you—I promise you on everything—you’re not getting within ten feet of that guy tonight. Not while I’m standing. So either you put me down first or you stand here and breathe like a fucking adult. Those are your options. Two options. Pick one.”

Jungkook’s tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Copper taste. His whole body is a live wire looking for ground and the ground is just some feet away laughing and Taehyung is in the way.

He takes a step.

Taehyung takes one to match. Closes the gap. Gets in his space.

“I’ve had your back in every stupid fight since we were sixteen, dude.”

Quieter now. Which is worse. Taehyung getting quieter means the real thing is coming.

“Every single one. I was there. So believe me when I tell you—if you try to get past me right now, I will lay you out on this lawn and I will not feel bad about it. Not even a little. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Because the alternative is watching you throw your entire life at some guy who’s not worth the skin on your knuckles, and I’m not doing that. I’m not watching that. That’s my line. You’ve found it. Congratulations.”

Jungkook’s chest hurts. It hurts and he wishes he could rip what’s beating underneath his chest out.

“You’re better than this.” Taehyung’s throat works. “You know you’re better than this. So act like it or I swear to god I’ll drop you myself, Jungkook. You know I will.”

The silence feels like the canteen, like sixteen, like bloody knuckles behind a 7-Eleven after someone mocked Jungkook’s mom and Taehyung took care of it.

“I did not spend two years watching you put yourself back together just to let you blow it up tonight. Not over this. Not over him.” His jaw flexes. “You wanna get to Jason? You’re going through me. And I don’t go down easy. You know that.”

A beat.

“So help me god, Jungkook, test me and find out.”

“What’s happening.”

From the left, from the direction of the garden wall where the smokers are thinning out—

Yoongi.

“One of you talk.” He stops. Positions himself at Taehyung’s shoulder. “Now.”

Jungkook is a locked system. Nothing’s coming out of him that isn’t breath and body heat.

Yoongi looks at Taehyung.

Taehyung runs both hands through what’s left of the slicked-back hair. Wreckage. His chest is still heaving but his voice comes out forced-steady, the way it does when he’s physically holding himself together to deliver information that matters.

“Jason. The TA. Him and Y/N had a fight—she’s locked in a bathroom upstairs. Jimin came in, said she’s crying, said she told him she felt trapped. That he was being controlling.”

The word lands between the three of them.

Trapped.

Yoongi’s gaze tracks to Jungkook. To the fists. The jaw. The set of his shoulders. The readiness.

He looks at this for a long moment.

Then he looks at the direction Jungkook’s body is pointed. At Jason fifty feet away.

Then back at Jungkook.

He steps forward. Even with Taehyung. Shoulder to shoulder.

His hands go into his pockets.

“Okay.” He sighs. “Okay, Jungkook, tell me what happens next. You get past us. Then what. You feel better for ten seconds and then you’re the guy who assaulted someone at a Halloween party and she’s the girl it was about. That what you want?”

No.

That’s not what he wants.

What he wants is to go back in time fifteen minutes and be in whatever room Jason took you to and stand between you and whatever sentences made you say trapped.

What he wants is to have been there.

He wasn’t.

“Use your head for a second here, Jungkook.” Yoongi hasn’t moved. Hasn’t blinked. “Come on.”

Jungkook’s jaw works. The pressure in his chest is unbearable—a full-body hum of something that needs to go somewhere and has nowhere to go because every exit is blocked by friends who are right, and that’s the worst part, he knows they’re right, and knowing doesn’t do a single fucking thing about the voltage running through his body looking for ground—

Over Yoongi’s shoulder, past the fountain, Hobi.

Standing near the garden wall. Drink in hand. Mid-conversation with the Mia Wallace girl.

He catches Yoongi’s gaze across the patio and Yoongi does something—small, barely visible. A head tilt. A jaw set. The kind of signal that exists between people who’ve done this before and have a protocol.

Jungkook knows this and hates it.

Hates it more because Hobi’s smile drops and he knows he’s read the entire scene in the time it takes to set his drink on the wall and say something short to Mia Wallace and start crossing the patio.

He tries to cut between Yoongi and Taehyung.

To no avail.

Because an arm suddenly loops around his shoulders.

“Hey!”

The specific weight of Jung Hoseok’s arm, which has the density of someone who’s been dancing professionally for a decade and casually manhandles grown men like it’s a love language.

“Have you seen the music room?”

Jungkook’s whole body is rigid under the arm.“Hoseok—let go, I swear to god—”

“The music room.” Hobi doesn’t let go. Steers him. Smoothly, like they’re two friends walking somewhere together, nothing to see here, just guys being guys at a party. “Other side of the house. Past the library. Tessa’s grandfather was apparently some kind of collector.”

He’s walking Jungkook away from the garden and Jungkook is aware of the maneuver, so he tries to sidestep with all his might because he will not be persuaded this time—

“There’s an electric guitar in there.”

Jungkook’s stride falters.

“I’m serious.” Hobi’s voice drops a half-register. “Vintage, I think. Hanging on the wall. Looked expensive.”

Over his shoulder, Hobi makes a gesture. Quick. Two fingers, a direction.

“Come on.” Hobi squeezes his shoulder. “Show me if it’s any good. I can’t tell with guitars. They all look the same to me.”

“They don’t all—” Jungkook’s voice comes out scraped. Ruined. He clears his throat. “They don’t all look the same. That’s like saying all dance styles look the same.”

“Exactly. Terrible. Tragic. I need you to educate me.”

The arm stays around his shoulders. The garden gets smaller behind them. The french doors pass. The hallway opens. The party noise dims.

His hands are still shaking.

Hobi doesn’t mention it.

You’re still hiccuping and you feel so stupid.

That’s the worst part. Not the crying—the crying has a reason, the crying has a source, the crying is a physiological response to emotional stimulus and you can rationalize it later into something manageable.

But the stupidity of it. The exact specific humiliating stupidity of sitting on a bathroom floor at a party in a costume you felt good in thirty minutes ago, mascara running, eyeliner destroyed, hiccuping like a child who lost her balloon at a county fair because someone said a fucking word.

A word.

It doesn’t get more embarrasing than this.

Except it does, because you’ve been here before.

Not this bathroom. But this exact posture. This exact tile-against-spine, knees-to-chest, face-in-hands architecture of feminine collapse, because you are apparently a person who processes her worst moments in bathrooms, and that’s—

That’s a pattern, isn’t it?

Sophomore year of high school. Alicia Gutierrez’s house party. You wore the denim skirt you’d been saving for something that mattered and David Morrison kissed Noor Adil in the living room with his hand on the back of her neck, the exact hand that had been on the back of your neck two hours earlier behind the bleachers, and you walked to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried.

Different tile. Same posture. Same girl.

Everything big happens in a bathroom. Everything that matters, everything that shifts the axis of your stupid little life—it all happens against porcelain and tile and horrible lightning.

The day Jungkook propositioned you in 6B. Leaning in the doorframe like he owned the square footage, smelling like rain and bad decisions, saying words that should’ve made you slam the door but instead made you stand there with wet hair and a racing pulse trying to formulate a comeback while your brain buffered.

The day he mentioned your cologne before Emma’s birthday. Just—said it. Casually. Like noticing what someone smells like is a thing you mention to your roommate while she’s brushing her teeth.

«You changed it.»

Two words that sat in the steam of the bathroom for three seconds too long and rearranged something behind your ribs that you’ve been pretending didn’t happen.

The first time Jimin did your eyeliner, it was in that bathroom too. And today as well, in the bathroom of the suite you might no longer share with Jason, quill pen behind his ear and his careful fingers on your jaw and the question he asked that wasn’t really about labels or aisles or boxes on shelves but about whether it’s possible to exist without a name for what you are.

All your big moments happen in bathrooms.

There’s something poetic in that, if you ignore the toilet.

The brownies are definitely hitting now. Everything has a shimmer to it. The grout lines between the tiles look deeper than they should.

Also your fingers feel very far away from your body. Like they’re suggestions. Theoretical fingers.

Great. You’re having an emotional breakdown while slowly becoming one with the bathroom tile. This is the human experience at its most dignified.

A knock. Soft.

“Hey. It’s me.”

Irya.

Not Yeji—Irya, which means Irya got to the door first or elbowed Yeji aside, and there’s a difference between those two arrivals that matters.

Yeji arrives like a SWAT team. Irya arrives like an EMT.

Both are trying to save you. Only one is going to kick the door down to do it.

“I brought your phone,” Irya says. “You left it on the loveseat.”

You don’t answer.

“You don’t have to open the door. I’m just going to sit out here, okay? Just me.”

A pause.

Then, farther away, Yeji’s voice—gritted like it comes between her teeth.

“And me. I’m also here. With knives.”

“She doesn’t have knives,” Irya says.

“I have metaphorical knives. I have the energy of knives.”

“Yeji.”

“What? I’m being supportive. I’m supportively enraged.”

You press your forehead into your knees. Hiccup.

A sound against the door. The soft thud of someone sitting down on the other side—Irya, you think, based on the gentle way it happens. Yeji sits down the way she does everything: with intent and aggression toward the furniture.

“Babe.” Irya’s voice is close now. “Can you tell me what’s happening? Just—whatever you want. Even if it doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s okay. That’s totally okay. Tell me anyway.”

Something about the way she says that—’tell me anyway’—like your not-making-sense is not a problem to be solved but a thing to be held.

“He said I should respect myself more.”

Silence.

Then, from further back: “He said what?”

“Yeji—” Irya, steady.

“No. No, repeat that. He said she should respect herself? Those words? In that order? From his mouth?”

“Yeji, hold on—”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to walk downstairs and I’m going to commit a crime that will be studied in law schools—”

“You’re not killing anyone. Sit down.”

“I wasn’t gonna stand up—”

“That’s only because I’m holding your wrist down.”

A huff. Yeji sits quieter.

“Okay.” Irya again. Closer. You can hear her shifting, getting comfortable against the door, settling in for however long this takes. “He said respect yourself. What else?”

You swallow. The hiccups are slowing but your throat is raw and everything tastes like salt and chocolate.

“He said—that I should be more mindful. About how I act around other people. That I was being—”

You search for the word.

It comes back coated in cedar and bergamot.

“Inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate how?”

“He said I was draped all over—that I was hanging on someone and it looked bad. In front of people. That I need to think about how I come across.”

“Draped,” Yeji repeats from behind Irya. She says it the way you’d say ’cockroach’. “He described physical affection between friends as draping?”

“And that I should have more consideration. And be more—”

The word.

“More mature.”

Silence. A long one.

You hear Irya exhale.

“Can I say something?”

You nod.

Then realize she can’t see you.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not going to tell you he’s wrong about everything. Because that wouldn’t be helpful, and I think what you need right now is honesty, not just someone being angry on your behalf.” A beat. “That’s Yeji’s job.”

“Damn right,” Yeji mutters.

“But I want you to hear this. The way someone says something matters as much as what they say. And a person who frames their discomfort as your character flaw—who says you need to respect yourself instead of saying I felt uncomfortable—that person is not having a conversation with you. They’re managing you.”

The word cracks something open.

Managing.

That’s—

That’s exactly what it felt like. Not a discussion. Not two people navigating something messy and complicated.

A performance review. A parent-teacher conference.

‘Here’s what you did wrong, here’s what you need to fix, here’s the version of you I’d prefer to be dating.’

“He’s not—” You stop. Start again. “He’s not a bad person.”

“Nobody said he was, babe.”

“He’s not—it’s not like he was mean. He didn’t yell. He was calm. He was being—totally reasonable—”

“Totally reasonable is how they get you.” Yeji. “Totally reasonable is the whole con. Being calm while you say controlling shit doesn’t make it not controlling. It just makes the other person feel crazy for having a reaction.”

You know that. You know that.

You’ve read the articles. You’ve had the conversations.

You just didn’t think you’d be sitting on the other side of it with mascara on your chin.

“Can I ask you something?” Irya. Gentle. “And you don’t have to answer.”

“Yeah.”

“When he said those things—the maturity thing, the respect thing—did it feel new? Or did it feel… familiar?”

You swallow.

Irya waits. Patient in that way she has—not passive, not absent, just genuinely unhurried, like she’d sit outside this door all night if that’s what it took.

“Familiar,” you whisper.

“Okay.” Soft. Like she expected that. “Okay, that’s important. That’s really important. Because when something hurts more than it should, it’s usually because it’s landing on something that was already bruised.”

The sob comes before you can stop it. Just one. Hard, sharp, ripped from somewhere below your sternum.

“I know,” Irya says. “I know.”

“It’s—it sounded like my mom.” You’re saying it before you’ve decided to say it—the words just coming, tumbling out through the crack in the door like water through a broken seal. “The way he said it. The tone. The calm. She used to—she used to do this thing where she’d sit me down and explain, very patiently, why everything I was doing was wrong. Very gently. Very reasonably. And I’d sit there and just—take it. Because how do you argue with someone who’s being nice about it? How do you say stop, you’re hurting me when they’re smiling?”

“You can’t.” Yeji. Not angry now. Quiet. “You can’t because the smile is the point. The smile is what makes you feel insane.”

“I feel insane,” you say, and it comes out small.

“You’re not insane.” Irya. Steady as gravity. “You’re having a very sane reaction to a very specific kind of hurt. And the fact that you can name it—the fact that you can say this felt like my mother—that’s not insane. That’s the opposite.

You press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Gold shimmer and black liner smear across your skin.

“Babe, please.” Yeji’s voice is closer now. She’s moved up. Right beside Irya, if you had to guess. “At least drink some water. You had Hobi’s drinks and those brownies and you need to hydrate or you’re going to feel even worse.”

“I don’t want water.”

“You say that, but—”

“Yeji. I’m fine.”

“You are audibly not fine.”

“I am choosing to be not fine in private, which is my right as a—”

“If you say ‘as a feminist’ I’m picking this lock.”

Shuffling outside the door. Footsteps, the clipped sound of dress shoes on hardwood.

A male voice: “Hey, is she—”

Yeji is on her feet so fast you hear the combat boots squeak.

“No.”

“I just—”

“No. Absolutely not. Turn around.”

“Yeji—” That’s Irya. Mediating.

“The last thing she needs right now is another fucking man outside this door.”

“I’m not—I’m just trying to—”

“Oh great. Another man who’s just trying to. Fantastic. Groundbreaking. Never heard that one before.”

“Can you stop for one second—”

“Can you stop? Can you maybe read the room and understand that a girl who’s crying because a guy made her feel like shit does not need a different guy showing up to—”

“I’ve been where she is.”

That stops Yeji.

Not completely—you can feel her resistance from inside the bathroom, can practically hear the argument building behind her teeth—but the sentence cuts through the momentum the way a stick cuts through water. Not by force. By changing direction.

“Yeji.” Irya. Quiet. A hand on an arm, you imagine. “Let him.”

A paus, long enough to contain a full conversation between two people who love each other so much they can negotiate in microseconds.

“If she says go away, you go away,” Yeji says finally.

“Yeah. Got it.”

The boots retreat. Not far—you know Yeji, she’s pulling back ten feet and maintaining line of sight like a Secret Service agent in Doc Martens—but far enough.

Then a sound.

A sigh, long and gusty and annoyed, like he’s been personally inconvenienced by the existence of feelings and the floor and gravity and the entire concept of sitting down in a suit.

Then the thud of a body dropping against the other side of the door with the grace of a man who committed to this before he fully thought through the logistics.

“Hey.”

Taehyung.

His voice is different than it was ten seconds ago with Yeji. Quieter.

“You don’t have to talk. I just—I’m gonna sit here for a minute. If that’s okay.”

You don’t answer. Your throat is raw from the crying and your sinuses are packed with concrete and the hiccups have slowed but not stopped, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals.

“I’m not gonna ask what happened. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

A beat.

“I just know what that door feels like from your side.”

Something in your chest clenches.

“I locked myself in Hobi’s bathroom once.” His voice is steady. Calm. But there’s a grain to it—something rough, something lived-in. “For like… three hours? Maybe four. Hobi sat outside the whole time. Didn’t leave. Didn’t push. Just sat there.”

You hear him shift his weight.

“I was—going through something. Something bad. And I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think and I felt really, really stupid for not being able to just—handle it. Because it’s breathing, you know? You’ve been doing it your whole life. How hard can it be.”

A hic escapes your mouth before you can stop it. Loud in the quiet.

“That was a good one,” he says.

And despite everything—despite the mascara and the tile and the word mature still rattling around in your skull like a bullet in a tin can—the corner of your mouth twitches.

“Hobi didn’t try to fix it,” Taehyung continues. “He didn’t say the right thing or give me advice or tell me to come out. He just… sat there. Told me about this dumb thing that happened at rehearsal. Some dancer who accidentally kicked another dancer in the face during a lift. And I was crying and laughing at the same time and it was—really messy. But it helped. Just having someone on the other side of the door who wasn’t trying to make it better. Who was just… there.”

He pauses.

“So I’m just here. That’s it. That’s the whole pitch.”

You press your lips together. Hard. Because if you open your mouth right now what comes out is going to be ugly—not sarcastic-ugly, not defense-mechanism-ugly, just real ugly, the kind of honest that has no style to it, no wit, just a girl on a floor who doesn’t know how to stop feeling too much about everything all the time.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying this hard,” you say.

It comes out broken. Scratchy. Barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to know why.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. He didn’t even—he didn’t yell. He didn’t do anything wrong, technically. He was—” Hic. “He was being reasonable. That’s the fucked up part. He was being totally calm and rational and saying things that sounded right and I just—”

“Sometimes it’s the calm that gets you.”

The sentence stops you.

“The loud stuff—the yelling, the throwing things—that’s easy to point at. You can say ’that, right there, that’s the problem.’ But when someone’s calm…” He exhales. Long. Slow. Like he’s letting something out that’s been sitting in his lungs for a while. “When someone’s calm and reasonable and says things that sound almost right, it makes you feel crazy for being upset. Like the problem is you. Your reaction. Not what they said.”

Silence.

“That’s worse,” he says quietly. “That’s so much worse.”

Your chin is trembling. You clamp your jaw around it.

“Taehyung.”

“Yeah?”

“How did you—” Hic. Fuck. “When did it stop? The feeling like—like you were too much. And also not enough. At the same time. How did that stop?”

The door is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that you wonder if he’s deciding whether to answer or deciding how to answer, and you know the difference because you live in the gap between those two things.

“I’ll let you know when it does.”

Your breath comes out in a rush.

First one since you locked yourself in this room.

“But it gets—I don’t know. Quieter? It doesn’t go away. You just get better at hearing other stuff over it. People who actually mean it when they say you’re enough. People who don’t need you to be less.”

A thump against the door. Soft. His head, you think. Tipping back against the wood.

“And you learn who to listen to. That’s the hard part. Because the ones who make you feel small usually sound the most reasonable. They’ve got the best arguments. The best vocabulary.” A pause. “Real ones don’t need a vocabulary. They just show up and sit outside your door at midnight dressed as Gomez Addams and hope it helps.”

That breaks you.

Not the word mature. Not Jason’s calm reasonable hands folded in prayer. Not even the memories of marble countertops and correctly angled forks.

This. This stupid, quiet, honest thing from a guy you barely know who’s sitting on a hallway floor in a pinstripe suit because he once locked himself in a bathroom too and somebody sat outside for him.

The sob that comes out is different from the ones before. Softer. Rounder. Less like something being ripped from your chest and more like something being released. A pressure valve opening. Steam instead of shrapnel.

“Okay,” you manage. Watery. Wrecked. “That was—you can’t just say stuff like that to someone who’s—”

“Too late. Already said it. No returns.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s fine. I’m very hateable. Ask Jungkook. He has a list.”

You laugh. It comes out wet and awful and it hurts your ribs and it’s the best sound you’ve made in an hour.

On the other side of the door, you hear him exhale. Relief. The kind someone makes when they weren’t sure it was going to work and then it did.

“For the record,” he says. “Your eyeliner’s probably ruined.”

“I know.”

“Jimin’s going to be devastated.”

“I know.”

“Like, genuinely distraught. He might never recover.”

“Please stop.”

“I’m just preparing you for the grief.”

You wipe your face with the back of your hand. It comes away black and gold and wet.

“Can you just—” Hiccup. “Can you sit there for one more minute.”

“Yeah.” Immediate. “Yeah, I’m here.”

So he sits.

And you sit.

And the door stays between you, and that’s fine.

That’s actually the whole point.

Sometimes the best thing a person can do is be close enough to hear and far enough to not see, and let the wood do the work that words can’t.

A minute passes. Maybe two.

The hiccups stop. Your breathing evens out. The brownies are still doing their thing, but the room doesn’t feel like it’s shrinking anymore.

It feels like a room. With a floor. And a girl on it who cried the right amount for the right reasons and is probably going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning but right now, in this specific minute, feels something closer to emptied out than broken.

Your hand finds your wrist. The rain charm, cool against your pulse.

You flick it.

Then you stand up.

Your knees protest—stiff, cramped, the tile having done nothing for the cramps that are still low and persistent in your abdomen—and you catch yourself on the sink.

Your reflection in the mirror is a horror show. Mascara tracks. Eyeliner smeared into grey-black smudges beneath your eyes. Gold shimmer streaked across your cheeks where the tears dragged it. The dark berry lipstick is mostly gone, bitten off, leaving just a stain at the edges.

Medusa, post-battle. Snakes wilted.

Whatever.

You unlock the door. Pull it open.

Taehyung looks up at you from the floor.

He looks like a 1920s husband who got left at a train station and decided to wait.

His eyes move across your face. The damage. The evidence.

He doesn’t comment on any of it. Just gets up. Unfolds himself from the floor, brushing off the back of his trousers with one hand, and stands there. Not too close. Not too far.

“Do you know where Jungkook is?” comes out of your lips.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know where he is.”

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© jungkoode 2025

Hoseok resists every temptation. The others might be borderline overeager to get you into their practice room daily, and there are plans to have you accompany them on their premotions when they pick up. the others might take every available opportunity to see you outside of work hours. They take you to fancy dinners under the guise of making sure you're properly fed, a spa day here and there, a reward because you deserve it, shopping just to get to know you.

They just want to be good employers they say but the truth is deeper than that. To be people you rely on, to project the image of a pack you might want to be part of- they'll have to work at it. Every pack must work to properly attract an omega these days, even them as famous as they are. There are so few, especially so few that they meet in their line of work.

How much would they need to have to get you? A house and a collection of fancy cars? Or would it take a grammy and a wall of awards? A diamond collar and a penthouse somewhere?

The others might be convinced the pack is ready, but Hoseok is not so easily swayed. Hoseok is still wary; Hoseok has his reservations. For a very good reason…

He’s reluctant to engage with you. Keeping his hellos quick and short. His bows are deep but brief. Polite. Every movement is crisp and not an inch too close. He side eyes Yoongi and Namjoon when they start to customize the omega nests in their studios, even more when jackets and clothes go missing. When they come out of their studios smelling happy and sated in a way that Hoseok still isn’t used to. Eyes heavy-lidded, hands and throats smelling of sweet omega. Delicate omega. Beloved omega.

Hoseok’s omega, a hidden desperate voice says. A ridiculous voice that Hoseok tells himself does not make any of his decisions and is not in control of any of his actions. Of course not. It would be ridiculous for Hoseok, the pack alpha of the most popular pop group in the world, to give in to his instincts.

Hoseok doesn't even admit it to himself how much he wants you, not even when he pins the others to the wall after he’s seen your name on their schedule. Sniffing down the column of their throats, lapping at the berry scent all but dripping off of them. Trusted teeth t their throats, nibbling at their wrists, nosing and rutting through their hair for a whiff of your scent. This is what omegas do to alphas- they make them possessive and addicted, controlling and dependent.

Some of the packmates make it easy, others give Hoseok hell for his behavior. Remaining perfectly polite in public, so detached the pack is sure you don't even know about Hoseok's fixation, and…honestly filthy in private. Jin, Namjoon, and Jimin hardly tease, just look down at him with sly smiles on their faces, knowing, but allow his hunger to go unremarked upon.

But Tae and Yoongi and Jungkook make it fun, pushing back just to force Hoseok into that headspace. They fight until Hoseok pins them, squirm until he nips at their throats and growls in warning. Lift their heads and glare at him with those stupidly cute smirks on their face until Hoseok reminds them why he's pack alpha.

And why they're waiting. After a few months, almost all of their late-night conversations revolve around you.

The pack is used to the pack alpha getting this way around rut season (but neglects to point out that it’s months and months away, too early to be it). This is something different. This transcends Hoseok's self-control. Even when Hoseok doesn’t give in and lick your scent from them, his jealous rages.

And it only gets Harder and harder to hide.

Hoseok is very, very aware of the whispered complaints from management. The less hidden snide comments that get met with a perfectly worded reply that leaves the perpetrator wondering if Hoseok is really an enemy they want to have. Any time anyone dares to say something even slightly critical of his pack’s needs, Hoseok is unrelenting. Hoseok is their fortress.

Usually, they’re not bold enough to say anything to his face, but even he can’t help what he overhears.

It's two managers- one for Le Seraphim and the other for a pre-debut group, scheduled for announcement near the end of the quarter. You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with them recently. Hoseok doesn't mind the girls; they're polite as they should be.

At least one hour a day is dedicated to them because they're all under so much stress. Every time you leave them, you look more and more tired. Hoseok knows you're scenting all of them at once, quickly, before management notices. But it's against your contract and everything he knows about Omegas.

Most omegas get overwhelmed if they have to scent even 4 or 5 people that aren't in their pack a day. Their scents spiking wildly, uncontrollably, let alone this new group of 9 (probably 7, Hoseok knows the look of two of them- they just won't make the cut- they don't have what it takes.)

It’s a painful reminder every time he sees their name on your schedule and a bit of a slap in the face to Hoseok. Every time he's forced to remember that you're not theirs. Not officially. Not yet.

So maybe Hoseok tells the pack to be selfish with your time, to book out your time slots regardless of whether they need a scenting or not. Filling your hours with meaningless little dates when you could be scenting them. Naps in studio spaces or quiet requests for your help with something simple, like your opinion on outfits or aesthetics- to get an omegan perspective. Anything to give you an adequate chance to take a breather.

Hoseok only wants to make sure you're getting proper rest. at least that's what he tells himself.

Hoseok is moving from the meeting room to the studio (approvals on merch that needed his and Namjoon’s final okay) to a studio where a mildly distressed Seokjin probably needs his help. The new song is just an octave out of Jin’s comfort zone, all routine, all normal.

That’s what Hoseok thinks of when he comes to a screeching halt at the sound of your name. This interruption is anything but ordinary. The door to another meeting room on the 6th floor is cracked, one seldom used by the artists but commonly occupied by staff.

Maybe an ordinary alpha might not hear it, but Hoseok's always had exceptionally good hearing.

He pauses in his near-silent footsteps, recognizing the too casual way the two managers are talking and the hush to their voices as something salacious. The secrets can't help but slip through the open door and onto Hoseok’s waiting ears.

Hoseok moves quietly, his feet hardly making a sound on the carpet floor. Every ounce of him is an alpha trained to hunt. To detect threats to his pack. A hidden voice- Hoseok's alpha, reminds him that everything but the pack is a threat to Hoseok's omega.

"-They're hogging her. I don't care if they're eligible for a Grammy or a fucking Nobel peace prize. We didn't hire her to be their omega." The whisper of the beta’s voice is a pitched down. Unpleasant in it's nasality.

There’s the hiss of paper shuffling, an understanding and agreeable scoff. "I just don’t know what you expect me to do about it- I'll say something to Namjoon if you really want me too, or would you rather I say something to Jung Hoseok?"

His reaction is startled, almost hasty. "No no no, there's no reason to involve their pack alpha in this." Hidden by the shadows, Hoseok smiles. It's more of a bearing of teeth. Even not present, Hoseok's name commands respect and fear. Even quiet- he’s dangerous.

"He's sort of…scary sometimes."

Hoseok doesn’t mind being feared, might prefer it actually- if it means that his pack remains unhalted and unbothered. If it means you get to sleep where you want to sleep and nest where you want to nest. Hoseok is always keeping track of you. Watchful when you duck out of one of the meeting rooms with Taehyung and Jungkook, looking half asleep in a way that just won’t do.

Hoseok initially intended to make sure they didn't skip lunch, but now his presence is much more important.

You weren't in a session with them, but even when you're not booked, you have the habit of hanging around the pack. Gravitating to them almost naturally. An original condition of your contract with Hybe is that you were allowed to nest where you want to when you're not booked for a scenting session with someone, but there's no question of where you'll be and whose pack is most likely to be occupying your time.

Whenever anyone asks where you are in his presence, the whole company's first instinct is to look to the pack to answer that question.

Hoseok's alpha purrs every time he notices it, begging you to come a little closer, the way a wolf might stay still until a rabbit hops between its paws. The image isn't incorrect, but the truth is that Hoseok is not the alpha in the pack you're closest to. Not in the slightest.

That honor is reserved for Jungkook, and by default- jimin and taehyung.

Maybe it's just because you're closest in age to them, but there's hardly a day that you're not giggling about some video that they sent you, or wearing one of taehyung's extra large sweatshirts, a pretty bracelet of Jimin's dangling on your wrist because you'd said it was pretty and he insisted.

But you with Jungkook is another sight entirely. When he giggles you perk up, you blush at the sight of him coming close. Scent going warm and flustered whenever he takes off his shirt during practice or flashes the mirrors in body rolls. Your interest noticeable even from afar.

Hoseok hates it. Hates feeling jealous. Only barely resists the urge to snap at Jungkook whenever he picks up that you're flirting. It's ridiculous because Hoseok loves Jungkook. Jungkook is his pup, the one who reaches for him when the late nights burn low and his body aches, when there's that line of tension in his body that just won't quit, when Jungkook- like the others needs what only their pack alpha can provide.

It's hoseok's own damn fault for being so cautious.

About once a day, he’s reminded that he still hasn’t booked a session with you yet, still hasn’t gotten any more than this. Hoseok’s alpha paces the confines of his mind, waiting for the right moment to strike and gather you up.

And in the meantime, human Hoseok yearns.

He watches you from behind as you walk with Tae and Jungkook. Your first session of the day was with Jungkook (he's happy, Hoseok can smell the joy dripping off him even if he couldn't see it. Koo bouncing on his feet, body still obviously humming from his scenting session) and your second with Tae (prowling, quiet as usual, obviously needing rest. Tae always sleeps like the dead after your scenting session).

But you- you're cute. Wobbly and sleepy between the two of them. First coming up to rub your eye. Hoseok can smell the muted exhaustion on you; you're honestly dead on your feet. Hoseok wants to snap and growl at that. Are you too tired to walk? Should he offer to carry you? No, that would be ridiculous- that would be-

You sway as you walk, one step taking you close to Jungkook, the next closer to Taehyung. Hoseok trails behind. Eyes on the way that your shoulders brush each of theirs. Relaxing just a little bit when Taehyung (not Jungkook) sets his hand on the small of your back at a polite height.

You lean into Tae's casual touch (a little bit better than the way you'd let your fingers brush Kookies seconds prior). Obviously indulging in the warm splay of his fingers, the firmness of his grip on your waist as it slides to the side. Hoseok knows he must feel steady.

Hoseok watches you look up at Tae's face, fixated. jealousy twisting in his gut. You look at him like you know that if you lean into him, Tae will keep you upright. So trusting. so indulgent you don't even notice tae stare back. doing a double take when he catches you watching.

Tae pokes your nose; you go a little cross-eyed trying to look at it. Jungkook laughs and nuzzles into the ball of your shoulder. they cordinate between the two of you, walking like a many legged animal. a stalfmemeber has to press themselves flat to a wall as they pass. about to say something in hello until they spot hoseok.

and promptly duck into the nearest room rather than distrub them.

hoseok grins, behind the three of you- unseen.

“You still look a little out of it.” taehyung says, jogging hoseok's concentration.

You pout, swatting his hand away. “I’m not,” you say, but even to Hoseok it sounds petulant and bratty.

“Stay close to us,” Jungkook says, and you nod, obedient without challenging it.

(You've heard it all from alpha's before. Stay close to us. I want you and only you. I'd give you everything. But somehow you wonder why it feels different when it's these alphas, why it makes your blood heat and hum.)

Hoseok is unrelenting later at practice. Jungkook and Tae just share looks behind his back, knowing. Aware. If Hoseok won't give in to his instincts on his own, the rest of the pack will do their best to give him an incentive.

Hoseok will do anything to be feared if it means he sneaks up on you and Jimin napping.

Your legs slung over his knees, comfortable fabric pulling up to reveal inches of goosebump ladened skin. Jimin’s hand rests. under the leg of your pants, fingers wrapped around your ankle. clutching it in his sleep like a child might hold the leg of a stuffed animal. three sets of shoes lie in a haphazard pile, discarded at the edge of the nest. Heads together and hair colors mixing with how close your heads are nestled.

Beta's don’t need much, but Jimin has been so tired recently, stressed about the choreography just like Hoseok is. A scenting is just what he needs. Jimin presses up against you.

both of you are slung over Seokjin. Limbs tangling. The betas don’t get quite as territorial over your scenting sessions and often elect to do them together (if only to free up more of your time for the others). Seokjin’s not sleeping, curled around you and tapping away at a game on his phone.

You doze, chin hooked over his elbow. Pressing forward to watch him, giggling at the actions of the avatar on the screen, and Seokjin’s quiet narration. The occasional "yah don't do that" and the way he pauses when he loses or reaches the next level, hand brushing over the top of your head, playing with your hair for a second when he asks if you're ready for a nap.

"I already had one today." You say, sounding small. Jin hums, unconvinced. Your eyelids flutter, looking heavy. Hoseok bets you have minutes before you're out. Every laugh makes Jimin move a little. He looks so young like that, curled over you, nosing into the nape of your neck, hiding from the lights with his hood up.

Hoseok will do anything, will stay away from you forever. If he gets to see you jumping from couch to couch in Yoongi’s studio, socked feet slipping, your chatter at a 200 tempo like the rap track drowning out the sound of your commentary. (Hoseok's never met a person whose voice made him want to turn the music down).

You're Hyperactive from the empty coffee that Namjoon made sure to mix half with decaf (caffeine isn’t good for omega’s, you’d probably be mad if you knew he kept you from it, but they can’t help it). And Omega's are naturally a little more active once the sun goes down.

Namjoon has his hand up and is waiting for you to need him to steady you. Namjoon's dimples seem to have permanently etched themselves into his face because he just can't stop smiling. Hoseok’s never seen you with so much energy. Socked feet depressing the leather of the couches.

Hoseok watches from a rolly chair as you hop from couch to couch, Namjoon’s hands out to hold you should you fall, grabbing your waist and doing just that when you say. “This one makes me want to spin!” giggling when Namjoon holds your waist and just does that. Yoongi giggles, gums showing. Hoseok watches him and finds himself smile back.

When Namjoon puts you down, you set your hands on the back of Hoseok's chair, over his sweatshirt that he always keeps there. should he get cold- should someone else need it.

Hoseok watches your hands tangle it.

"Can you show me more?"

"More music?" He questions, quriking an eyebrow at you.

"Anything." He turns away, but your hands stay on the back of his chair. Hoseok is careful to turn slowly, so that you have something to keep you steady. Omegas are just as physically capable as alphas, can run marathons (under medical supervision) and he knows you have plans to work out with Jungkook. But Hoseok still would never dream of making you unsteady.

Hoseok will become the most feared alpha in the industry if that’s what it takes. To keep this balance. Not quite packmates, not quite coworkers. But a third, worse thing.

Friends- definitely friends. Hoseok protects his friends. He guards his important people with his life. You are the most important person in the pack’s orbit these days. (Pack alphas don’t know how to do anything in half measures.) Hoseok won’t let anything happen to you.

Their next album breaks several records, and that promise feels less and less like posturing, more like a fact. Even when he’s alone, even without the pack, he draws a hush to every room he enters. The tick of his head earns apologies, his smile a bow. Hoseok is right where he wants to be.

There’s no one to compare them to, and he knows it. Everyone does. There isn’t a single more eligible pack for an omega in the country- one better poised to take one on in a more permanent basis. All that they would have to do is contact an omega placement agency in the city, and they'd have omega's clamoring to submit applications.

They even get more than a few personal and private messages from omegas on the prowl. Content creators and well-known fans. It's a regular discussion among the fans about which omega they'll choose and yet…

 Hoseok resists the pull of his biology.

The others ask after you during practice time, quietly satisfied when you choose the very, very comfortable nest (that Yoongi might have fortified so that you could lean against the edges) during their scheduled practice time.

They've had long hours in there recently. Hoseok doesn't like it, but their newfound success necessitates that they be perfect in every way. Their careers feel like they’re only going up and up and up and show no sign of slowing down. Every foot and elbow needs to be perfect. Hoseok already thinks they're perfect- but it's the rest of the world and it's harsh critics that Hoseok is worried about.

From a very practical standpoint, there's simply no time to court anyone, let alone to do it well.

The pack is going to nail the next song, Hoseok can feel it. He's a good pack alpha but inside the practice room, he's a little bit of a slave driver. He's always measuring their condition, pausing for water breaks, and checking ankles and knees, tilting Jin's hips this way. Running it through, and then circling back to the more difficult moves again and again until their bodies know the movements with their eyes closed.

"No. That's mistimed, is foot hand finger, step back- side down. like that- good pup. Do it again. Good."

Hoseok is used to this- Pushing them by the back of the neck when they stretch. Dictating the pulse of their bodies the way that only a pack alpha can. Work time is different than pack time, and Hoseok is uncompromising with this in taking care of his pack and making sure that they show the world their best.

Each of them is equally as motivated to reach up and up and up and take their fame and performance and music as far as it will go. A height that Hoseok takes them to. Pack alphas lead, and Hoseok will take his pack to the stars.

But things are different now. Now there is a separate factor.

When you're nesting in their practice room, Head perched on the padded velvet edge of the deep side walls to watch them practice, it’s harder for Hoseok to be quite so scary. It’s difficult to be hard on his pack with you watching them, the scent of sweet berries in the air, and Hoseok feels like he’s under a microscope.

He tracks you in the corner of his vision, with your wide eyes and cutely flushed face from rubbing your cheeks against the maple story plush that Jin got you that gets toted from nest to nest. (Or maybe Jin just got you one for each of your nests?) Mouth carved into a perfect little 'oh' when they get the choreography just right. Clapping softly when they've finished. Whispering softly, "again." In a way that has each of them falling into position without a second thought.

Practice goes smoother with you there. They get the choreography quicker when they've got you to perform for.

Hoseok hasn’t commented on it because he doesn’t want to deal with the pack’s teasing, and any time he asks about you or your schedule (is the company giving you adequate breaks in-between sessions?) How you looked during your session (Are you too tired to work? Should they be letting you rest more frequently? Should Hoseok petition the company to move you from a 4-day work week to a 3-day work week?) He gets knowing looks from his packmates.

"wouldn't you like to know alpha." jimin singsongs, hoseok just pushes at his shoulder until he's pinned. the snap of his teeth playful but threatening.

The pack is sneaky; they'd noticed the very first time you attended a practice session that Hoseok wasn't as likely to push indiscriminately and was more inclined to make his requests honey-toned and soft. “If you move like that, you’ll hurt your knee, pup.” "Tell me what you did wrong."

now they invite you to every practice. hoseok noticed when he checked your schedule online. the digital portal where everyone else books you out for time, scenting sessions in red, your presence requested to 'settle the air' in blue. and every day- in the afternoon after lunch. an hour or two blocked out for them.

An hour or two that often has them all scurrying to change their shirts or do their hair, dotting concealer and grabbing drinks and snacks. That always leads to this- Hoseok's razor like focus and you behind them. always fucking watching.

"Joon-ah- you're in your head again." The pack fall still at Hoseok's voice. Choreography stuttering to a halt.

"I'm just worried, when I spin it's like- so hard not to look stiff."

"If we make sure to milk your knot before each performance it wouldn't happen."

There's no one but you 8 here in this room. Hoseok holds his breath and counts to seven, and by the time he's opened his eyes, Tae's already been scolded, rubbing his arm. Jin closes his hand around his wrist.

"What'd you do that for?" Jin just smiles, grin perfectly civil. Eyes flickering in your direction just once. A silent way of saying 'not in front of the pup.'

You stir in your nest, maybe at just the mention of knotting. Shoulders shifting under the duvet that blocks most of your body, curled into as small a ball as the nest will allow. Resettling with your elbows lying flat across the nest edge. Resting your chin on your hands as the metronome music pumps. You probably couldn't hear Tae over the sound, Hoseok elects to believe.

The alternative might be too scary for you.

The last thing Hoseok wants to do is scare you off. Even if milking Namjoon's knot until he goes boneless and dumb is something that happens once a week minimum (Hoseok just considers it packmate maintenance like studio hookups for Yoongi and kneeling sessions for jungkook, or the ropes that often get bruised into Jimin's skin when the pack has time and privacy. Everyone has their thing, and everyone gets what they need in the pack)

It's just probably for the best if you don't know about that yet.

Hoseok shakes his head, goes closer to Namjoon as he mimics the move, tilting his shoulders, his spine. Namjoon moves, obedient. Cheeks flushed, and Hoseok can tell he's thinking about it from the vaguely musky edge to his scent. His usual tomato leaf scent is earthier, grungier. Hoseok's next words are a purr that only tells the other alpha. Later. If you'll be good.

"If you look stiff I'll tell you. Leave the worrying up to me." He sneaks a peck against the nape of Namjoon's neck. the alpha's shoulders fall slack just a little.

In the nest, you wiggle a little. Shivering.

but then he's right back at it again. "No- this isn't right, we can't do this choreo every night, not if we're touring. We need to find a safer alternative. Like i'm trying to be calm about it but- if Tae bangs his chin again doing the fall to push up i'm not going to be able to be cool about it." “Not like that, bah bah bah, yes, good. Exactly like that. I want you to show me that every time. Again.”

It might be just your scent on the air that tames him, or maybe that he doesn’t want to think he’d be too demanding of an alpha to tolerate.

At least not to you.

To you, Hoseok would give everything your little heart desires. You’d never have to tolerate moving so much, not from room to room, no. You’d never have anyone herding you or snapping at you to stay on schedule. The polite but vaguely annoyed staff member who often has to come into the room halfway through practice to rouse you would be the first thing to change.

It’s something that has the alphas sharing looks as you yawn and nod, allowing them to pull you out of your nest via your outstretched hand. Looking completely asleep one second and wide awake the next- all wrong, an omega should wake up slowly (preferably with an orgasm too- although that’s not polite to comment) to do it do abruptly could be dangerous, could lead to a predicament that no one wants; an omega dysregulated, an omega upset.

Hoseok just tightens his hands and clenches his teeth and watches you leave in the mirror, close enough that he could reach out and touch your reflection. calling out your goodbyes and i'll see you later as you go.

"Text me." Jungkook asks with a wink. And you nod shyly, chin tipped down, looking at him for a singular long moment before you continue out of the room. Your manager watching and waiting expectantly.

The others hate it when you leave, and Hoseok is turned back into a slave driver, merciless and uncompromising. Even more stubborn and off-kilter than normal. He knows that they can do this, what they can be. Hoseok’s pups are good pups.

Rarely, if ever, do they disobey.

Hoseok would never confess how much he doesn’t like it. The way that they have to share you. The way Hoseok has to share you.

~-~

But having you in the practice room doesn't always work in the pack's favor; sometimes it bites them in the but, like when Jungkook gets a bit too energetic when roughhousing with Taehyung and Jimin.

The beta already has a bruised knee, an unfortunate accident involving slippery socks and the new choreo. Hoseok and Jin fussed over him long enough yesterday, took him to the doctor just to be sure.

A leg brace was ordered, and really, Jimin hadn't seemed to be in too much pain. Had said he didn't even really need the brace earlier today, and listened when Hoseok pressed a kiss to the joint and told him he'd be wearing it for the rest of the week anyway.

You'd rushed over to him this morning, first thing. Both of you still in the lobby, too close to the windows not to draw the potential eyes of paparazzi. But Hoseok didn't have the heart to tell you to be careful, your worried eyes almost teary. Mindlessly gripping the front of Jimin's sweatshirt and hugging him around his waist. Jimin looked better already. Cooing at you and telling you that your hugs are medicine enough.

But none of them are strangers to injuries. Hoseok fears the day that they just don't heal right. The day that someone hurts something too far. Yoongi already did that once, and the next time the pack might not be that lucky.

But today is not that day.

Everyone's treating Jimin gently because of it, everyone but Jungkook. he tends to be riled up unless they work it out of him. Sometimes the pack teases him for needing so much… exercise. But it's all in good fun.

Sometimes, Jungkook lets his need for dominance play out during work hours. Bothering Jimin until the beta quiets him with a look, something that doesn't always work when Jungkook's feeling bratty. Looking for a punishment and knowing that Jimin is a safe place to look for that.  Hoseok doesn't always need to do the discipline there, just like with Tae and Jin. Sometimes, Hoseok trusts Seokjin and Yoongi to do the discipline for him.

Jungkook and Jimin are especially close in the pack; Hoseok has never once felt insecure about it- if anything, it's only an asset during times like these when Hoseok has too many things on his plate. They naturally gravitate towards each other. Hassling each other until someone thinks to put them both in their place.

Hoseok's not worried about it because Taehyung seems to be taking that job today, grabbing Jungkook's hip when he picks up Jimin and instead of obeying his reply to put him down- Tosses the beta over his shoulder just a little bit too aggressively, Jungkook still has a good grip on his legs, but Jimin is stationary one second and then- looped around Jungkook’s shoulder the next.

Jungkook pushes, and Tae goes sprawling on the floor, giggling as he goes, reaching for Jungkook's legs. He's still holding Jimin. The beta crying, "Put me down!" only to be willfully ignored.

Jungkook turns to you, winks, and says, "hyung will never admit it but he likes it."

You giggle, eyes following them. Namjoon sits close to your nest, watching them too with a fond smile. Leaning up against the edge and tipping his head to whisper something to you conspiratorially. Glistening. Hoseok watches you watch Namjoon as he talks, your eyes trailing the damp and glistening column of his throat, the sweat there. Rubbing your nose against the edge of the nest. Hiding a little.

All in all, not that abnormal roughhousing. Hoseok even smiles at it.

Omegas hide when they're shy. When they're feeling things that are too big for their body. Hoseok's alpha demands that he hoist you out of your nest and sniff out the nature of your shyness. If it needs a settling or perhaps something less innocent.

Something tells him that if you stood up, he'd be able to smell the telltale whiff of slick between your thighs. He imagines how warm you get under there in the nest where things are soft and still- warm and sticky. You shift sometimes as if you ache somewhere- hoseok knows it. He doesn't know how he knows but he does.

But part of him wants to take Namjoon by the hair and let you lick him. It's a weird image. A little gross. But the twist of want is still there, insistent and heavy in Hoseok's gut.

But your desires are clearly not as hard to ignore as Hoseok's are. You look at Jungkook, Jimin, and Tae roughhousing. They do it so often, the affection in it so practiced, that it almost looks like a choreography of its own. Jimin pinches and Jungkook slaps his ass, looking up at him, tousled hair undone- but falling curly from the dampness. Jungkook steps without looking down at Tae.

All it takes is one misplaced step.

Jungook's foot slides too close to Tae's hand, and the alpha hisses, yanking his hand away a second too late to avoid pain. It's not that bad, but Jungkook moves, momentum off.

You're watching them with a fond smile until you're not. Scent spiking, Fear trickling in and pushing away the comfort.

Tae grabs one of Jungkook's ankles and his center of gravity shifts. Jimin teeters and Jungkook's grip on his legs slips. He slides almost right off Jungook's shoulder. Face-first, face down. Stopping less than a foot from the floor.

You see it happen, sitting up a little. Almost picking yourself up and out of your nest. Like you could get across the room quick enough to stop it from happening. The blanket around your shoulders flops to the floor with a quiet rustle of fabric.

Hoseok’s head snaps up with whip-like accuracy.

"The three of you. Here. Now."

He points to the floor in front of him. Jungkook very carefully puts Jimin down on his own two feet. Taehyung sits up from his spot on the floor to help him. Once they're all safely on two legs, they scurry over, already hanging their heads. Semi contrite.

Seokjin and Namjoon descend on you with snacks and water. Yoongi scoops your blanket up from the floor in seconds. Shushing you back into the nest. But the scent of fractious omega is acrid. Smarting. Hoseok cannot stop himself from barking. “What are you thinking?”

“We where just-“ “I didn’t mean to-”

Jungkook keeps glancing back at you, his own scent dulling with worry. Until Hoseok takes his chin in one hand, fingers pinching his cheeks as the pack alpha makes him look at him. “Don’t look at her, look at me.” Then, softer, but still just as stern. “You know better, Jungkook-ah.”

Hoseok takes them over his lap for that. If there had been even one manager in the room, Hoseok wouldn't have. The matter is too private for work hours. But it's just them and you here.

You should see it. See how he is. See what he's like.

Hoseok's alpha purrs worse than that. There’s only one thing that fixes an unsettled omega. A settling. A spanking. Whatever you'd want to call it. Most omegas get at least one a day; some health agencies even recommend it. Just as maintenance, just to help them go down into omegaspace.

For most omegas, a daily spanking is nothing more than a reminder that their alphas are there, they care, and however small and little they go, however much they need, their alphas will always provide.

He'd give you one, albeit gentler than the one he’ll give his pack. You might not even squeal or fuss. All at once, the idea of you here- bent over the edge of the nest, or preferably his knees, head tipped to the side, the picture of submissive contrition. Taking all of it just like the others fills his head, so intoxicating and pervasive that for a second, Hoseok has to look away from all of them.

But the rational side of Hoseok thinks you should see what you're getting yourself into at least. Hoseok wants you to see what good control he has over his pack; how good they can be with the right motivation.

Hoseok's alpha says that you need a settling too. But luckily, he has just as good control over himself as he does the rest of the pack.

You watch them and their squirming with pink cheeks, so unused to watching any alphas discipline each other that it has you mesmerized. Hoseok might be smaller than Jungkook- but he's far stronger. Jungkook strains and fights, tattoos warping with the flex of his muscles. But Hoseok hardly has to work to pin him to the practice room floor.

You push away Jin's water and Namjoon’s bag of sweets, and you know omegas who eat after chirping avoid dropping. Already, you feel sort of shaky. But you hardly care about that when you have a show going on. You crane your neck when Jungkook starts to push up against Hoseok with a snarl.

But Hobi just slings a leg over the back of Jungkook’s thighs, both wrists pinned to the small of his back in a single loop of Hoseok's hands- delicate, beautiful hands. Jungkook’s cheek pressed to the practice room floor. Lips parted in a very loud snarl that cuts off with a loud squeak when Hoseok's other hand finally descends with a swat.

Over the clothes, not under.

You gulp and hide your gaze below the edge of the nest again, but you do not look away. You can tell your scent is getting heady, that it’s sweetening as you watch. But you’ve never had very good control over your scent.

Hoseok looks so…placid, calm. The utter depiction of gentle domination as he holds a squirming alpha under his body and gives him what he needs. You even see him smile. Like Jungkook's fighting back pleases him.

You can see the moment that Jungkook gives in, a little more than halfway through his settling. Something tight is stirring in your chest as he stops fighting to get out and starts to push back just to feel Hoseok there.

You watch Hoseok’s hands more than anything, the way that they smooth down Jungkook’s spine, not even holding his hands through the last of it. jungkook lies pliant- obedient, without him holding Jungkook down. Hoseok's other hand slides from the small of Jungkook's spine to the nape of his neck, threading through his hair in a gentle but domineering caress.

Jungkook stays where he should, eyes a little glassy, picking himself up just as quickly and turning, blocking Hobi from view.

Namjoon tries once again to feed you, but fails when you shake your head. bite pressed to your mouth. You’re not even listening to his quiet croons and delicate prods. The whole exchange takes maybe 30 seconds. And then Jungkook is up, and Jimin is shuffling over, with a single nervous glance back in your direction.

He locks eyes with you, and they darken just a little.

Jin’s hand is on your chin, guiding you to suck. You blink owlishly but follow his direction. The water is bland. Somewhere on the back of your throat, you taste it- blood and mangos- Hoseok’s scent settling over you- pervasive and all-consuming. You can taste his dominance in the air.

Jimin goes less easy, squirming, trying to lift his head to look at you again- Only to have his head forced down by Hoseok’s touch. He goes easiest on Jimin, since he was sort of the victim, sort of only a fixture in the disobedience. He'll get a punishment regardless. Hoseok’s instincts don't have rules that way sometimes. 

Deep down, both of them know Hoseok’s not punishing them for the roughhousing- it's for startling their omega almost out of their nest. Nesting is sacred. A right. Protected. Nothing the alphas do should ever get you out of it. It's wrong. Goes against every single one of Hoseok's instincts.

But none of them will say it- not here. Not with you in earshot. The confession might have the same effect, might make you unsettled.

Hoseok looks at Jimin, but he's not really talking to him, not until the last sentence. "You are precious. You are mine. I expect you to be more careful with my things." Jimin nods, lower lip wobbling, head tipping down, submissive in his whole posture. Hoseok noses from his chin to his temple, teeth catching on his ear and the dangly earring there, Jimin's hitch of breath is telling. but after a second- the beta nods. agreeing.

Jimin tilts his head to your nest, and hoseok threads a hand through his hair, tugging.

Hoseok's tone leaves no room for doubt or disobedience. As if he expects the world to stop and obey. It’s frightfully easy to do just that. To stop and follow.

"Settle."

Your legs feel like jelly, and you don't think you could stand even if you wanted to. Your head feels warm and fuzzy, your body heavy as you go lax. between your thighs, heat stirs, and you feel yourself go warm and damp.

Hoseok's nostrils flare, but he doesn't look up as he begins again. Hand up, about to fall again, powerful arm flexing-

A pair of dark pants obscures your view. Slowly. Carefully. You look up.

Half of Yoongi's face is obscured by the light, a gentle but knowing smirk on his face. "Someone’s curious."

His tone is teasing, but serious. You avert your gaze. Squeaking out a "Sorry." That you don't mean.

He laughs a little, not his normal laugh, deeper and throatier. Not quite teasing. It makes your stomach feel funny.

"It's alright."

His eyes appraise you, eyes flickering up and down your body. The way the blanket is pinned beneath your knees. The subtle haze to your eyes. Next to you, Namjoon’s perched on the edge of the nest, softly petting over your head and to the top of your spine. Let go of you now that your concentration has shifted from Hoseok to Yoongi.

He doesn’t look uneasy even though you can scent it on him, hands in his pockets, the picture of control as he appraises you, not in a way that ascribes value or hunger, but a special secret third thing that you can't place.

Delight. Yoongi is delighted that you're watching. That you're enjoying it.

"Do you want me to get into the nest with you, pup?"

All it takes is your puppy eyes and a "please," and he's there. Warm body, strong and capable. His tone is the same no-nonsense intonation that Hoseok uses as he guides you to sit forward so that he can sit behind you. grumbling something you don't hear about curious little oemgas being his soft spot. You're not listening.

Is it your job to listen to their commands? Your job to get up and out of the room to give them privacy? It's so easy to just let them decide what you can see, let them say things and do as they say? Any responsibility feels very far away, at the edge of your consciousness fuzzy and warm, any worry just as distant.

If you're behaving wrong, acting wrong, alpha will punish you. it's as simple as that. Something drops in your stomach, a swooping feeling. but it's okay because Yoongi is there.

Yoongi tells you to drink your water. Feeds you little sips of it when you don't move to take it from him quickly enough. "Open up. Swallow. Small sips, what a cute messy pup we've got here, Good omega." You're pliant and obedient. Lips parting to take the water, pink tongue pressing.

A drop of water carves its way down your chin, and Namjoon reaches out to wipe it away. You don't react to either of their babying. You just sit in Yoongi's lap and take it, a faraway look in your eyes, gaze still trained on Hoseok. Yoongi's hands lie flat on your thighs, holding you still, keeping you secure.

If this is what you're like at a tiny show of dominance...they're going to have their hands full with you. 

Jin looks at you with wonder, an unbidden look of adoration in his eyes, reaching out to caress the side of your face. An omega in omegaspace. it's a special thing. very few alphas ever get to take care of an omega in omega space. Your scent- normally sweet and addicting on the air goes nearly ambrosic.

Your scent spikes so sweet, and you tilt your body to get more of the affection. Letting out a needy small sound. Still in Yoongi's lap, struggling to stay where he puts you and push into the touch. you wobble and whine, eyes suddenly teary.

Yoongi looks, lips pursed. And Jin's hand falls. "Hold up, I hardly have her. I think one at a time, don't wanna give her too much." who knows what you'll interpret as a command in this state.Jin's hand falls, and his gaze, fixated, hardly blinking like he doesn't want to miss a second of it.

His arm stays settled around your waist, keeping you in place. Rubbing simple circles to soothe you against the squishy side of your hip. You let him, aware that some physical contact from an alpha is what you need following something distressing. It's just biology, it's just them being good employers and good friends, really.

Hoseok lands several swats across Jimin's behind. The beta huffs, not a sound of indignation or displeasure, but a bitten intake of breath that leads to squirming, sagging against his hold after the first or second, and giving into the punishment until he grows teary-eyed and apologetic.

It takes a lot of his self-control, but Hoseok doesn't glance up at you once until the end, landing the final swat over jimin's behind before he pulls him up by the hair for a kiss. He glances up at you as he brings his hand down in an arc, the blow cushioned by the beta's pants.

You don't flinch. Eyes fluttering closed. Hoseok doesn't let himself drink down your flushed face; he just continues to the task at hand. Taehyung sets himself over Hoseok's knees, kicking his feet and grinning. Hoseok grabs one of his ankles and yanks it, not all that gently, drinking in the hitch of his breath. "Don't make me go hard on you pup." He warns.

"Sorry Alpha."

"Count."

You peek over Yoongi’s arm, still squirming, and the alpha shushes you, hand to the back of your head, keeping you close to his beating heart. He doesn't stop you from looking again, just pets the top of your head mindlessly until it's over. After a second, another hand joins the petting, and then another and another and another until you can't tell who's touching you.

One hand massaging the nape of your neck, mindlessly stroking over the top of your hair, another down your spine, another over your arm and down to your hand, loosely tangled with someone's shirt, perched on the side of the nest. Jin's? jungkook's? You can't tell.

It’s all normal and routine for a pack alpha to punish their packmates this way. You wouldn't do it infront of your parents, but you might do it in front of a friend. The polite thing would be not to stare.

But for some reason, you find you can’t look away.

~-~

At the end of the day no one addresses it. You falling into omegaspace around them. so pretty and easily that you'd fallen asleep on yoongi for the rest of the day, head resting against his throat, hand tangled in the front of his shirt like you're worried about him leaving you. you hadn't even been all there when you'd woken up and yoongi and jin and hoseok took you home. Jin walked you up to your apartment and got you inside safely while yoongi and hoseok waited for him outside.

They hadn't said anything to each other then or after. Returning home to a quiet but nervous house. Deciding individually that they won't bring it up to you again. Won't ask about it.

But on hoseok's phone later there's a single text. just one line of text from an unknown number.

Unknown (11:40pm): Thank you for looking after me alpha <3

Hoseok doesn't say that it was technically yoongi who looked after you. Hoseok hardly thinks about the line between his packmates and himself that way. He knows you've probably already texted yoongi- that the two of you text all the time. Sending songs and memes and cat videos back and forth between the two of you. The same way that he knows you and Namjoon send each other flower pictures back and forth.

Hoseok instantly renames your contact to the only thing that makes sense to him. There's only one woman in his life who means this much to him. He thinks of Namjoon's song lyric on their last album. 'I call you her, her, cuz you're my tear, tear.'

Alpha <3 (11:40pm): Of course

Alpha <3 (11:40pm): You never have to thank me for that.

Alpha <3 (11:40pm): You can ask me for anything.

Hoseok looks at the text, stressing over it feeling too mean, too demanding. Too...everything. But before he can get too in his head about it another text comes through.

Her (11:41pm): Okay

Her(11:40pm): <3

Hoseok screams into his pillow to cover the sound from the rest of the pack.

~-~

In the late afternoons, before Namjoon's done working out and far before Yoongi usually arrives at his studio. In between when the pups flock to you after morning practice and when you're usually wrapped up in the other groups. You have the habit of occupying Hoseok's practice room.

Perched there in the (new) omega bed, made of the softest cotton, a big fluffy blanket over the top if it's cold and tucked down if it's getting warm by the windows.

Watching him as he runs through the moves again and again (it's a little eerie, but omegas don't need to blink as often as alpha's.) He's polite. Greets you and asks if you need anything or want anything before he starts working. You don't laugh at him when he stumbles; in fact, you hardly say anything. You hardly talk.

Sometimes, he catches a bit of your smile in the mirror.

Usually, you're a chatterbox around the rest of the pack. Hoseok has grown used to the sound of your voice at all hours of the day, your giggle, your teasing. But around him, you're so quiet. The silence companionable instead of awkward.

Sometimes he doesn't say anything until the end of practice, sometimes he doesn't speak to you until he's getting his things together to go to the recording studio with Jungkook and Taehyung, to a health check-up with Jimin, or out for dinner with Seokjin before they get some work done with Joon and Yoongi, or you're in the process of untangling yourself from the nest. Usually because your manager has come to the door, knocked, and reminded you that you're due for a session in 15 minutes.

"Can you walk up on your own? I have like so much work to do." Hoseok shoves his water bottle, phone, and wallet into his bag with extra force. His pissy expression is hidden when he turns away. Jesus- these new staff members.

You're so agreeable too, "Oh, it's fine, you don't have to it's just a few floors." Hoseok hurries, packing up his bag quicker.

"Great- really, you're a lifesaver."

Hoseok turns away and shakes his head, instincts prickling. Annoyed.

Making his paces shorter as you get up to leave. Falling into step beside you. That same plushy tucked under your arm. "Are you going up to the 8th floor?" He asks. The 8th floor is where his studio is, as well as Joon's and Yoongi's. The floor isn't theirs officially, but it's always felt like it is. This elevator is going down to the car park dangerously exposed in Hoseok's mind- who knows who could come up and-

You smile at him. Hoseok smiles back. Can't help it.

"Yeah, Yoongi's getting in in a few minutes, he texted. Gave me the code too." Hoseok grumbles a little bit at that; even he doesn't have the code for Yoongi's studio.

"God hyung loves to spoil you." The admission bursts from his lips, and he doesn't have time to feel flustered- like he shouldn't have said that- before you're grinning up at him.

"You gonna give me yours too or?" Hoseok flushes, holds out his hand for your phone while you wait for the elevator, bouncing on your heels.

"Only if you promise to use it." You smile, "Really, no one will bother you there." Your smile falters just a little but you don't address it any more than that. It's a part of your contract that if you don't want to do a scenting, you can cancel without any notice, you can just not show up. But Hoseok knows that you take this job seriously, but sometimes he wishes you wouldn't.

His finger hovers on the buttons as he keys in the code to your notes app, a list of their numbers, house addresses, stuff like that. Hoseok does not snoop, but it’s kind of hard to ignore all the emojis you have next to Jimin’s name. His gaze flicks to your bag, the way it weighs on your shoulder. Dimpling the fabric of your comfy sweatshirt. It’s big on you, so it must be someone else’s. Not the packs because Hoseok can’t scent them on you, and he doesn't recognize them. "Do you want me to walk you up there?"

"It's okay, Hobi. I know the way."  He’s never told you to call him Hobi. But somehow, you’ve started too anyway. You’ve probably picked it up from the others. The elevator dings and opens, you step inside and tell him goodnight.

But do you want me too? Do you want me to be your shadow?

There's a lot that goes unsaid between you two. You go up, and he waits for the next elevator that will take him down to the car park (where his Lamborghini waits). But he doesn't get on it, he just watches the numbers on the elevator go all the way up to the 8th floor, watches the number blink dull yellow, and then descends back to him before finally he steps away.

You make it your routine without officially asking him. You always spend time with Hoseok in the afternoons in his private dance studio. When the sun has begun to set over the city and light has turned all yellow-orange-red, like mangos. like his scent.

You see him dance when he's frustrated, when he's happy, when his body is broken down and too tired for much more than a warm-up. You see Hoseok dance when he doesn't even want to.

Sometimes his mind just gets too full, running too fast for his feet to keep up. Until he's so frustrated, he cuts the music with a click of the remote in his pocket, and you stir from the nest. Hoseok gets his water bottle and then all but collapses to the floor beside it.

He's sweaty, his throat glistens. addams apple bobbing as he gulps at his water and runs a tired hand through his hair. He's not intending on saying anything to you, not at all, until you stir a bit, sitting up properly in the nest.

"You're having trouble with this choreography."

"Yeah," Hoseok admits, working up to it, there's no one here but the room smells like alpha aggression already. But Hoseok is angrier at his body than anything. "It's easier to get it right when I practice in front of you. I thought it would help, but-" he rubs a hand over his face. "Maybe tomorrow."

You still, and he flushes, realizing it's something he’s admitted. Because he’s never told you that before. But now you know. Hoseok can smell how pleased the confession makes you and he shivers all the way to his aching knees.

"After you've gotten some sleep?" His head jerks in your direction, eyebrow-raising. Hoseok thought he was being sneaky. You look a little chagrined when you confess it. "Jungkook said you and Seokjin didn't sleep at all last night."

Hoseok huffs, rueful. "The pups telling on me now, is he?"

Your hands press into the border of the nest, pushing up on your hands. overly excited. "He said you were worried about the award show, that you stayed up with Jinnie to help him with the choreography. But that I shouldn't worry and that it's your love language and your job to worry about your pack."

Hoseok doesn't know what to say to that and sips his water. And pretends he's not watching you from the corner of his eye as you suck on your lower lip. Just being here next to your nest is already helping. His knee doesn't feel so tight, and his ankle hardly aches. He lets the silence hover, then looks at you.

"Ask."

"Can I come?"

"No."

"Why?"

Hoseok reaches out to tuck your hair behind your ear. "Because it's not safe."

Hoseok hands you a fresh water bottle, cracking it slightly before he gives it to you. You make a face at the plainness but do not comment. (You have a special note in your contract- that sweet drinks will be provided to you often. But Hoseok thinks that it can't be healthy for you to consume basically nothing besides sugary water and coffee)

And Hoseok eyes the moisture on your lips, glancing away before you have a chance to catch him. He caps it for you when you hand it back, almost so routinely that he doesn't notice.

"There will be a lot of people there. A lot of alpha's that we don't know. I'll be really distracted and I won’t necessarily be there to protect you if something happens; it could be dangerous."

You snort. "It's an award show with a 100 cameras, I'd be fine. And of course, you wouldn’t be around you’ve got like- all your responsibilites and the pack and…"

“Yeah…” Hoseok says carefully, You fuss with your nest. you can't look up at him, can't meet his eyes.

“All’s I’m saying is I could be there- if you wanted me to be. For the pack.” You stress, He just stands up, ruffling your hair on the top of your head, and you chance a glance at him.

Hoseok's smile is resplendent. Gentle and comforting. His thin features and the crinkle of his eyes so willing, affectionate in every second. It's so unbearably tender that you can't stop the noise that rises from your throat, Somewhere between a chirp and a purr.

“You don’t have to. I can handle it.”

You'd stayed home. But hoseok is already thinking about inviting you to the encore show of the last tour. It will be a big audience, one of the biggest they've ever had. A month or so away with enough time for him to properly prepare himself mentally. Enough time for him to take Mr. Lee and the rest of the staff aside personally and insist that no one lets you out of their fucking sight. To drag the others in for extra practices and make sure they know that this isn't any normal performance. This is an audition. It will probably be safer for you to be backstage rather than out in the crowd.

But even through the award show, he's distracted, distant. Before he'd gone on stage, he'd checked his phone to find another text.

Her (10:22): I'm watching. You'll do well, I can already tell. Fighting!

Hoseok had given in to the temptation to flirt back.

Alpha <3 (10:23): Oh, you're watching me now, huh? Does that mean I can watch you back?

You'd sent back nothing more than a picture. And he’d almost dropped his phone. Hiding it hastily underneath the unfair eyes of a busybody makeup Noona.

To say it was bordering on pornographic would be an understatement (at least to alpha sensitivities and Hoseok’s overactive imagination). For an omega to let an alpha even see their personal private nest. It's something undeniably intimate. A private nest is something you only let a pack see.

Some…magazines showcase them. Delicate men and women curled in baby blue sheets and fluffy hollows. Half-bare bodies stripped clean of everything. Flushed faces and plush thighs, close-ups of wrists dragging along the edge of the nests, open hands offering fantasy in every pixel. The kind of magazine that you need to be over 18 to purchase, that's put at the back of stores with blacked-out covers meant for alpha's ruts and alpha's ruts only.

It was a shot of you, or part of you. Just your bare legs and one hand wrapped around the edge of a wine glass. The short hem of your ruffled PJ’s and bunny slippers. Feet resting against the edge of a nest, partially swathed in a big dark blanket. The walls of the nest surround you, high and deep red, almost plum. In front of you a big TV shows the award show playing, a caption 'and to close out our show- the performance you've all been waiting for, Bts!'

Behind that is a windowed view of the city, sparkling. Hoseok zooms in on the reflection in the window, blurry bits of your life that he dissects. There A stuffed animal big enough to be human-sized to the left of you, probably simulating the weight of a packmate behind you.

Hoseok had done the choreography to a T. Every step crisp and perfect, the others too had snapped into place at the cheer of the crowds. Hoseok had kept the photo for himself. Too selfish to show the others quite yet. Looking at it longer than he'd ever admit during his private studio time, drinking down the little details. The tuck of your knees, how close and snuggled you are to that plushy.

Do you get lonely at your nest at home? Does such a big space feel empty? You have room for one or two alpha's, but maybe not 7 people in your private nest. The white high walls of your apartment are unadorned with art or decoration. Your curtains are wide open (not a penthouse, too close to the ground floor to be safe).

There's no one else there in your picture. Not even in the reflection of the glass. Hoseok's never asked if you have an alpha, or even a lover. someone around to look after you. But Hoseok doesn't know any person, alpha or beta, who'd ever let their omega nest alone at night.

A few days from then, Hoseok had gone into his practice room again, at the same time. Your little unspoken routine. He doesn't approach you about the photo and doesn't ask you about it at all. Just says his usual hellos before he runs through the first few songs. Exulting in the stretch of his body. The exertion of it. He needs to get tired, to get more settled, before you and he talk. You smile when he glances your way, and it makes Hoseok feel.

Calm? Angry? Possessive? Flustered? It's a confusing mixture of all. Hoseok doesn't know what or how to feel when he's around you.

When he walks over to you after the 4th song, properly sweating and panting, he holds out his own water bottle for you. He doesn't get on his knees in front of your nest; he just stands there and holds it out. "Want a drink?"

There is a half-sipped smoothie next to you, syruppy and yellow. Hoseok knows that it's mango juice without having to taste it. It's your go-to order these days. Probably with a lychee and peach base if he had to guess. But you still take what he offers without comment or disobedience.

You let him feed you sips before he lifts the bottle and takes a swallow of his own, the dampness on the edge of the bottle sweeter somehow, knowing your lips have touched it.

"You made my performance better. I wanted to thank you for it." He says before he chickens out.

Your wink is a little telling; it makes Hoseok feel flustered and hot down the back of his neck. He's never had an omega flirt with him. Omegas don't need to flirt to get what they want. "Now imagine if you let me scent you instead of just watching you."

He just huffs and falls to the floor, leaning his back up against your nest, a soft thing, intimate to touch it here. Where normally Hoseok steers clear. “Aren't you going to ask why I haven’t booked a session with you?”

You shrug, “You’re waiting until your pack is properly taken care of, it makes perfect sense to me. And even if it's not that you probably have a very good reason, you’ll come to me when you’re ready.”

Hoseok's hand tightens on the bottle. Throat thick as he swallows. But some invisible weight is lifted from his shoulders. Instead of saying anything, he takes another sip of water and then hands it to you.

"Do you want anything? Any more juice or food?"

"No. I'm not hungry." You keep watching him, and he keeps watching you, tongue flicking out to lick at your lower lip.

Later, he'll stress over it. He should have brought you some snacks, yakgwa maybe. You’d confessed you liked the taste of honey, and Taehyung had teased you for being old-fashioned. Sometimes, when Hoseok checks the nest in the recording booth, he finds it full of wrappers or hears the crinkle of one in the background of an audio. Yoongi makes a trap beat out of it when a producer mentions it offhandedly and implies that maybe- the recording booth is not the place for an omega.

But lowkey, fuck that.

“She just like things that are sweet.” Jimin had teased. “Like Hobi,” Jungkook said quietly, not teasing at all.

You're always asking them to get you little things like that, snacks from the employee room downstairs. A pillow you'd left in Yoongi’s studio. One of Namjoon’s baggy sweaters or Tae's cardigans when you get cold. Hoseok doesn't know how courting normally happens, but he does know that it feels wrong…unsafe. To deny you any of your requests.

Hoseok can't help but notice, privy to the pack's schedules as pack alpha, that you're more likely to ask them to do things for you after your name has appeared on their schedules. Namjoon, especially, is much more inclined to bump into a wall afterward, dazed, hazy, dopey, almost. You always ask him to come sit by you until the effects of the scenting have worn off. Sometimes you even hold his hand over the edge of your nest while he stretches.

Now Hoseok looks at you in that nest, watching him watch you, smiling. Like you're not alone in a room with an alpha. You've never talked like this before. Pleasantries sure. But you and Hoseok do not talk about his pack.

"Why are you always asking the pups to get you things? You make a special effort to ask them to do things for you." And not me, am I not enough? Why won’t you ask me for things too?

"They like it, it makes them feel better, haven't you noticed?"

"I have," Hoseok admits, feeling like he's under your thumb. Wondering why he doesn't mind it. Why does his alpha not feel challenged? Hoseok pauses, blushing when you just look at him, smiling still. He nudges the edge of your nest with his knee. "Aren't you going to ask me to get you something? Takeout or a blanket or something?"

"No," you'd hummed, leaning your head against the edge of the nest. "You're not so easy to settle, tricks like that won't work on you."

He leans in, over the edge of the nest. "What works on me then if you have me so figured out?"

You hum, thinking on it thoughtfully. "Dancing, you liked it when I asked you to dance for me." You tap the top of his water bottle. "And keeping me hydrated lol."

Hoseok rolls his eyes, "Oh my god, did you just say Lol."

"What? It's not that weird."

"You can't just say lol without actually laughing out loud, that’s like- not a thing." You tuck your smile under the edge of the nest, and Hoseok instantly wants to tilt your chin up so he can see more of it. An omega like you should never have to hide your smile.

"You are such a millennial." You poke his knee, and Hoseok finds himself overacting to the touch, overly animated. Falling backwards onto the floor. Your giggle is a reward. "Say something funny then if you want me to laugh so bad."

“I can call Jin hyung.” Your next laugh is a bark, and Hoseok can’t stop himself from smiling too. This, this ease- is something he never ever has with people outside of the pack. Your laughter quiets and you sit in companionable silence again. Just you and him and the sunlit practice room.

“Your next performance.” He looks over you and finds you’re hiding your face below the edge of the nest again. “Can I come?”

Hoseok reaches out. Your face is warm, and so is his palm. Your skin is supple and soft beneath his touch as he directs your face above the edge to look at him. “Ask me properly.”

Your eyelashes flutter, and his thumb rubs soothing circles against the ball of your jaw. “Can I come to your next performance alpha?”

Hoseok’s eyes flicker from your eyes to your lips, and he gets the terrible feeling that you could ask for anything and everything- and he’d find some way- through blood and claw, to give it to you.

“Yes.”

You almost pop out of your nest with how excited you are, baggy clothes fluttering until a bit of your stomach peaks out. Hoseok can’t shake the feeling like he’s agreeing to something he shouldn’t, but gets back up with a smile on his face. Alpha chasing its tail with how happy he is, how satisfied fulfilling your requests makes him.

Hoseok is in deep deep shit.

“Want a preview?” he offers. You nod and settle at the edge of the nest, pressed closer to the walls to watch as he queues up the next song.

~-~

Hoseok had kept his composure until he'd gone home, and had screamed into a pillow in front of the whole pack. And had woken up at the first light of morning to craft an email to the architect working on the pack house and asked very politely if there was still a chance that a nesting room could be incorporated into the floor plan. Large, ground floor, somewhere more interior in the house.

Price was hardly a consideration.

He easily relocates his studio to the upper floor. shifting the square footage of all their bedrooms. There will be four upstairs, Jin and Yoongi will share the largest bedroom, and Jimin and Jungkook will share the next. It doesn't make sense for them to each get their own room since they end up in the same bed every night anyway. And even when they don't, it's most often Yoongi and Jungkook that sneak around together- and Jimin and Jin who need a bit of beta time. The rest of them are floaters from bed to bed.

But the nesting space- Hoseok knows it needs to be large enough just like the 'pack bedroom', His bedroom on the ground floor, that will need to be regularly able to accommodate all the packmates. It's closest to the entrance of the house and the kitchen too so that Hoseok can keep track of their comings and goings.

And an outdoor space, right? Omega's benefit from sunlight and fresh air, don't they? They'll need an updated security system too, and a larger kitchen if they're going to be cooking for 8 instead of for 7. He mentions the idea to Yoongi offhandedly, and the alpha agrees. Jimin also sat at the kitchen table makes a face. "Omegas don't eat that much, hyung. Not any more than us anyway."

Yoongi had placed the plate full of breakfast infront of him. "But still- maybe we should, just in case."

Hoseok finds himself repeating that a lot. Just in case.

~-~

“You need to book a session with her hyung.”

Hoseok peers up at Taehyung, having stooped to tie his shoe, mid-Stretch. The others are due in the practice room any minute. Hoseok had left the pack house early this morning. It’s the 3rd time this week he’s done the same.

Jimin followed closely behind Taehyung, at the door now, unpacking his things, bottles of water for practice. There are staff too- Hoseok sent them away, but he knows soon they’ll want to be in here to block out positioning and check the audio. His manager and Taehyung bicker about something inconsequential in the hallway. They aren’t in private, even if it feels like they are.

The truth is, Hoseok hasn’t been sleeping. He’s been trying to hide it, but once Hoseok’s awake, there's only one place he wants to be, and he feels riled up, unsettled until he’s here. Often pacing around the pack's apartment- closing the windows and doors, and checking the locks twice before he leaves.

Maybe it's the impending move into the pack house (near complete), or the stress of a looming tour. At least at the company, he can watch from the windows of the 7th floor and wait for your car service to loop around the circle outside. Wait to see you step out.

And then Hoseok hides. Just like now. He checked your schedule. You won’t be around until later. Tonight maybe. Hoseok knows you have a habit of ending up in either Yoongi or Namjoon’s studio before you leave for the night, often staying later just to hang around. Even when you’re not having an active session. People bother you there less.

But Hoseok knows that Taehyung has noticed, and the others have too. Last night, he found himself bookended on all ends with packmates. something abnormal leading up to comeback time, when they're all so busy, the idea of missing out on even a moment of sleep is deplorable. He’s been pushing himself a bit too hard lately. He’s barely been spending any time at home. He tells himself he’s just focused on the album. But that’s not just it.

The fact of the matter is that Hoseok's alpha just won't settle without all his pups in one place. And that only ever happens in the practice room now.

Hoseok tilts his head and considers Taehyung's words. Even though he might be right. Hoseok’s alpha is riled up just looking at him. Black slacks, red shirt- Taehyung always looks so good in red. “Whose giving orders to who now pup?”

Tae crosses his arms, flushing at Hoseok’s obvious appreciation of him. “I’m serious. You’re like- it’s negatively affecting your health-”

Hoseok sighs, pushes up from the floor without using his hands. Tugs on Tae's shirt, hand grasping over his chest, grabbing just to grab, holding just to hold. Tae can’t help but smile. “I’ll worry about my health Tae, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not, sniffing it from us doesn’t do what a real scenting would do and you know it.” Jimin’s been quiet, quiet maybe because he knows what’s going through Hobi's head, what he’s tried to hide but failed to do. he pads over gently. Unzipping his sweatshirt as he goes.

Jimin's so careful with his words, pragmatic. “What are you so worried about? You know you’re not anything from her that she's not paid to give.  She’s getting compensated for this, and if she didn't want to do it- she wouldn't.”

Hoseok flinches at it. That word, taking. He doesn’t like it.

Jimin notices. Rushing to reassure, “Hyung, it’s not taking- it’s literally a monetary exchange. She’s our employee, practically.” A hidden voice in Hobi's head says that no, you’re so much more than that.

He doesn’t really get to talk about it until later. With Yoongi in Hoseok’s bed. Alphas don’t really nest; it doesn't really make any sort of difference biologically to them, not the same way that having an omega's nest would. It’s been years since the two of them giggled (a little drunk) and mimed making one together, dreaming about one day having an omega in their pack, joking, "You can take the evenings, and I’ll take the mornings."

"What about the others?"

"They’ll do what we tell them."

First in their little dorm, then their apartment, and now soon the pack house. There are boxes by the front door. They have to start packing soon if they want to be moved in by lunar new year.

Hoseok’s hand plays with the happy trail on Yoongi’s stomach absentmindedly while he unloads on him. He’s always a bit resistant to confiding in the others. Namjoon has just as much on his plate as Hoseok does, and the baby betas shouldn't be burdened with this. Jungkook and Taehyung- the pups. Yoongi has always been Hoseok’s second. His partner in dominance, in corralling the pack.

“I think if I start getting scented by her, it will only be a matter of time before I want her every day, before I’m jealous of you guys and everyone else, before I crave it more than I crave anything. Every time she walks by me, it feels like my alpha is going to sniff down her throat and then roll onto my back and show its belly.”

Yoongi laughs a little at that. Because the idea of Hoseok's alpha showing its belly to anyone is ridiculous. But Hoseok is serious. And he doesn’t laugh. Yoongi realizes this after a moment. Smile falling. “Scenting addiction has never been a problem with you and other omegas before.”

There are treatment centers around the city for them, lower-brow facilities tucked into back alleys that chain up alphas until the omega pheromones run through their systems. You’ve never made an alpha go scent addicted before. Hoseok had checked your file to make sure. But the risk feels like it’s there. Forever just scratching beneath Hoseok’s skin.

“No- it hasn’t.” Hoseok’s fingers rub Yoongi’s tummy in smooth circles. The alpha groans a little, legs falling open just incrementally. It's been years since either of them has felt the need to go more than once in a single evening.

Back just after they'd presented, and they'd been so full of pheromones that not fucking or hooking up once a day felt like a waste. Yoongi's spunk is still cooling on Hoseok's skin. It's just a habit that has him opening his legs for his pack alpha, bending in a way that Yoongi doesn't bend for anyone else. And Hoseok smiles despite himself.

“But you’re worried it might with her.”

“The way my alpha wants her- my instincts- It makes me feel like a monster.”

Yoongi nuzzles into Hoseok’s shoulder. “You’re not a monster.” Hoseok hums, unconvinced. Yoongi’s hands loop around Hoseok’s waist, rubbing up and down his ribs, attempting to comfort. But comforting another alpha is hard.

Hoseok remembers the way they’d stumbled through it at first, the heavy looks, the needy nuzzles that felt a little less than platonic. The bite of the others' teeth- oh so sweet, oh so needed. Before the pack had decided that this- every hungry and animal urge, was mutual, shared. Desired. And Hoseok started doing everything that he could to please them.

And look at where it's gotten them.

He went over to the pack house earlier, just to check. The house is really more of a villa. It's got a pool out back and enough balconies off the front and back that namjoon will not have trouble expanding his plant collection. It's not on that much property. But it feels less small than it is because of how it's perched on the hill. It gives every window and balcony a view. It's got the right number of traditional touches on the inside, wood accents.

The building is a hollow square. The bottom floor is the garage. The middle has the kitchen, nesting room, and Hoseok's bedroom. Every room opens to a well landscaped patch of earth that will become Namjoon's passion project. The studio and workout room are just before the back deck and pool. The top floor has the rest of the pack's bedrooms and Tae's art studio.

The whole house is perched on a steep grassy hill ringed by hedges that the architect assured would grow in a few years, perched in the hills above Seoul. Private but not a prison. Open, and yet protected.

Hoseok's dedication has gotten them everything.

The pack has cute ways of letting him know how thankful they are. Hoseok watches Yoongi very carefully as he leans down and bites his pectoral. Slowly committing the imprint of his teeth to memory.

“Ow!”

“Shut up, that did not hurt.” Hoseok smiles, rubbing the mark, feeling the ache there- and it feels like love. It is love- Hoseok knows. Even if Yoongi struggles to say it sometimes. Prefers to say it when the moments are light and less heavy, when they’re bickering over tracks, or when he drives Hoseok home from the company when Hoseok is too tired.

They don’t say I love you when they’re talking about making changes to the pack. Being scented by you remains a line that he can’t cross over. Hoseok won’t let himself have it because he knows what will happen after.

~-~

The morning after Jungkook trips during a performance, Hoseok is not surprised to find the other alpha in your nest.

He's just retreating to your usual comfort space, intent on making sure he can get a particularly loud choreography nailed down before you get back from your usual morning vocal lessons with the vocal line. It wouldn’t be a big deal- accept that it’s the end of the day. As per your contract and the general labor laws outlined by the government and OHS, you’re not allowed to have more than 4 hours of scenting scheduled per day.

You had two hours with the other groups and pups, one with Jimin and Tae, and then another with Jin. You’re already overloaded, already overbooked. If management finds out or if anyone in the company reports it to Omega Health Services, it would be a strike against them and could lead to them losing their license as a registered safe haven omega organization.

But he pauses at the scent on the air, you- happy soothing berry, and Jungkook- upset black tea. Stilling. Hoseok sneaks towards your omega nest in the corner, carefully, without turning the lights on.

At first, Hoseok thinks that Jungkook’s just sneaked in there to be closer to your scent, that you're not underneath him at all, but then he spots the movement of your hand, small against Jungkook's back, stroking up and down. The alpha's breathing is deep and measured.

Almost entirely hidden by Jungkook's body, he's smothering you. freshly tattoed arms wrapped around your waist, big body pinning you to the nest. His head tucked below the barrier out of the light, curly dark hair a mop, your small hand gliding through it.

Hoseok makes an alarmed noise, treading close. Reaching to rouse him from sleep. But you squeak, squirming up through the blanket, making poignant and panicked eye contact with him once your face is clear around his shoulder. Shaking your head quickly and keeping your voice down.

"Don't. I just got him to sleep."

Hoseok retracts his hand slowly. Still whispering. "Can you even breathe?"

"It's okay, I kind of like it actually."

"Of course, you fucking do," he grumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face. "You shouldn't let him do that." Hoseok is hushed. An omega's nest is a very, very intimate space. Hoseok is more nervous than upset. More worried than anything else. Eyes flicking from him to you in quick succession, an apology already building on his lips.

But when Hoseok pulls back more, he sees that Jungkook’s cheeks are damp, that his eyelashes are still clumped together from tears, his skin all red and puffy. You just comb your hands through his hair. Gently parting it around his face. Looking at him with a glance so intimate and fond that Hoseok feels like he should look away.

 "What was I supposed to do? Just let him cry?"

Jungkook always looks so youthful in his sleep, with none of his harsh edges and confusing lines. He presses into your hand, letting out a sleepy alpha growl. Nose at the scent gland on the inside of your wrist, mouth open to breathe it in more deeply.

"I told him he could, ordered it when he said you'd be mad." Hoseok huffs, tentatively reaching in to brush Jungkook’s dark hair back from his forehead, too. His hand is close to yours; he watches your fingers flex, like you might be reaching out to him. "He was so sad alpha."

Hoseok just sighs and gets up on his creaky knees. He looks down at the two of you, how nice your body fits around his, how your body is just as boneless, and your eyes are already starting to grow heavy. You look comfortable and warm and cozy.

Hoseok debates between what he knows is right and what his alpha wants. Looking down at the two of you satisfied. Hoseok's alpha wants to cuddle up underneath you or maybe on top of Jungkook. The only thing better than one alpha on top of you is two. The only thing safer would be to stay here and watch over you, but…you look sleepy. Tired. And Hoseok knows that if he stays, you probably won't sleep. Will probably want to keep an eye on an alpha not in your nest.

You're always complaining about management lingering around when you're doing a session, that you wish they'd just leave you be. Maybe staying…will do more harm than good.

 If you notice the change in his scent, nearly heady. You don't say anything at all. You nibble on your lower lip, question on the tip of your tongue that you just can’t ask.

Stay.  

"Is your phone charged?" He asks. You have a wrinkle between your eyebrows when you're confused, Hoseok reaches down to smooth it out. You recoil from his thumb rubbing at the spot with a pout, and he can't stop his smile. 

"Yeah, it's got like 70%, why?"

"I'll lock the door from outside." This is his practice room. And no one will question it if they find the lock clicked; no one will bother you here. "You text me when he wakes up or if you need something, and I'll come get you. Management won't find out that way."

Jungkook would just get another scolding, and you would too. That's the last thing Hoseok wants. He turns and makes to leave, keys already in his hands. Jungkook hardly stirs through all of it.

"Alpha?" You call softly, and Hoseok turns back,

"Yes pup?"

You shrink back below the edge of the nest. Suddenly shy for whatever reason. "Nothing." Hoseok waits for a second, waits for you to change your mind, and then nods.

"Thank you."

Hoseok blinks, "Of course." The keys feel sweaty in his hands. Hoseok means it more than he’s ever meant anything in his life when he says. "Anything you need."

~-~

The pack house is quiet at this hour, late at night on a friday, practice tomorrow and the day after looming. their friday nights often don't look like regular 20 somethings do. The sound of the pack settling into their steadiness comforting as it is familiar. Hoseok scrolls through social media while he brushes his teeth in the kitchen.

The take out all put away. The sound of Seokjin showering in the ensuite and singing one of their new songs softly, lulls him into a false sense of security with the quiet gravel of namjoon's tone a room away, punctuated softly by the sound of the headbord rocking into the wall.

Although that might just be Jimin and Jungkook hitting the table, shouting at their respective screens as they game in the living room.

This late at night, hoseok so often thinks about you. Your apartment must be oh so quiet.

Tae left a little while ago to hang out with his friends. With clear instructions as to the time he was expected home and the amount he's allowed to drink. Hoseok is just considering if he wants to hunt down Namjoon and Yoongi in the other room or if he wants to wait up for Tae to come home when his phone dings.  

A text from your number.

Basically, Hoseok’s worst nightmare in print form.

It’s a picture of two dresses, one black and leather, the other red and sparkly, lying on the edge of your nest.

Her (9:59): Can you help me choose alpha?

Hoseok sends a second dumbly staring at it, brain short-circuiting, before another text comes through.

Her (9:59): Sorry, wrong alpha.

Hoseok immediately tries to call you. But it goes to voicemail. He sends another call, rapid fire, but that one also gets declined after a second. He calls into the kitchen.

“Jungkook ah- can you call y/n for me?”

Jungkook and Jimin stick their heads around the corner. Headphones from their gaming setup off their ears. “What? Why? is something wrong?” Hoseok is thankful that Tae isn’t around and that the others are occupied in their own rooms. Fucking from the sound of it. Namjoon and Yoongi tend to get noisy. The others would be able to scent it out on him in a second. It’s only through pure self-control that Hoseok manages to keep his scent normal.

“No reason, she just hasn’t responded to me.”

Hoseok watches Jungkook call, the furrow of his eyebrow. staring at his phone for a second. “That’s weird, she always picks up when I call.”

Hoseok keeps his scent steady. He grabs his coat, tells, and then orders Jungkook and Jimin to stay put. He wraps the trench coat tightly around him, glad for its length to block out his pajamas. “It’s probably nothing. I might go and like- make sure she’s not still at the company.” It’s a flimsy excuse, but Hoseok doesn't have time to make another one.

Hoseok tries to call you another dozen times on the elevator ride down to the garage, but you leave every one of them on voicemail. Eventually, Hoseok gives in.

Alpha (10:02): Who are you going out with?

Alpha (10:02): Tell me right fucking now.

Her (10:02): Wouldn’t you like to know alpha ;)

Alpha (10:03): Tell me.

Her (10:03): Or else what?

Alpha (10:03): Or else you won’t like what happens.

Her (10:03): Don't threaten me with a good time.

Alpha (10:03): I'm serious. I'm not fucking around.

Alpha (10:03): Where. Are. You.

The next text makes his alpha gnash it's teeth, nearly howling. hair standing on end. And Hoseok feels his alpha win out a little, giving into the chase.

Her (10:04): Come and find me <3

You don’t send any more than that. But you don’t need to. It’s really not all that hard to find out where you’ll be. The fact of the matter is that Hoseok is very, very well-connected, and he’s not exactly averse to using those connections to his advantage. He could reach out to your manager- you have a tracker on your phone like all the other employees.

But all it takes is a well-worded question in the search bar on Twitter to find a photo, a flash of red, your hair curled behind your shoulders as a bouncer helps you step aside the long queue. Most of the picture is blurry, but the profile of your face is something Hoseok would recognize anywhere.

Yeonjunsleftnostril: Isn’t this the omega that works for txt?

Jikookfivever: No, that one works for HYBE.

Yeonjunsleftnostril: isn’t that the same fucking thing?

Hoseok isn’t in disguise; he didn’t think to grab anything. But he gets out of the car infront of the club without thinking about it. He’s spotted almost instantly underneath the neon partition. He wonders if omegas even need tickets to get in here- probably not, they probably just let you right in without even asking for an ID.

He tosses a wad of bills to the valet. “Leave it here.” The beta scurries; he knows Hoseok’s face, the whole city is covered in it. The hush to the crowd that his voice commands is audible. somewhere in the line someone whispers "is that j-hope? why is he wearing pj's to the club?" The bouncer just nods at Hoseok and lets him through without any hassle.

A camera flashes. And Hoseok winces.

You’re really very easy to find, sitting at an empty booth in the corner. Everyone's giving you a wide berth. A dozen bottles of champagne around you and various other alcohols and empty glasses. Hoseok knows you got it all for free- any club would be lucky to host an omega for even 10 minutes, let alone the hour that it took for him to find you.

Hoseok isn’t surprised to find you alone. No alpha. Not the one you dressed up for. Whoever they were, they’ve left you alone, and it’s their loss. The clubs that usually cater to pack clientele are quieter. But this is a club through and through. Edm from the sound of it. Hoseok weaves his way through the churning crowd towards you, passing a group of alphas peering into your booth.

“You can do it bro, that’s just an omega.” “Yeah, the only omega here.” “I didn’t know they were like- even allowed to drink-” “you’ve got this bro-” “yeah go woo her” “bro you’re like so desirable.” “yeah, id fuck you and i'm not even an beta-" "that's like a little weird bro" "sorry bro" "go get this bro- "

Hoseok walks by them without a single glance in their direction. They shrink back when he smirks, his aura intimidating and anger melting off of him in waves. His usually sweet mango scent is sour and strong, making the crowd part around him.

He’s thankful this club has a famous no phones policy, otherwise this would make headlines. At best, he knows a few photos will circulate on the back corners of the internet. Probably excused away.  

Your legs are crossed at the ankle, the hem of your sparkly red skirt hiked up to the upper thigh. Almost high enough to flash the people here. Leaving miles of your skin on display. Hoseok has never seen you in anything other than nesting clothes; he's never seen you in so little. Your eyelashes are curled long and dark, your cheeks rouged, your lips lined and filled bright, bright red, making his blood boil for several reasons.

Whoever the alpha is that you dressed up for is one lucky fuck.

Hoseok's alpha feels world-ending rage. The kind of rage that makes people kill. The kind of rage not appropriate for an alpha of his caliber.

The worst part is, your face still lights up when you see him. The joy on your face is plain to see. Hoseok realizes that you’re drunk, absolutely wasted as your expression loosens into a dopey grin. He knows the expression on his face is pinched and pissed. But you don’t even seem to care as you reach for him, purse spilling, its contents falling everywhere. (Lipstick and a wallet and expensive chocolates and... is that a stuffed animal? One of the ones Jin got you?)

Hoseok catches you before you fall to the floor, all but jumping into his arms in drunk animation. Excited. Sweet scent rippling.

“Hoseokie! You made it!”

~-~

Notes:

on second read hoseok reads so imature in this fic, i know it's a flashback, but it's very clear i think from his behavior and internal monologue that he really really wants to be a good pack alpha and is struggling to find his grove. i hope you got that without me explicitly saying it? but it's true that the m/c really does make him flourish.

this may feel like a filler chapter- not because it is- but because it and the next chapter originally were connected to each other and now they are not! the next chapter and the one after it focus more on her relationship with the others as well as hobi (building very heavily on the m/c/jk dynamic and showing how that sort of started) and my god the sexting with tae- it's taking everything in me not to spoil it.

i split this because once i hit like 12k in the word count my mental health gets very dodgy (basically the level of effort i put in doesn't reach the amount of feedback i receive and i start to feel like my writing is crappy SO that is why i try not to publish parts that are longer than 12k.

i really hope people won't be disapointed :/ especially because there's nothing really really juicy that happens in this chapter.

i think it's clear that i'm not sticking to the irl timeline of enlistment and albums in this fic but incase you needed it said! things are happening out of order! also there's no pandemic in this universe lol- i figured since we have the omega plague we don't need covid. in my mind this takes place in like 2018 when bts's popularity really took off like- DNA era. realistically this would mean that bts are younger than like 26-27-28. but you know- if the pandemic hadn't happened but they'd still enlisted when they where 30- you get the picture. the timeline works if you ignore it and the timeline really doens't matter to me.

wow i'm at the point in editing this where i hate this- it's so fucking meandering and i feel like you can really tell there was supposed to be another part to this (there is it's just next chapter)

whatever.

i have not verbally said it in the last chapters but the packmates scents are as followed namjoon: tomato leaf, Jimin: lychee, Jin: peaches, m/c: blackberries, hoseok: drippy sticky mangos, Jungkook: black tea, Taehyung: toffee like faintly smoky but sweet, Yoongi: citrus, but deep and mellow instead of bright

i love how hoseok's inner monolouge is "i'm a monster- i'm going to hurt her." and the second she sees hoseok actually dominating she's just like "wow he's pretty" like ugh- their dynamic is so <3333

i love outro her and i love that hoseok's referencing that here. newer armies might not know the song.

this is the first chapter where i'm like- does the forced caretaking tag really fit? because honestly the m/c willingly gives up control of her whole life to hoseok. like- all of it. i think that this is a very soft foray into the world of forced caretaking.

~-~

Mini playlist:

Bella Kay- Steady

Tate mcrae- Revolving Door

Tate mcrae- the hills

Demi Lovato- met him last night

Annabelle Dinda - Satellites