#poly!bts

Yeri chuckles. “Careful what you wish for. You know the hospital doesn’t even have a protocol for treating hybrids? If one shows up bleeding out, we’re technically not authorized to operate unless—”

“Unless it’s life-threatening,” you finish, rolling your eyes, “I read the policy memo,” you smirk as your fingers tab against the coffee cup, “but do you really think someone half-wolf cares about hospital policy?”

That earns a laugh from Nayeon, but it fades quickly. “They say some can’t control it. Their behavior, I mean. It’s tied to emotion. Anger, fear…” She lowers her voice, glancing toward the darkened hallway. “You ever think about how many of them are just… hiding? Living normal lives until something snaps in them?”

“They’re wild animals,” Yeri exclaims, “of course they’re gonna snap eventually.”

You don’t answer. Not knowing whether to agree or disagree to that statement. 

The clock on the wall ticks louder than it should. 

“Anyway,” Yeri says, stretching, “if more hybrids do exist, they’re probably smart enough to stay far away from us. Humans have a habit of ruining what they don’t understand.”

Nayeon hums in agreement, stacking her paperwork, “still, if I ever see one, I’m running the other way.”

You smile faintly. “Same.”

The rest of your shift remains uneventful. Minus the occasional gossip sessions and questions on what their plans for the weekends are. 

When your shift finally ends you wave goodbye to your friends before parting ways to your parked car. Despite it being hours ago the hybrid conversation still lingers in your mind. The thought of hidden eyes, of instincts stronger than reason. Of creatures half human.

You shake it off and remind yourself it’s just another long shift, another round of wild hospital rumors. Everyone gets delirious at some point during a 12 hour shift. 

Still, as you walk toward your car, the wind moves through the  parking lot in a way that makes your skin prickle. And that’s when you hear it. A sudden howl off to the distance causes your body to flinch. It’s low and echoing, carried by the night air.

You tell yourself it’s just a dog.

You always tell yourself it’s just a dog.

You hurriedly unlock your car and rush inside. 

The drive home is quiet, the kind of quiet that only comes after midnight, when the world feels suspended between days. The streets are nearly empty, the hum of the city fading with every mile until all that’s left is the sound of your tires on the damp road.

Your neighborhood sits near the edge of the woods, where civilization meets the wild. It’s peaceful most nights, with sounds of crickets, the occasional owl, and the wind shifting through trees that have stood long before your house was built. You usually love that serenity. 

But tonight for some reason feels different.

You attempt to just shrug it off thinking Nayeon's words were finally getting to you.

The night air bit at your cheeks as you stepped out of your car, exhaustion clinging to your bones like a second skin. Twelve hours at the hospital would drain anyone, but tonight had been especially brutal.

You rub the back of your neck, half out of habit, half because something about the stillness makes you uneasy.

Inside, your house is dim but welcoming, the warm amber light spilling from the lamp you forgot to turn off that morning. You kick off your shoes, drop your keys in the bowl by the door, and exhale for what feels like the first time all day.

Your scrubs are wrinkled and stained with coffee and your hair is escaping its bun. You don’t care. You were off the next day anyway. The plan for tonight was simple: shower, tea, bed.

But apparently the night has other plans for you.

Just as you reach to turn on the kettle, a loud thud echoes from outside.

You freeze.

It isn’t the usual creak of branches or the scurry of small animals. This sound has weight as if something solid hitting the ground, followed by a faint metallic clang, like a tool being knocked over.

Your gaze flicks toward the back window. The motion sensor light has turned on, casting a pale glow over the yard. The shed at the edge of the property stands half in shadow. When you lean against the window you notice the door slightly ajar.

Your stomach tightens.

“Probably just the wind,” you mumble under your breath, even though you don’t believe it.

Another sound follows, heavier, deliberate, as if something large shifted inside the shed. Your breath catches in your throat. This time convinced you were either about to encounter an animal or worse, human.

You grab the nearest thing resembling a weapon. A broom. You creep toward the back door trying to ignore your pounding heart. The night air slips in when you crack it slightly open, just enough for you to feel the cool and damp air. The light flickers outside, shadows bending strangely at the edge of the shed.

Then. Silence.

You stare for several long seconds, the quiet pressing against your ears until you swear you can hear a low growl.

Nope.

You shut the door quickly, lock it, and pull the curtain tight. Whatever’s in there, you’ll deal with it in the morning when it feels less like a horror movie and when you’re not bone-tired and running on caffeine fumes. Before heading upstairs you make sure all the windows are locked tight and shut. It was times like these you wished you adopted a dog to keep guard.

Still, as you finally make your way to your bedroom, you can’t shake the feeling that something, or rather someone, is watching you from the dark.

And outside, under the dim light, a pair of glowing eyes blink once from the shadows of the shed… then vanish.

You wake before your alarm, in that half-lucid state where your mind hovers between sleep and consciousness, muscles heavy but your thoughts sharp and uneasy. For a moment, the tightness in your chest feels like a phantom ache, but then the memory hits: the thud, the shed. Your stomach knots as if it remembers something your brain wants to forget.

You slap your cheeks together as a form of motivation, “ok Y/n, it’s time to be a big girl and check the shed. What’s the worst that can happen,” you mumble. 

Even as you put on some sweatpants and wrap your robe around you, your hands tremble slightly. The whole thing feels ridiculous, “it’s probably nothing,” is what you try to convince yourself with but your heart doesn’t seem to care. 

The uncertainty of what you might encounter gives you more anxiety than you would’ve liked first thing in the morning. 

Morning sunlight filters weakly through the blinds, painting stripes of gold and shadow across the floor. Everything looks ordinary, mundane even. The teacup you left on the counter, the faint aroma of last night’s espresso lingering in the air, the slight hum of the refrigerator. Ordinary enough to make you doubt yourself. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe caffeine, maybe a trick of your imagination.

You shuffle toward the window, robe brushing the floor, and that’s when you freeze. The shed door is wide open. Your pulse spikes. “I guess it wasn’t my imagination after all.” The paint is chipped along the edges of the old wooden door as if an animal was clawing at it to open. You blink hard. 

“It’s a raccoon, it’s a raccoon,” you chant under your breath like you were trying to cast a spell in hopes of your manifestation becoming true. You move to the kitchen and grab a knife. A weapon that seems a little more suitable for the situation regardless of how ridiculous you felt. 

Your throat feels dry as you step outside. The grass is still damp with last night’s dew, cool against your slippers, and the air carries that earthy, metallic scent that always comes after rain. Leaves and small branches litter the yard.

You take the knife from your hands, holding it with both palms as if it’s a lifeline, and approach the shed slowly. Every step crunches softly on wet grass, and the faint sound of your heartbeat fills your ears. The door swings slightly with the breeze, groaning on its rusted hinges. 

You take a peak from the already open door. Inside, everything seems normal. The gardening tools hang neatly, the lawnmower rests against the far wall, and cobwebs sway lazily from the ceiling beams. But your eyes catch the muddy prints crossing the floor. But that’s not what frightens you the most. They’re human footprints. Human-sized, irregular footprints trailing from the door into the shadows. The prints are smeared, as if being dragged, leaving streaks that darken the pale wood.

Your gaze follows the trail, and your stomach twists as it stops near a dark, wet patch. At first, it looks like dirt, but the glossy crimson reflection in the sunlight makes your skin crawl. The metallic tang finally hits your nose. 

Blood. 

Not a lot, but enough to make your throat dry and your hands tremble.

“Oh fuck,” you curse. You pat your body and it dawns on you that you failed to bring your phone to call the authorities.

You were about to run back into your house but something shiny glinted by your feet. You crouch cautiously, heart hammering, and brush away the dirt. A small silver tag lies there, engraved with a single letter: Y. The edges are scratched, slightly worn, catching the morning light like a warning.

A soft exhale.

You freeze.

The breath didn’t belong to you.

You go still, every muscle in your body locking up. Your brain immediately starts screaming at you to move, but your feet have apparently decided they’d rather die confused than cooperate.

Another sound follows, this time a low, pained groan. Definitely human.

“I did not sign up for this today,” you whisper, shaking your head.

You tighten your grip on the knife, which now feels less like a weapon and more like a glorified butter spreader. You take one careful step inside, the wooden floor creaking under your slippers. You glance toward the back corner where the light doesn’t reach. That’s where you hear it again. A shaky, uneven breath.

“Hello?” you call out, voice cracking halfway through, “if you’re a murderer, I should warn you, I scream really loud and my neighbors hate noise.”

No response. Just another soft groan, followed by a weak shuffle.

You swallow, your pulse pounding so hard it feels like your heartbeat’s trying to crawl up your throat. “Okay. Cool. Love that for me,” you mutter, inching forward.

Your eyes adjust slowly to the dim light, and that’s when you finally see him.

A figure slumped against the back wall, chest rising and falling shallowly. He’s shirtless, skin slick with sweat and streaked with dried blood. His hair is dark and matted, and what’s left of his clothes look torn, almost shredded. For a brief second, your brain can’t quite decide if you’re looking at a man or something else entirely.

Because that’s when you notice them. The ears.

Large black cat ears poking through his messy hair, twitching faintly as if trying to catch the faintest sound. His pupils, though barely open, are narrow slits of gold that glint when the light hits.

You stumble back, bumping into the doorframe hard enough to rattle the hinges. “Oh my god. I must be hallucinating. This is what sleep deprivation looks like.”

A sound tears through the air, more animal than human. A growl. A warning.

You flinch, holding up your free hand in surrender. “Whoa, easy, I’m not— look, I live here, okay? I’m just—” you glance around helplessly, “checking on my shed, as one does when strange cat-men break into it.”

He bares his teeth slightly, something between a snarl and a grimace. His jaw flexes as a sharp breath escapes him. He’s pressing a trembling hand to his side.

Despite the panic clawing at your throat, the nurse in you pushes forward. You can’t help it.

You take a shaky breath. “You’re hurt.”

His eyes flash open, golden, sharp, and animalistic. He growls again, louder this time, chest rumbling like distant thunder.

You flinch back, your knife wobbling dangerously in your grip. “Okay! Okay! You’re hurt, I’m terrified, and we’re clearly both having a rough morning, so maybe let’s just take a minute and breathe?”

Silence. Then a low, rasping voice. “Stay back.” His voice is rough, almost feral, as though the words hurt to form.

For a long, tense second, he studies you like he’s waiting for you to flinch, to prove you’re a threat. His claws flex faintly against the dirt, shoulders rising and falling with each uneven breath. Finally, he groans softly, the fight in him faltering.

You take a cautious step closer, lowering the knife. “Look, I’m a nurse. I help people for a living. And right now, you count as… close enough.” He watches you as you drop your knife into the floor with a thud. Raising your hands so they remain in his line of sight at all times.

His hand twitches, claws scraping faintly against the wooden floor. His gaze narrows. “Humans don’t help my kind,” he mutters, voice hoarse.

You blink. “Well, clearly you haven’t met the right human.”

For a long, tense second, he studies you  like he’s waiting for you to flinch, to lie, to prove you’re just another threat. Finally, with visible effort, he slumps back against the wall, chest heaving, but you notice something that makes you hesitate. There’s no fresh blood. The wounds along his ribs are dark and half-healed, but the skin around them is an angry shade of red, swollen, and slick with sweat. Even from here, you can tell it’s infected. Badly.

You crouch a little, trying to get a closer look without getting too close. “Okay… that’s not just a scratch,” you murmur, “you’re burning up.”

His head lifts sharply, gold eyes narrowing into slits. “Don’t,” he growls, voice low and gravelly.

“Don’t what? Diagnose you?” you shoot back before you can stop yourself. “Too late. You’ve got a fever, and whatever clawed you didn’t exactly clean its nails first.”

The growl deepens, chest rumbling like distant thunder. “I said stay back.”

“Listen dude, you’re half-delirious and about two hours away from sepsis,” you snap. “So maybe you stop giving orders and you let me help before you pass out and ruin my morning.”

He stares at you for a long second before finally looking away. His breathing is uneven, shallow, as if every inhale costs him energy he doesn’t have.

“I can help, but not here. You need cleaning and antibiotics like, yesterday. My house is just a few steps away. I can help you.”

His head jerks up immediately, eyes narrowing. “No,” he growls, voice rough and low. “Not going in there.”

You blink. “It’s a house, not a trap.”

His ears twitch, tail flicking once behind him, a flash of sleek black fur you hadn’t noticed before. His voice is strained, but the warning in it is still clear. “Humans. Traps. Same thing.”

You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Okay, look if I wanted to trap you, I’d call animal control, not offer free healthcare.”

That earns you a rumbling growl that sounds suspiciously like a scoff. He tries to stand and immediately wavers, one hand bracing against the wall. The second his knees buckle, instinct takes over and you dart forward before thinking. “Hey hey! Easy!”

He stiffens instantly, baring his teeth in warning. You freeze, hands hovering inches from him. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” you say softly. “But if you keep moving like that, you’re gonna pass out. And honestly, I’m not strong enough to drag your big cat ass all the way to the house.”

His eyes narrow at you. “You talk too much,” he mutters hoarsely.

“You growl too much,” you shoot back. 

He blinks slowly, as if deciding whether or not you’re insane. Then, finally, with a reluctant huff, he lets you move closer. Together, you manage to get him into the house. The morning light filters through your kitchen window, warm and ordinary against how utterly not ordinary this situation is.

“See?” you mumble. “No traps. Just bad coffee and worse lighting.”

He doesn’t answer. As soon as you stepped inside, he stiffened, nostrils flaring as his eyes darted across the room scanning exits, shadows, anything that could be a threat. The low rumble in his chest returns.

“Relax,” you murmur, noticing how tense his body had become. “If anyone’s dangerous here, it’s you.”

That earns you a sharp look, one that would’ve been terrifying if not for the way his knees give out a second later.

“Whoa—hey,” you catch him, your arm bracing his side. “Alright, easy, kitty. Let’s get you to the couch.”

He doesn’t resist as you steer him toward the couch. His breathing is rough, eyes half-lidded but still watchful. He drops onto the couch with a heavy exhale, muscles coiled tight. You can tell he’s seconds away from bolting if you move too fast.

“Stay there,” you say quickly, pointing a finger at him. 

He doesn’t reply, but his gaze stays locked on you. His wary, unreadable, golden eyes flickering in the morning light.

And for the first time since you met him, you get the strange feeling beneath all that distrust… He’s just as afraid of you as you are of him.

You rush down the hall to the bathroom, adrenaline spiking. You fling open the cabinet and start grabbing everything you can think of: antiseptic, gauze, saline, gloves, thermometer, antibiotic ointment, bandages, and even a small vial of oral antibiotics from your emergency stash. Your hands shake the entire time, bottles clinking as you shove them into your hands.

“Okay, okay,” you mutter under your breath. “Big scary cat in my living room, possibly septic. It’s just another casual morning.”

When you return, he’s right where you left him, watching the doorway like a cornered animal. His pupils are wide in the soft light.

“Good, you stayed,” you say, forcing a weak smile. “That’s progress.”

Something flickers in his expression. It looked like doubt, maybe confusion, but it’s gone before you can read it. He doesn’t relax, exactly, but he doesn’t bolt either.

You kneel again, slowly this time, making sure he can see every movement. “I’m just cleaning the wound, alright? No tricks. No needles.”

He watches you with quiet intensity, every breath a warning. 

“Alright. This is going to sting, and by sting, I mean you’re probably going to want to rip my arm off.”

He eyes the bottle warily, nostrils flaring. “What is that?”

“Disinfectant,” you explain carefully, twisting the cap off. “Kills the infection before it kills you.” You pour a small amount onto a cotton pad and move slowly toward his side. “Don’t. move.”

The moment the antiseptic touches his skin, he snarls, a raw, guttural sound that reverberates through the room. His back arches, claws digging into the couch cushion, tail flicking in a violent shudder of pain.

“Shit! I know, I know, I’m sorry!” you yelp, instinctively jerking your hand back. “You’re fine, it’s fine, it’s supposed to burn!”

His teeth bare in a warning growl, the sound more animal than human. “You—” his voice is a rasp, trembling with restrained anger, “burn me again, and I’ll—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll maul me, I get it,” you cut in quickly, waving the bottle like a white flag. “Just breathe, okay? It means it’s working.”

He growls again, quieter this time, but doesn’t pull away when you lean back in. His breathing stays rough, his body tense, but he lets you clean the rest of the wound.

By the time you start applying the ointment, the worst of the trembling has eased. You glance up at him, catching his gaze briefly. The distrust is still there, but so is something else, something tired, wary, and deeply human.

“There,” you whisper, voice softening. “Done.”

He exhales slowly, the rumble in his chest fading. “You’re reckless,” he mutters finally, voice rough but quieter now.

You huff out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, you broke into my shed. I think we’re even.” You lean back on your heels, exhausted. “You need rest. There’s a bed in the other room. I’ll help you get there.”

His eyes flash. “Not your den.”

You sigh, rubbing your temple. “It’s a guest room. You can leave once you’re not burning up like a furnace.”

He doesn’t respond, just keeps staring. His gaze follows every tiny movement you make, and it feels less like he’s looking at you and more like he’s trying to decide if you’re lying.

“Your temperature’s high, and if it’s an infection, you’ll need fluids and antibiotics.”

His lip curls slightly, a flash of sharp canines. “Don’t need your medicine.”

“Right. You’ll just growl at the infection until it gives up,” you mutter under your breath, but his ears twitch, he heard that.

His golden eyes narrow dangerously. “You think this is funny?”

You freeze. “No. I think this is terrifying actually. You barged into my shed, nearly passed out, and I’m trying not to shit my pants. So yeah, excuse me if sarcasm’s all I’ve got left.”

He doesn’t answer, but his posture shifts.

“Come on,” you say softly, keeping your tone even. “You can’t stay in the shed. It’s cold, damp, and there’s… well, spiders.”

A long, silent pause stretches between you. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t growl. He just watches. His tail flicks slowly, one, two, three times. Then, finally, he takes a single step forward. He falters and you instinctively reach out your hands to catch him. 

He flinches hard, grabbing your wrist in an instant. The growl that rips out of him is deep, guttural, pure instinct. 

Your breath catches. “Okay okay,” you whisper quickly, raising your free hand. “No touching. Got it.”

You take a careful step back, pulse still racing from how fast he’d reacted. His grip loosens, but his eyes stay locked on you, golden and sharp. It takes a full five seconds before he finally releases your wrist. You don’t move right away, neither of you do, the air between you is heavy with something taut and unspoken.

When you finally find your voice, it’s softer, steadier than you feel. “Alright,” you murmur, keeping your distance. “Let’s just… take it slow. The guest room’s this way.”

He follows you with cautious, uneven steps that’s not exactly following, but tracking you, like a predator making sure the prey doesn’t bolt.

“It’s the only clean room left,” you say lightly, forcing a nervous smile. “Sheets are fresh, door locks from the inside if that helps.”

He doesn’t respond, just keeps walking, his breathing is still slightly uneven, muscles tensing with every unfamiliar creak of the floor.

When you reach the doorway, you step aside and gesture toward the bed. “Here. You can rest here.”

He stops dead in his tracks. Doesn’t move forward. Doesn’t sit. Just stares at the bed. His tail flicks once, slow and uncertain.

You watch him quietly, unsure if saying anything would help or make it worse. His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing. He steps closer to the edge of the mattress, sniffing the air like he’s trying to decode it. The faint scent of detergent, linen, and you. His gaze darts to you, sharp and questioning, like he’s waiting for you to reveal the catch.

You lift your hands again in quiet surrender, “it’s just a bed. You can lie down, or not. Do whatever makes you comfortable.”

He shifts his weight, scanning the corners of the room, the window, the door. You can practically see him cataloguing every exit, every sound, every scent. Finally, with a low, uncertain rumble in his chest, he sits on the very edge of the mattress. He’s stiff, ready to spring back up at the first wrong movement.

You don’t move closer. You just watch quietly as he tests the fabric beneath him, pressing down once as if trying to understand the softness. You can’t help the faint smile tugging at your lips. “Not much of a bed person, huh?”

His head turns sharply toward you, golden eyes narrowing, and the smile fades from your face instantly. 

You take a small step back, keeping your tone calm. “I’ll get you some water. And something to bring your fever down.”

He doesn’t acknowledge you, just staring down at the blanket like it’s something too fragile to touch for long. You back toward the door slowly, careful not to turn your back fully, leaving him the space he clearly needs. 

And as you leave the room, you catch one last glimpse of him  still sitting there, rigid and silent, a wild creature in a place that feels too soft, too safe, and too unfamiliar.

The kitchen feels colder than before.

You lean against the counter, arms crossed, staring blankly at the half-full glass of water in front of you. The quiet hum of the refrigerator fills the silence. Everything feeling too normal for what’s happening.

An actual hybrid is sitting in your guest room. In your house.

You press a hand to your forehead and let out a shaky breath. “What the hell am I doing?” you whisper to yourself.

It’s absurd. You should’ve called animal control. Or the hospital. Or someone who actually knows what to do with half-human creatures. Instead, you’re here making sure he’s comfortable like you invited a stray cat inside. A muscle-covered, potentially dangerous stray cat with big claws.

You glance toward the hallway, as if you might somehow hear him moving but it’s silent. Which somehow feels worse.

You exhale, shaking your head. He looked so completely lost. Not just wary, but unsure. Like the concept of being offered something without a catch didn’t make sense to him.

You grab the medicine bottle from the cabinet, shaking two tablets into your palm. The sound of the pills rattling against the plastic echoes loud in the stillness. You hesitate, staring at them for a long moment.

What if he refuses again? What if you push too far and he bolts or worse, lashes out at you?

Still, you can’t bring yourself to throw the pills away. You fill a glass with water and set both down on the counter, biting the inside of your cheek. Logic tells you to keep your distance and wait until you can think clearly. But there’s something else tugging at you, a quiet voice buried under the anxiety.

He’s alone, hurt, and afraid.

And for whatever reason, he trusted you enough to stay.

You sigh, rubbing your temple. “God, I’m going to regret this.”

Because no matter how much you try to rationalize it, the truth lingers at the edge of your thoughts.

You didn’t just bring a hybrid into your home.

You invited something wild, something dangerous, into your life.

Just then from the corner of your eye, you catch movement outside the kitchen window. It was fast, low, and much too big to be a regular animal native to these woods.

You freeze mid-step, pulse spiking.

At first, you think it’s him, maybe he slipped out somehow, already bolting back into the woods. But then your brain catches up. The shape was wrong. Taller. Broader. And it moved differently. More erratic, like it was hunting for something rather than running away.

You edge closer to the window, careful not to make a sound. Your fingers tighten around the counter as you lean forward just enough to peer outside. Beyond the yard, the tree line sways gently with the breeze until something moves through it, fast. You catch just the blur of motion, there and gone before your mind can even process it.

Your stomach drops. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” you whisper under your breath. You step back slowly, heart pounding so hard it hurts. 

You stumble backward, fumbling for the deadbolt with shaky hands. The metallic click of the lock sounds deafening in the silence that follows. You double-check it then grab the sliding bar and shove it across for good measure.

Your mind races. That thing outside was not the hybrid you brought into your house. The shape, the movement, the sound, it didn’t match. Panic builds in your chest before you can stop it.

“As if this morning couldn’t get any worse” you whisper, glancing toward the hallway. Your feet start moving towards the guest room. Heart still hammering against your chest. The bedroom is still cracked open, just like you left it.

“Please still be here,” you whisper under your breath.

You push the door open quietly.

He’s still there.

The hybrid sits on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched, eyes half-lidded but alert. His chest is heaving as if it’s taking everything in his body to just breathe. He looks up immediately when you enter, pupils narrowing into thin slits.

You stop short, still breathing hard.

He tilts his head slightly, as if sensing your tension. The air between you shifts. His tail flicks once against the blanket, a quiet thump.

You try to find your voice. “You… you didn’t hear anything outside, did you?”

He doesn’t respond. Just watches you. But his ears twitch once, toward the window, before shifting his gaze outside.

You follow his stare, heart hammering, but see nothing except the lazy sway of branches in the breeze. The world outside looks calm.

Then, faintly, a crack, like twigs snapping could be heard right outside the closed window.

His ears flick again. His tail stills.

You whisper, “You heard that too, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t look at you, but the low rumble in his chest answers for him a deep, instinctive growl that vibrates through the quiet room.

The growl deepens and before you can ask what’s wrong, he moves. In one smooth motion, he crosses the room, his movements silent and eerily graceful. You barely have time to process before he’s unlatching the window.

“Wait—what are you doing?” you whisper harshly, stepping forward. “You can’t just—”

But he’s already pushing it open.

He leans forward slightly, inhaling deeply through his nose. You can see the subtle twitch of his jaw, the flare of his nostrils, the way his eyes shift from gold to something darker. But then in a moment his entire demeanor changes. The tension in his shoulders softens, not completely, but enough that the hostility flickers into something else.

You hesitate and raise a brow while watching him closely. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer, but he straightens his back. His ears perk toward the woods. The tail that had been flicking slowly before now stills, almost rigid.

Then, quietly you hear him exhale one word under his breath that’s barely audible.

“…Brother.”

You blink, unsure if you heard him right. “Wait what? Did you just say—”

He doesn’t give you a chance to finish. He leans further out the window, scanning the treeline with sharp, predatory focus. For a moment, his pupils dilate, and the low rumble in his chest returns. Except this time it’s not a warning growl. It’s something closer to concern.

Your skin prickles. “There’s another one out there?” You mumble, more to yourself than to him.

He glances back at you, his expression unreadable, but there’s something in his eyes now. A silent debate flickers across his features, like he’s trying to decide whether to tell you the truth or keep you in the dark.

Finally, he mutters something low and strained, almost reluctant. “He’s hurt.”

You blink, unsure if you heard right. “Hurt? As in hurt like you were, or hurt like I should be calling an ambulance?”

He doesn’t answer, but his claws flex slightly against the windowsill, the wood creaking under his grip. His tail flicks once, sharp and impatient. 

You glance out the window, scanning the trees, but all you see is the gentle sway of branches. “What do you want to do?” you ask quietly.

He shifts, muscles tightening beneath his skin as if preparing to move. His gaze is fixed outside. The faint rumble in his chest vibrates the air.

You step forward, instinctively putting yourself between him and the window. “Wait—”

He cuts you a sharp look that stops you cold. It isn’t threatening, not exactly. It’s a warning.

“You can’t just go out there,” you say, trying to keep your tone calm, even though your pulse is climbing. “You’re still recovering. You barely made it out of the shed this morning—”

He bares his teeth, just slightly, like he’s done being reasoned with. His tail lashes once behind him.

You hold your ground. “Look, I’m not saying no to helping him. Let me go outside instead.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

His ears flick back, and he stares at you like you just suggested juggling knives blindfolded. You can practically hear the thought in his head: This human has lost her mind.

You swallow, forcing a shaky smile. “You’re still weak,” you say, trying to sound logical instead of suicidal. “If you go out there like this, you could make things worse. You'll collapse halfway there, and then I’ll have two hybrids in my backyard.”

Something flickers across his face. You think it might be frustration, maybe even guilt, but it passes quickly. 

A low growl vibrates the air between you, deep enough that your ribs feel it. His tail lashes once, sharp and irritated.

“Right. You hate that idea,” you mutter, pacing half a step back. “If anything you can stay by the window and watch from here.”

That earns you a flicker of hesitation, his gaze darts between you and the window, then back again. Finally, with an agitated exhale, he steps back, muscles still tense, but at least he’s cooperating.

“Thank you,” you mutter, though it comes out more nervous than grateful.

Walking past him, you leave the room, heart pounding against your ribs, as you prepare to step outside into the morning air again. One very clear thought crosses your mind.  

This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

You can only imagine the look on Nayeon and Yeri’s face when you share this story the next time you see them at work.

The air hits colder than you expect as you step outside. The grass crunches faintly underneath with each step you take. Somewhere above, a crow lets out a sharp caw that makes your pulse spike for no good reason. You keep walking, following the faint imprint of pawprints near the edge of the yard. You tilt your head surprised, expecting to see human footprints.

You crouch briefly, brushing your fingers over the impression. The soil’s still damp.

A soft rustle, one that’s heavier than a squirrel, too light for a bear. You snap your head toward the sound, heart thudding against your ribs.

“Hello?” you call out, instantly regretting it. “If you’re… um… hurt or something, I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m just,” you hesitate trying to find the right words, “a friend of your brother’s.” It was at that moment you realized you haven’t even gotten the poor guy's name, much less introduced yourself. 

It’s silent, but you know you’re not alone. 

Then you hear it, a deep, guttural sound. A growl, drawn out and strained, the kind that vibrates through the air and straight into your bones. Every instinct in your body screams run, but your feet don’t listen. You inch closer instead, because apparently you’ve lost all sense of self-preservation.

You push past a low branch and freeze.

That’s not a hybrid. That’s not even close.

It’s a tiger. A full-grown tiger who is easily twice your size, muscles shifting beneath slick fur streaked with blood and dirt. His chest rises unevenly, each breath rasping, shallow and pained.

Your brain short-circuits. “Oh my god,” the words come out in a choked whisper. You stumble back a step, almost tripping over a rock. “That’s… that’s not a hybrid. That’s a literal tiger!”

The tiger’s eyes snap open at the sound, gold and bright, and locked right on you.

You go completely still. For a moment, neither of you move, suspended in a standoff of shared disbelief. Then the tiger exhales sharply, a warning growl rumbling through the fog.

For a split second, your brain short-circuits. “Oh my god, I’m going to die before I even eat breakfast.”

His fur, once a brilliant orange and black, is dulled with mud and streaked with crimson. Each breath he takes is shallow, ragged, steam rising faintly from his body in the cold air. Even from here, you can tell he’s hurt, badly.

The tiger’s golden eyes snap open, locking onto you instantly. They’re wild, sharp, and full of warning. A low growl rumbles through his chest. It didn’t sound like a threat, but more like a reminder to not get too close.

Your brain scrambles. This has to be him. The brother. The air feels heavier now, pressing down on you.

“Hey,” you manage, voice trembling. “You’re hurt. I can help you, but you’ve gotta promise not to, uh… eat me.”

The tiger lets out a snort, a disbelieving one if that’s even possible, before lowering his head again, watching you through half-lidded eyes. He doesn’t move to attack, but his tail flicks once.

“Taking that as a maybe,” you mutter.

Your chest rises and falls in uneven gasps as the tiger’s growls taper off into a low rumble. His breathing is still labored, but he doesn’t lunge. Instead, his eyes flick past you and toward the house in the distance and then back.

You slowly kneel again, hands shaking. “Please,” you whisper, softer now. “If you’re really one of them… if you’re that cat hybrid’s brother… let me help you.”

He doesn’t move. And just when you were about to speak again, with visible effort, the tiger lowers his head to the ground, not trust, but surrender.

You let out a trembling breath and slowly start making your way towards him. Until you hear it, the sound of a door creaking open.

You look up sharply toward the house. You make eye contact with the cat hybrid on the porch. He’s watching you in silence, his expression unreadable.

You narrow your eyes, “what did I say about resting in bed.”

He bares his teeth as if about to snarl, “you were taking too long and your heart was beating so fast I thought you were about to have a heart attack.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I was expecting to see a humanoid hybrid. Not a 400 pound apex predator,” you were already regretting helping this cat.

You barely have time to process what’s happening. One second, the tiger is half-laying in the grass, chest rising unevenly and the next, he’s on his feet, muscles tensing, a deep rumble tearing through his throat as he charges toward the porch.

“Wait!” you cry out, stumbling backward to get out of his way.

The black cat stumbles forward once, twice, and drops to one knee. The tiger lets out a sound you can’t describe part roar, part chuff, raw and desperate as he stops right in front of him

“He’s hurt,” the man rasps, voice hoarse and strained.

You nod quickly, forcing your feet to move even though your legs feel like jelly. “So are you,” you mutter under your breath, rushing toward them, “you can barely stand.”

The black cat shoots you a glare sharp enough to stop you mid-step. For a moment the glare fades into a grimace.

The tiger huffs weakly and presses his massive head against the mans shoulder, as if trying to steady him. The sight makes your chest twist painfully.

“Alright,” you breathe, scanning them both. “You’re both a mess. Let's go inside before my neighbors look out their windows and think I’ve started a zoo.”

The man’s tail flicks in irritation, but he doesn’t protest. He takes a few uneven steps toward the porch, one hand still braced against his ribs. You hover nearby, not close enough to touch, but close enough to catch him if he collapses. You see the tremor in his legs, the slight wince with every breath. He’s pushing himself too hard. Every few steps, he stumbles, and each time your hands twitch, ready to help, but you’re scared he’s just gonna growl at you in return. Besides, you’re not the only one trying to support him as the tiger is using his body to steady him.

By the time you reach the guest bedroom, his breathing is ragged, you can see the sheen of sweat on his skin, the strain in every line of his body.

“Here,” you say softly. “Lay down, the both of you.”

The man gives a final, warning growl as if to remind you not to come closer. He then collapses onto the edge of the bed, his brother beside him. You watch as he presses a shaking hand to his ribs, eyes squeezed shut, jaw tight.

“I’m gonna go get supplies.”

You rush off, heart hammering, muttering under your breath, “Two injured cat hybrids before noon… this is fine.”

You fling open the drawers, grabbing anything remotely useful. With everything in your arms you hurry back before you lose your nerve.

The moment you step into the bedroom, both pairs of golden eyes snap toward you. The man’s posture immediately stiffens in a protective stance. He sits up beside the tiger. The air feels heavier with him watching you like that, as though every move you make is being weighed and judged.

You raise your hands slightly, voice soft but steady. “I’m just going to clean his cuts. That’s all. You can… supervise if you want.”

“I’m Y/n,” you say carefully, keeping your voice low, calm. “Human, obviously,” you introduce yourself awkwardly. 

The hybrid doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even blink. He just watches you, eyes sharp, head tilted slightly as if he’s trying to decide what to make of you.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself not to look away. “And you are…?”

Silence.

You nod slowly, already half expecting not to receive an answer. “Okay, mystery cat it is. Y/n and the mystery cats.”

Your voice trembles just a little at the end, but you try to smile anyway, a small, awkward, and genuine one. “Let’s just make sure your brother doesn’t bleed out on my sheets first, yeah?”

He doesn’t answer. His tail flicks once. Then, after a few long seconds, he shifts just enough to give you space.

You take that as permission and kneel carefully beside the tiger. Up close, you can see the damage better. Shallow gashes across his shoulder and flank, dried blood matted into the fur. He must’ve been in a fight.

“Hey, big guy,” you whisper, reaching slowly for a towel. “We’re just cleaning you up, okay? Nothing scary.”

The tiger’s massive head twitches slightly toward your voice. His ears flick, but he doesn’t growl. You take that as a good sign.

When you pour antiseptic over the first wound, the tiger jerks violently, letting out a guttural, pained growl that makes every hair on your body stand up. Instinctively, you flinch back, your heart hammering so hard it hurts.

The man moves instantly, a sharp sound leaves his throat, not quite words, more like a low command. Except it wasn’t directed at you for once, but at the tiger. He stills almost immediately, though his breathing stays rough.

You blink, surprised, but you don’t dare ask what he said.

“Sorry,” you murmur softly, dipping the towel in water to wipe away the excess blood. “I know it stings. You’re doing great.”

You work quietly, cleaning each wound as carefully as you can. Every once in a while, the tiger huffs softly. When you finish bandaging the worst of the scratches, you sit back on your heels and exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

“There,” you say quietly, glancing between the two of them. “Nothing too deep. He’ll be fine as long as he rests.”

For a long moment, the three of you sit in silence. The house is quiet except for the soft hum of the fridge and the faint sound of wind outside.

Finally, you clear your throat. “He can also stay here while he recovers,” you say softly, gaining both of their attention. “But you both need rest. And food. I’ll… figure that part out.”

The cat hybrid says nothing, but his eyes aren’t as narrowed as before.

You turn to walk away until a low voice rumbles behind you.

“Yoongi.”

You glance back, unsure if you heard him right. He’s still sitting on the bed, his tail flicking lazily behind him, but his gaze is steady now, no longer entirely guarded. In fact his eyes were no longer golden. Right now you’re staring at very human-like eyes. 

“That’s my name,” he says after a pause, “I’m a panther hybrid.” His eyes flick briefly toward the tiger stretched out on the bed. “This is Taehyung. My younger brother.”

You blink, processing that for a second. “Right. Yoongi and Taehyung,” you repeat softly, like you’re trying the names on your tongue. “Nice to officially meet you both… under extremely weird and mildly terrifying circumstances.”

Yoongi huffs quietly.

“Get some rest,” you add, gesturing toward the bed. “I’ll prepare some food”

He tilts his head, one ear twitching, and for a fleeting moment, you think you see something almost human in his expression, maybe curiosity.

You close the door behind you, giving them some privacy. 

Leaning against the wall, you exhale slowly, the tension finally catching up to you. Less than twenty-four hours ago, your biggest problem was an overdue shift report. And now you’ve got two big cat hybrids sleeping under your roof.

You press a hand to your forehead, muttering to yourself, “what the hell did I just get myself into?”

You just have to remind yourself that this is temporary. They’ll leave once they’re all healed and haven’t killed you.

And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know this is only the beginning.

A/N: As you can see I did end up writing a new story haha. I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter! Let me know what you think :) One of my favorite parts of posting a new story/chapter is getting to read your guys reviews :))

Love, Liz

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In more recent years they jokingly called him their muscle bunny, because, well, he’d gone and gotten buff. He made a big deal about not being the little shy baby bun he once was anymore, and they respected him changing and discovering himself as an adult buck.

 But, deep down, Jungkook knew all they had to do was squeeze him into a hug when he was feeling down or rub a certain spot behind his ears, and he’d melt. Times like this worked too. It was a reassurance that he was still loved, even if he put his colony through it with his distance since Gramps died. 

Jin could easily check on the cookies, even while he did six other things, because he was an amazing multitasker. If he couldn’t, Taehyung, who was currently salivating too close to Jin’s pan—which earned him a maybe not-entirely-accidental elbow to the forehead—could. But it was Jin’s way of including him. The heat that hit him in the face when he opened the oven was nothing compared to the glowing warmth he held for his hyung, his whole family. 

“They look ready, hyung.”

“Good, you can take them out.” Jin had his wide back to him, distracted as he turned the heat down on the meal and fended off the impatient dog hybrid at his side. 

It was a small job, but Jungkook still grabbed an oven mitt and did it carefully. The aroma of Jin’s ginger cookies filled his nose, causing him to discreetly lean a little closer to get a good whiff. He was sure his tail did twitch in anticipation this time, just a little. 

“It’s done?” Taehyung was hanging over Jin’s back, being his normal clingy self. “Should I call the—”

“Lunch time?” Jimin’s tinkling voice made them all turn around, his shock of blue hair visible as he popped his head into the kitchen. “Ooh is that dakgalbi?”

“Mhm, I helped!” Jin didn’t dispute Taehyung’s eager chirp verbally, but the long side eye he gave the golden was loud enough.

“I’ll tell everybody,” The avian hybrid was already pulling out his phone, thumbs flying across his keypad as he likely informed the house group chat. It was more handy than someone might think to have one, even if they saw each other every day. 

It was at times the only way to get ahold of everyone when they were split up on different parts of the farm, or when they would go out shopping and inevitably all wander away from Gramps, he would shake his head and use the chat to tell them to get their butts back before they got left.

But it didn’t take long today. Apparently everyone had worked up an appetite. They came stampeding down the stairs or indoors, beelining to the kitchen in a way Jungkook knew was going to annoy Jin.

“Were you raised in a barn?!” He cried, right on time. Yep, called it. 

“The wilderness, actually.” Yoongi pulled one of his mittens off with his teeth and shook the snow from his hair as if to prove his point. Hoseok giggled, probably finding the snarky comment all the funnier since it applied to him too.

The both of them had spent more years in the household being raised by Gramps than they had out in the wild, but there was a certain animalistic sharpness to their movements and behavior that came out from time to time, a clue that they weren’t born domesticated. 

“Maybe you’d be more comfortable eating out on the porch then.” Jin retorted, accepting the plates Taehyung had retrieved for him. “This food’s only for the civilized ones.”

“Fine by me.” The lion shrugged. “Hell, I’ll shift down and eat in my fur while I’m at it. You’re not the only one who finds the cold refreshing.”

Jin only rolled his eyes, ignoring Yoongi calling his bluff. “Sit down before I change my mind.” he grumbled.

Seeming pleased with himself, Yoongi winked at them when Jin’s back was turned, rolling up his sleeves to wash his hands after stuffing his mittens in his pocket.

“This is nice,” Hoseok remarked, smiling wide after they were all seated and the food began to get passed around. “I missed sharing meals like this.” 

“Me too, hyung,” Taehyung wiggled around in his spot impatiently as he waited for the dish he wanted. Jungkook watched as it was almost handed off to him by Jimin, who smirked, passing it the other way when the dog hybrid groaned in frustration. “You did that on purpose.” He accused.

“Who, me?” Anyone who didn’t know them and couldn’t see Jimin’s wings would have a very hard time determining who was the dog when he made such a perfect pair of puppy dog eyes. “Anyway, is that all you’re eating Jungkookie? You should have some more.”

Jungkook looked down at his own plate. Compared to his usual, well, his previous intake before he startled nibbling his meals for lack of appetite, it was pretty light. 

“Want help?” Taehyung asked, already reaching for his plate from across the table. Usually Jin might scold for something like that, since it required reaching over other people’s meals, but he said nothing as his plate was passed and loaded up with a generous helping of lunch.

 His hyungs all worked to pass it back to him like the well-oiled parts of a machine, totally in sync, and it was yet another thing that made Jungkook want to hide a touched smile. They all wanted to take care of him, and they did it in a way that didn’t feel smothering. When he got his plate back, the rabbit hybrid picked up his chopsticks and ate his first bite reverently. The company and love of his family made the flavors richer, and before he knew it, someone was telling him not to eat so fast.

“There’s plenty more where that came from, Kook.” Yoongi said. 

Jungkook paused, ‘coming up for air’ as Hoseok put it when he was inhaling his food. All the patient faces he was surrounded by were trained on him, looking so subtly proud and content. 

The bunny dropped his head, not wanting them to see the way it was making his eyes water. Something bittersweet brushed against his heart and made it ache. 

Probably knowing every meal would be like this, Gramps would be absent from here on out, his chair remaining empty. They still had each other, and in time it might even be okay again, but their family looked different, and nothing could change that.

He trudged away from the house with his hands in his coat pockets, boots crunching through the powdery snow. A flake touched the fur of his ear and Jungkook stopped, the appendage flickering involuntarily at the sensitivity it caused. 

Jin stood on the porch, watching him, looking like the twelve feet between them was as wide as a canyon. He knew. Jungkook knew his hyung wanted to fuss over him.

 It was a total change of pace since Gramps died for him to want to go on walks. As a baby bunny he’d been active once he settled in, running all over the farm grounds with the rest of them. 

As he got older he helped with some of the more intensive labor-laden chores, which helped build up his impressive physique. Nothing toned muscle like an honest day of farm work. 

“I’ll be fine, hyung.” Jungkook appreciated the concern, but this was something he had to conquer at some point. If he didn’t get past this…if he didn’t face what he’d been hiding from…he’d be stuck forever.

“I’ll have some cocoa ready when you come back inside.” Jin promised, smiling sweetly. Jungkook waved, watching him turn to go back into the house, only to have to shoo his curious fellow maknaes away from the door. His keen hearing picked up Taehyung whining about something before it shut.

Sighing, Jungkook took a few more steps, lifting his nose up to the sky and watching more snow drift down from the gray heavens. An overcast winter day, huh? It was kind of similar to that time…

The rabbit glanced down at his feet, at the prints they made, thinking back to when he had walked around the farm hand in hand with Gramps. When he had first come home, his footprints had been tiny compared to the man’s adult-sized ones and he had never seen snow. He had never seen much of anything, really, except the lonely metal cage and concrete walls of his prison. 

The small hybrid’s swollen eyes blinked open, the creak of the cage door signaling his worst fear. Morning again. That meant the Coats were back, reaching into their ‘homes’ and dragging them out by the scruffs of their necks, carrying them off to the cold, terrifying room where they did their experiments. It had been the same thing, every day, going on for so long it was hard to keep track.

It would have been hard anyway, since he was so young, but the way time blurred together here made it harder. “Alright, I only need one of you today.” The human rumbled, his gloved hand reaching in and grabbing another kit by the neck. 

She squealed, but fell limp obediently as he hauled her away. Shivering, he curled deeper under the newspaper they had been using for a blanket, frightened eyes darting around to the three other bunnies left with him, squeezed in the far back corner of their cage all piled up. None of them dared to breathe, let alone move, until the door slammed shut again. 

“Sun Hee…” her sister Mi Cha squeaked sadly. He watched one of the other male kits groom her ears in an attempt to provide comfort. They were all at the mercy of the humans, all of them there for the same reason. To help, they were told. And the best way for them to do that was to be good, obedient little bunnies and cooperate. 

It wasn’t that they had much choice. Even as hybrids, the humans overpowered them easily. They were just scrawny little children, and after the series of tests they regularly endured most of them barely had the energy to pick their heads up to nibble the pellets they were given, let alone fight back. 

He had done that only once, and only because he was startled when he was grabbed up so roughly. Biting was his first defense, and his baby bunny teeth hadn’t done much damage anyway. But that didn’t matter.

He made the scientist angry, and he paid for it when he was taken back to a testing room, some of his fur shaved and water that made him scream in pain dripped into his eyes, which they held open. Later, he learned the term for it from one of the older kits—chemical testing.

He went on to explain to the younger hybrids like him their “true” purpose for being there that the humans would never tell them. They were testing subjects, bought to be used in a lab. 

Humans liked wearing something they called “makeup”. They didn’t have fluffy fur, so they shaved theirs off to rub products onto their bare skin and see if it hurt the hybrids. If it didn’t, they would do it on themselves. Each of them had been picked out to spend their lives there, “helping” humans make better makeup.

The news rattled around in his brain, but he barely processed it. He guessed that sounded close to right. There was something deep down in his distant memory, a time where had not been here with his fellow kits, but somewhere else. 

The bunny was pretty sure that was where he had come from, maybe even where he was born. It was where the two adult hybrids who were his parents lived. When he tried to think back, it wasn’t a clear picture anymore, sometimes just a feeling, sometimes hazy shapes and colors from an old memory.

He couldn’t even remember their faces anymore. But he knew the day he was taken away, a lady’s voice that must have been his mama cried and begged for them not to take her baby boy, her youngest kit. Arms held him so close, but stronger arms ripped him out of the safety they provided anyway. Everything was a blur. Everything about them was gone now. Only their smells stayed with him. 

Sometimes in the dead of night while he twitched around restlessly in his sleep, their scents almost came to him, as if they were really there. But when he opened his eyes, the room where they all slept was always quiet, dark and lonely, the whimpers of hybrids occasionally piercing the night. 

There were no adult hybrids kept with them in their room, so no one to protect them, or teach them things. They taught each other and comforted each other the best they could. And when the morning came they all braced for the possibility of being picked next. Sometimes, he felt like the humans had a target. Other times it felt random, like there was no reason to it at all. 

Either way it ended the same, one or more of them taken for testing, spending all day subjected to one cruel test after the next, until the scientists were satisfied and they were brought back to their cages to writhe on the cold metal in the aftershocks of pain. 

The kits who had not been tested on for that day would come and cuddle the spent, exhausted bodies of the kits who had. He had been pressed into the middle of the pile, panting, his blood burning and what little he had in his stomach matted into his fur after he couldn’t keep it in. He had also been on the outside of the pile, using his tiny body to share meager warmth with a crying kit who needed it. 

That was going to be his life, forever and ever, or at least until the humans came to take him for a final time like some of the kits before him who never came back. That was until the morning new scents and new voices came into the room, humans in uniforms he didn’t recognize. They were unknown, and that made them scary. Just like they would when it was the white coats floating toward them, the kits huddled up to make themselves smaller. 

A woman drifted closer, stopping in front of the cage with a strangled gasp. Through all the fur and limbs in his way, he could sort of see her through the tiny crack of space. Her eyes were shiny. His sensitive little nose smelled saltiness in the air. She was…she was crying.

“Found some more,” she whispered into a metal box raised to her lips. The Coats used those to talk to each other sometimes. Walkie-talkies. That’s what the smart older kit said they were called. “They’re young…” 

The cage door slid open with much less force than they were used to. Normally it seemed like the Coats would rip it off the hinges to get to the kits if they had to. But her hand hovered near the entrance, just laying there, no attempts to pull them all out. He, like the others, caught her scent. 

It was…different than the way the Coats smelled—which was cold and harsh, like the chemicals used to hurt them—it was…clean and nice.

 “Hi, hello,” she smiled a little, another gesture they weren’t used to from humans. The integrity of the pile was tested as some of the kits nervously started to squirm. “It’s alright. I’m here to help. It’s alright.”

He had always been curious, underneath all the fear and caution that kept them alive. If he could hop around, poking his head into nooks and crannies, sniffing around to explore the unknown, if it was a different place, a safer place…maybe he would.

It was a far off memory, but the little black kit could almost remember the touch of sunlight on his face instead of the artificial lamps shining on them.

 He could almost remember the grass. When his paws found purchase on the soiled newspaper underneath them, he began to slowly squeeze his way out, ears bent against the urgent squeals of horror that called him back to the pretend safety of their pile. 

Cautiously, he half hopped forward, pausing as he looked down at her fingers. Stretching his neck, the kit sniffed only getting that same clean, nice scent from before.

And that was when the curiosity he never got to express took over, his mouth gently nibbling the digits stretched out in front of him. The human made a quiet sound, not aggressive or angry, not dangerous. Creeping into her palm, he felt fingers curl gently around his stomach, pulling him up, close to her chest.

“Good baby,” she cooed. “Brave baby.” A finger caressed the top of his ear, and he flinched. But it didn’t do much more than that. A soft, friendly caress that turned into a scratch at the base. Although he couldn’t remember the last time he did it, his foot thumped when she scratched an itch he didn’t even know about. 

That was the beginning of everything changing. He was lowered into a crate, dark and full of warm, soft blankets. Snuggling down, he didn’t have to wait long before the other kits were placed inside one by one. 

He scrambled to peer out of the slats in the side as they moved, gently swaying in the woman’s secure hold. There was a flurry of motion out there, lots of humans, some he recognized as the Coats being walked out with their hands behind their backs. More and more cages being emptied as hybrids just like him were rescued.

“…can’t believe this happened right under our noses…”

“…illegal, new low.”

“…weren’t even trying to look into…”

“They’re just babies…look…” The crate was lifted, and another face he had never seen peeked in. This time, he moved back, his back pressing into the others cowering in the farthest part from the door. “I don’t know how much they understand. I don’t know if they’ve ever had the opportunity to shift. What if they don’t…don’t even know they’re hybrids?”

“What are they? Three or four year olds?” The second voice, a man’s, sounded unsure, gruff. He smelled smoky, not as nice as the other scent. “Once we get them safe, they’ll have all the time in the world to learn.”

To think, back then he didn’t even have a name. The scientists had only ever referred to him as the number he had come with, assigned to him in the breeding facility where he was born.

In the end, over one hundred and sixty other rabbit hybrids got rescued and taken into custody along with him. Gramps was a wealthy concerned citizen who had heard about the raid before it even broke national news. It paid to have connections in the task force that prosecuted hybrid abuse related crimes. 

The bunnies were still being processed when his savior showed up. Not that Jungkook knew it. To the bunny, he was just a bizarrely dressed human who peered down at him with concern as a task force officer cleaned his stained fur and tried to feed him strained baby food after they guesstimated his age.

Though apparently there had been more of them than they anticipated, and there was concern about how the youngest and most fragile of them would adjust to a shelter environment, even if it was a safe one. Foster care was preferred for the kits, it was decided, and Gramps had stumbled across a group of university students protesting the cosmetic company’s hybrid cruelty outside one of the stores that sold their products. He’d taken a flyer, somehow found out about the case, and wasted no time coming down and inserting himself in the situation. 

That was how he would eventually save them all and form their little family. A small bunny, young and behind on his developmental milestones, there was plenty about the situation that went over his head. It was so much to process at once, leaving him feeling vulnerable and overstimulated. But he remembered Gramps’ scent, his leathery hand reaching down to stroke him gently between the ears, and his soft, encouraging whispers. “You were just a tiny thing that left such a big impression.” Gramps had told him years later. “I knew I had to help you. I knew there was a hole you were meant to fill in our growing family.”

Jungkook paused, inhaling a deep lungful of crisp winter air and glancing over his shoulder. He’d gone a lot farther than he planned to just wandering, a bittersweet trip down memory lane. Gramps…there was truly nothing like him. So many people would have been frustrated or pushy or gotten overwhelmed with all his care and needs in those early years.

After all, being raised as a test subject didn’t make for the most socialized kid in the world. Looking back, he had more or less entered Gramps’ care as a blank slate, nothing of note about him besides being a malnourished hybrid from a bad situation. A creature to pity. No name, no voice…Jungkook had barely even had a personality.

His first day home was…something. Gramps whispered that the others would be gentle with him, carrying him through the door bundled in a blanket, still in hybrid form. Because the rescuers had been right—he didn’t know how to shift. 

The first four years of his life, kept heavily drugged and pumped full of harmful chemicals, it was a wonder he still could. Gramps wasted no time getting him set up with doctors, therapists, a whole support system. The best money could buy. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but you’re a fighter.” Gramps had told him that first week. “I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes. One day, you’ll feel it too.” 

Jungkook had internalized those words, working hard to live up to the faith his savior had in him. Out across the fields, he watched a few cows roaming the barren grounds, a mother keeping a close eye on her young calf. It was so similar to the way he had been with his hyungs and Gramps, the rabbit couldn’t help but move closer to the fencing, overcome with emotion. 

They had been there every step of the way, as he slowly gained strength and put on weight, and as exactly five months later, he shifted for the first time. One minute he was a tiny rabbit, being washed in the sink after getting into a mess in the berry patch, the next he was naked and covered in skin and his hyungs: Jin, Taehyung and Hoseok, were running around, screaming for joy. Gramps was all pride, presenting him with clothes in his size he already had prepared, because he knew. 

His faith that one day Jungkook would master his ability to shift had never wavered. It went on from there—he learned to walk upright, learned to talk, learned to sing. Jimin was thrilled to have someone to harmonize with, and it made their farm chores go by faster when they sang and danced to their silly songs. As it turned out, Jungkook could learn to do a lot of things. “My boy, multi-talented.” Gramps would say when his close friends commented on how far he had come. “If Jungkook was a color he’d be golden.”

Golden. Jungkook stared up at the weak rays of the winter sun. The snow wouldn’t melt, at least not for a couple more days. ‘He thought I was golden when every other human looked at me and thought I was something broken to throw away.’

There was no putting a price on that. The mercy and compassion of one man was the reason he got a second chance, his first real home, a whole new life.

Knowing that person was no longer around, that they would never talk together as father and son while they weeded the garden; or that Gramps would never find and comfort him in his secret fort in the attic, crying when his insecurities pushed him too far in his own head and he didn’t want to worry his hyungs…it made his temples throb, and his fingers dug into the fencing just for the extra support.

 The air got punched right out of his lungs, like he’d gone a few rounds in a prized fight and his opponent got the upper hand. Reeling, his eyes squeezed closed, vaguely aware his breathing was heavy. Slumping over, the bunny heard the first pitiful noise crawl its way from his throat, biting his lip hard to stop it. 

It only came out as a strangled whine. When was this supposed to go away…? The way he felt, like he was coping one minute and dangling from a cliff the next? His own mind was a maze and his emotions were a rollercoaster taking him from the steepest highs to plummeting lows, guilt swirling through his stomach. 

Gramps had shown signs. He’d been getting weaker. Jungkook could smell a faint change in his scent. Why hadn’t he pushed? Why hadn’t he brought it up to the hyungs? If they made him go to the doctor…if they made him take it slow…if they…if he were a better son—

His breath rasped from his lungs and he gave up trying to hold on, allowing his body to sink bonelessly against the fence, down in the cold snow. Somehow, it was refreshing, grounding enough that the warm flush across his face and the pounding inside his head was made bearable.

For a split second, Jungkook could swear he felt the familiar touch of a leathery hand, the ring always on the index and pinky fingers extra weight on his shoulder. Blinking, he scrubbed his face, ready to be brave and…and face no one. 

So now he was going crazy, too? 

“…Jungkook?”

“No,” he groaned, letting his forehead touch the fence. “I’m not doing this.”

“Kookie, what’re you doing?” The voice asked, very clear, very present, and very concerned. “I thought that was you, and I’ve been calling you for a while now. Did you just not hear me?” Yeah, there was no mistaking that scent.

Jungkook dragged big mouthfuls into his lungs, gulping down the comfort of having someone he trusted so close. Being caught in such a moment of weakness and vulnerability should have had him ducking away again, but he was tired of running from the people who loved him most.

Still, there was a certain amount of clinginess he just wasn’t comfortable with. “M’good, hyung.” He wasn’t, but that was his problem to deal with, not Jimin’s.

Without a word, the avian hybrid gracefully sat next to him in the snow, situating himself comfortably like they were about to do a sharing circle—sans a few more members.

Jungkook knew he had to look like a wreck, but Jimin blinked up at him patiently with those round, understanding eyes, leaning back on his hands as he crossed his legs. “You know that’s not how it works,” he said lightly. “Do that with strangers, not with me~”

“Can it be later?” He asked, weakly. “It’s hard to…it’s like he’s still…please not right now?” He would die. If Jimin pressed the issue and made him really spill his guts, dig into the painful, throbbing mass growing where all his unreleased love and anguish for Gramps was stored, Jungkook would stop existing. 

Ever the emotionally intuitive one, of course his sweet hyung picked up on that, blessing him with a loving smile.

 Leaning forward, Jimin grabbed the sides of his face between warm mittens, pulling Jungkook’s head close with firm surety. Holding his breath, the rabbit closed his eyes like he had so many times before. 

Cool lips pressed against an eyelid, then both eyelids. Across his cheeks, on his nose, down to his lips. They lingered there, stealing the heat away from him. Jimin always claimed he loved kissing him in the winter because his lips were always warm. When they pulled apart, though, Jimin’s skin wasn’t the only place that had thawed. “It can be any time.” From Jimin, that was a promise. “Tomorrow, next week, even in ten years. I’ve got you.”

Jungkook pulled the smaller hybrid into him, all but crushing their bodies together in a hug. “I know, hyung.” No matter how fractured his heart felt, now matter how scarily raw he was, they would glue him back together, just like every time he needed them before. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bone tired after a long day at work, and yet somehow she had still managed to take a detour. (Y/N) lifted her head up from where it almost fully rested against the top of the steering wheel, her gloved hands running absently back and forth across the leathered material.

 The car was still running, her half-glazed eyes staring up at the storefront she was parked in front of. The Babbling Book. A cozy family-owned bookshop she’d been meaning to check out a long time. 

And after mentioning to her coworker she was hoping to support small businesses more this season and looking for her next cozy winter read, he had pointed her in the direction of this place on the hybrid side of town.

Apparently they actually had a wider selection than what was kept in the bigger, chain bookstore down on mainstreet, and (Y/N) could believe it. Mom and pop stores didn’t have to cater to corporate interests. They were free to stock whatever their heart desired.

 Cutting the engine, (Y/N) dabbed at her nose to make sure it wasn’t running, climbing out of her car. It really was a cute little store, a striped green awning hanging over the door, and a modest amount of snow and frost sprinkled there. The trim around the door was painted in the same friendly shade of green, and the light red brick it was set in gave it a nostalgic appeal. 

Rubbing her hands together for lack of something better to do with them, she carefully traveled the cleared walkway, hit in the face with a blast of warm air and a whiff of cinnamon and cardamom as soon as she opened the door. 

“Hi!” (Y/N) barely suppressed her yelp as a young girl slid down from a ladder, landing right in front of her with an energetic wave.  She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve, bundled in a long skirt, leggings and a puffy pink sweater, gold eyes wide as her bushy tail twitched. “Whoa,” she said, awed. “Are you a human?”

“Y-” (Y/N) looked around, where other customers had baskets on their arms and were quietly shopping. Most of them appeared to be hybrids. Everywhere around her she saw long, pointed ears, or various length tails. Did her coworker tell her wrong? Were humans even supposed to be in here? Blushing at the thought of possibly intruding, (Y/N) heard her voice come out in a self-conscious whisper, plucking her sleeve. “Yes?”

Eyes practically glowing, the fox girl opened her mouth wide. “Soo-ah!” Only for it to fall shut as a woman with a gorgeous silver fox tail and wearing an apron hurried over. “You know we don’t ask guests questions like that.” Soo-ah’s ears drooped a little at the tips.

“Yes, eomma. Sorry miss…” Soo-ah bowed apologetically. 

“Everyone is welcomed here,” the woman assured (Y/N), plucking up and offering her a basket. “Please come in and browse, stay as long as you like.”

The adult hybrid ushered her daughter away by the shoulders, but not before Soo-ah threw her a wave. (Y/N) laughed under her breath, waving back and deeply inhaling the scent of paper and warm cinnamon. Although it wasn’t the largest bookstore she had ever been in, the displays around the shop already had several titles that caught her eye, and the shelves were stacked high.

(Y/N) almost didn’t know where to begin, and if she were a hybrid her tail would no doubt be wagging eagerly. Tracing her finger along the spine of a book in the mystery section, she carefully removed it from the shelf, studying the cover and then flipping it over to read the synopsis. There weren’t many books sold in her area of the city where hybrids featured as the protagonists.

Often, they were depicted as pets or sidekicks or god forbid, villains. So the thought of a calico cat hybrid being the lead detective in a murder mystery slash thriller already sounded interesting, and she placed it in her basket. It wasn’t hard to lose track of time, all the new books at her fingertips, each its own adventure. (Y/N) had hardly looked up since sinking into a chair near the fantasy section, thumbing through the pile she was considering, until a thud from nearby drew her attention.

‘That kind of sounded like someone fell over…’

Concerned, (Y/N) set the book down and hurried toward the source of the noise, finding a massive pile of books had indeed overturned, a pair of legs sticking out from under them. “Hang on!” She gasped, bending to pick up as many as she could, the pile starting to wiggle as the poor person underneath slowly sat up.

(Y/N) was so preoccupied with getting the books off them, hearing the sound of her own name almost made her drop them all again. “(Y/N)-ssi…?”

Astoundingly, she realized she knew the owner, one slightly dazed and very confused wolfdog hybrid meeting her eyes as she looked up. “N-Namjoon-ssi?!”

Swallowing, he climbed to his feet, brushing the front of his comfortable-looking gray pullover and then leaning down to offer her a hand. “What are the odds of running into each other here? Here, that was my fault. Let me.”

Before she could even tell him she had it handled, he was plucking the books up to tuck under his arm and using the other hand to help her up. (Y/N) held her breath a little, not wanting to look like she was swooning at the way he easily pulled her to her feet. Still, it was gentlemanly, and running into him was a pleasant surprise.

“Do you come here often?” She could have smacked herself as soon as it was out of her mouth. It sounded so much like a cheesy pick-up line. And yes, Namjoon was a very handsome man, his healthy tanned skin bringing out the sparkle in his dragon eyes. But given that she had only just gotten to know some of his family, the idea of actually making a pass felt absurd. Surely, he had his eye on someone else anyway.

“It feels like at least once a week.” He grinned, starting to place some of the books on the shelf.

“More like twice.” The fox woman hummed as she hurried by with a cart of books. 

(Y/N) smiled as she started to help Namjoon collect what was left on the carpet. “Sounds like they know you pretty well around here.”

“You could say I’m a regular customer,” He shrugged, looking both pleased and bashful. “I really like a good book, and I go through them pretty fast. Every time I put one down I end up right back here for the next one.” Clearing his throat, he added, “I don’t always ruin Soon-Bok’s shop, though. I’m just a little more ‘light-footed’ when I’m excited, as Jin likes to say.”

The way one of his ears drooped a little was too cute, (Y/N) thought as she melted a little. Namjoon said it so earnestly and matter-of-fact, too. She couldn’t help but picture the elegant wolfdog form she had seen, bumbling around and skidding into things with big paws and a thumping tail. 

Trying to fight down the smile surfacing, (Y/N) looked him in the eyes. “It’s my first time here.” she explained. “And the selection’s so different from what I’m used to at the bookstore I usually go to. I can see why you love it. There’s so much more—”

“Literature by hybrid authors?” He guessed.

“That too.” (Y/N) had at least five books all written by hybrids in her basket, and even more to sort through. “I was going to say diversity, but in this case I guess that’s practically the same thing.”

“It’s nice.” Namjoon nodded, finished organizing the books he had knocked down. (Y/N) struggled to get one she was pretty sure had come from a high shelf above her head back where it belonged, until Namjoon held out his hand with a short laugh. “May I?”

Not too proud to concede defeat, she put the self-help book in his large hand and watched as he easily slotted it back where it belonged with minimal stretching. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t sort of envious. “Soo…you wouldn’t happen to have any recommendations, would you?” Namjoon turned to her, eyes widening. “Since you’re more familiar with the selection here.” Was that dumb? Was that pushy? She was rusty at the whole socializing thing. Probably one of the reasons she’d always struggled to make friends… “You don’t have to if you don’t want—”

“I want to…” Namjoon’s eyes grew soft, “I’d love to.” It took (Y/N) a few seconds to realize the sound of something chopping the air was his tail wagging at an impressive pace. “What are you interested in?”

“What’ve you been reading lately?” She asked, genuinely curious. Someone like Namjoon probably had a fascinating taste in books. 

“Contemporary philosophy,” he said immediately. “Um, but I’m also following a murder-mystery series, and I planned to try a book about spiritual cultivation through gardening, because I enjoyed the author’s other book about emotional regulation through music writing and…” Dipping his head, Namjoon paused.

“Why’d you stop?” (Y/N) asked. 

“Is it too much?” He glanced down, “I know sometimes when I start in about what I’m reading it can be a little hard to follow. Not because I don’t think you’re capable of keeping up intellectually,” he quickly clarified. “But I know I get lost in tangents sometimes…”

“There’s nothing wrong with showing how passionate you are about your interests.” (Y/N) laid a hand on his arm. “That just tells me it spoke to you on an emotional level, and maybe it’ll speak to me the same way.”

Namjoon’s dimples revealed themselves in a sudden, beautiful smile that left her reeling back internally. Talk about a hidden weapon. Yes, (Y/N) knew he was attractive. Everyone in his family was. But to be on the receiving end of that look did make her heart skip a beat. “If you’ve got time, I could show you where the book is…and there’s a reading nook in the back. It’s a pretty peaceful way to pass a day like this.”

The spot Namjoon led them to was exactly as comfortable as she had described, the kind of cozy that was made for reading on a rainy or snowy afternoon indoors. She plopped down into one of the leather bean bag chairs, and he took an armchair right across from it. 

The wolfdog gingerly passed her a copy of the book he had recommended, and (Y/N) studied the cover and read the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket. “Hmm oh yes, this is right up my alley. Definite purchase. Thank you, Namjoon-ssi.”

He nodded quietly, his eyes pleased. “Any time.” (Y/N) noticed him pull a book onto his lap, squinting as she caught some of the words on the cover but not quite able to make it out.

“What’s that about? Any good?” He stilled, stared at what he had in his hands wide-eyed, eliciting a bit of confusion from her. 

“I’m actually not sure yet.” Namjoon admitted. “It just…spoke to me. It’s by an author who explains how he learned to work through his grieving process by managing fish tanks, and what he took out of it. It’s a bit…nebulous based solely on the introduction, but I get it. All of us have been working through losing Gramps in different ways, and sometimes…the progression of it surprises you.”

(Y/N) found herself nodding along, listening silently as he spoke. “I feel the same way. The whole thing gives you so much whiplash, one minute you’re okay, the next minute something reminds you of them and you’re breaking down over a song or a smell…”

Namjoon ran long fingers over the glossy book cover, his smile soft but distant. It wasn’t a smile for her, not really. He was thinking back to a memory, recalling a time that passed with the bittersweet fondness only nostalgia could bring. “Everything is heightened when you’re a hybrid, especially when you have a canine nose. After…after he was gone…his smell was still everywhere. All of our smells are thick around the farm, but Gramps’ was like a phantom for a while. I’d catch his scent somewhere and forget he was…” When he swallowed, she tracked the movement of his adam’s apple. (Y/N) waited for him to finish, in case he had anything to add, but that seemed to be the extent of wanting to talk about it at the moment.

She turned over the book in her own hands absently, wanting him to know she could relate. “I lost my mom very suddenly as a little girl. And then I lost…my path. I still had my dad, but I felt so alone. I couldn’t understand how fate could be so cruel and she could just be gone. I dwelled on it for a long time, and it didn’t help that people wouldn’t let me forget I was broken. I heard the comments they thought they whispered.”

She sniffled, surprised at herself as her eyes burned a little. Usually, she didn’t cry over her mother anymore. She could talk about it without tears coming to her eyes. Usually. “Ah, well,” she cleared her throat. “Thanks again for the recs. I’m especially eager to read up on how this author’s thoughts on existentialism relate to how they tackle the grieving process.”

If Namjoon noticed the shine to her eyes, he was kind enough not to bring it up. He perked up. “I really think you’ll enjoy it, and if you do, maybe…I could recommend more books sometime?”

(Y/N) readily agreed, hoping he would do just that. “I’d really like that.” 

It was nice talking to Namjoon, needing out a little, enjoying conversation with a fellow bibliophile. The time slipped away way too quickly as they sat and talked, and when they both had made their purchases and got ready to go, it felt like saying goodbye after a nice day out with a friend. Is that…what they were? Is that what they could maybe become? Friends?

Namjoon held the door open for her as they walked out, and a part of (Y/N) swooned at how considerate it was. She sat for a while once she was back in her car, letting her hands rest on the steering wheel and waiting to warm up. Namjoon had thrown one long leg over his bike after securing his books in a basket, waving as he rode by. 

She slowly backed out of the parking space, careful to watch for anyone behind her, whether they were on two legs or four. ‘Hanging out with them…it’s kind of nice.’ It’d been a long time since it felt like she had a group who “got her”.

**TAGLIST IS CLOSED**:

At six years old, she still believed the mark would come late. That she was simply slow. A late bloomer. Adults said things like that with careful smiles and pity soft voices, and she learned quickly that those words meant something is wrong but we don’t want to say it.

At seven, the whispers started.

At eight, the staring.

At nine, the questions stopped and the conclusions began.

She learned to keep her sleeves down even in summer. Learned to tuck her hands under her thighs when she sat. Learned that if she didn’t give people proof, they would invent it anyway.

“She’s broken.”

“She’s empty.”

“She doesn’t have one because no one wants her.”

The cruelest part wasn’t that they said it.

It was that the world agreed.

Teachers avoided the topic. Doctors ran tests and frowned. Her mother held her wrist like she was waiting for something to appear, like warmth and belief might summon fate if she pressed hard enough.

Nothing ever did.

She didn’t cry about it. Not openly. Crying required sound, and sound invited attention. Instead, she became small in ways that weren’t physical. She spoke softly when spoken to. Observed everything. Learned people’s moods before they spoke. Learned where to stand so she wouldn’t be in the way.

Quiet girls survived longer.

By the time she was fifteen, she stopped wondering who her soulmate might be.

She started wondering why she didn’t deserve one.

—————

Adulthood didn’t fix it. It just dressed it better.

At twenty two, she lived in a small, clean flat with white walls and furniture chosen for function, not feeling. She worked in tech, backend systems, infrastructure, things that worked quietly in the background without being seen. It suited her.

No one needed to look at her wrists anymore.

Everyone assumed.

She was British American by passport and accent, caught between cultures but belonging fully to neither. She had friends, technically. Colleagues who respected her competence. Men who liked her quietness, mistook it for mystery.

She didn’t correct them.

Sex was easier than intimacy. It asked nothing of her wrists. Nothing of fate.

So when the nausea started, she ignored it.

When her period didn’t come, she blamed stress.

When the test turned positive, she stared at it for a full five minutes before sitting down on the bathroom floor and breathing like she was underwater.

The timeline didn’t make sense.

None of it did.

She counted backward. Recounted. Checked calendars. The dates didn’t align with anyone. Biology didn’t care about panic, though. Her body moved forward regardless of her understanding.

She went to work. Drank ginger tea. Kept quiet.

Fear made her jumpy. Sounds too loud. Touch too sharp. She slept with the light on without remembering when she started doing that.

On the morning she collapsed, she was halfway to work, one hand clutching her bag, the other pressed unconsciously to her stomach like apology.

She never felt herself fall.

—————

When she woke up, the world smelled like antiseptic and inevitability.

The doctor spoke carefully. Slowly. As if she might shatter if words were dropped too hard.

“Yes. You’re pregnant.”

She nodded. She already knew that part.

“There’s… something else.”

That was when the word entered her life.

Soulmate pregnancy.

One in a million. Documented, but rare enough to be theoretical. A phenomenon where fate didn’t wait for connection, consent, or marks.

The child carried the genetic material of all biological soulmates.

She laughed.

Once.

A sharp, broken sound that startled even her.

“I don’t have soulmates,” she said softly. “You’re wrong.”

They weren’t.

The bloodwork didn’t lie.

South Korean bloodlines. Seven distinct genetic contributors. All active. All present.

She stared at the results and felt something in her chest harden into resolve instead of wonder.

This wasn’t a miracle.

It was theft.

—————

Two months after Sayori was born, tiny, warm, devastatingly real, she stood in Incheon Airport with exhaustion stitched into her bones.

Twelve hour flight. A newborn on her hip. A plan that involved leaving everything behind.

She didn’t come to find love.

She came to give fate back what it had forced on her.

The stroller jammed. Her bags were too heavy. Sayori shifted against her chest, soft and warm and entirely unaware that she was the center of a cosmic mistake.

She felt it before she understood it.

A pull.

Not on her wrist.

On her spine.

She looked up.

Across the baggage conveyor, seven men stood frozen.

Seven wrists burned.

Seven hearts recognized something ancient and wrong and inevitable.

And he locked eyes with her first.

She swallowed.

For the first time in her life, she was being seen.

And she hated it.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She learned how to disappear without leaving.

It was a skill she perfected in adulthood, less about hiding and more about not being asked questions. She dressed neutrally. Spoke only when necessary. Let silence do the work of protection. In tech, this made her valuable. Systems didn’t need charm. They needed precision. Reliability. Someone who didn’t flinch when everything else went wrong.

Her colleagues trusted her because she never asked for anything.

They didn’t know that was the point.

When the nausea first started, she treated it like an error log. An anomaly. Something to be debugged quietly before it caused a system wide failure. She adjusted her diet. Cut caffeine. Told herself stress did strange things to the body.

Stress had always been her excuse.

She didn’t tell anyone when the test turned positive. She didn’t cry. She didn’t spiral. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the thin pink line like it might blink first.

It didn’t.

The timeline didn’t fit any partner. Not the man she’d seen casually three months ago. Not the one before that. She opened her calendar, fingers steady, heart not. Counted days. Weeks. Did the math again and again until numbers lost meaning.

She was methodical even when she was afraid.

Her body, however, was not.

Sleep became fragmented. Sounds startled her. She flinched when strangers brushed past her on the tube. She started holding her stomach unconsciously, a protective reflex she refused to name.

She still went to work.

Still fixed bugs. Still deployed updates. Still answered emails with calm efficiency while something inside her quietly rewrote every assumption she’d ever made about herself.

She had lived her whole life believing fate had skipped her.

Now it was inside her.

—————

The hospital room was too bright.

When the doctor said soulmate pregnancy, she didn’t romanticise it. Didn’t feel awe. She felt something closer to violation. As if the universe had reached into her body and made a decision without bothering to consult her.

“One in a million,” the doctor said gently. “We rarely see cases like this.”

She stared at the screen showing lines and numbers and proof she never asked for.

“I don’t have soulmates,” she said again, quieter this time. Not defensive. Just factual.

The doctor hesitated. That was answer enough.

When they showed her the bloodwork, seven genetic contributors, all distinct, all active, she laughed because the alternative was screaming. South Korean bloodlines, every one of them. Not vague ancestry. Specific. Traceable.

Seven.

She went home afterward and sat on her bed in the dark, one hand resting flat against her stomach, the other clenched around her wrist where nothing had ever appeared.

“This isn’t real,” she whispered.

The silence didn’t argue.

—————

Sayori arrived on a rainy Tuesday morning.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. She endured labor the same way she endured everything else, with clenched teeth and a refusal to give the world the satisfaction of seeing her break.

When they placed the baby on her chest, warm and small and devastatingly alive, she felt something crack, not open, not heal, but fracture. A thin line through a wall she’d built carefully over decades.

Sayori’s eyes were dark. Curious. Too knowing for something that new.

She didn’t cry much. She settled against her like she recognised her. Like this was inevitable.

She didn’t name the feeling that bloomed in her chest.

Love was dangerous. Love implied staying.

She told herself this was temporary.

—————

Two months later, she booked a one way ticket.

Korea was not hope. It was closure.

She researched obsessively. Cultural norms. Legalities. The phenomenon. Everything except the men themselves. She refused to look them up. Refused to learn names, faces, music. If she didn’t humanise them, leaving would be easier.

She told herself they would take the baby. That they would understand. That they had everything, money, support, each other.

She had a career about to take off. A life she hadn’t sacrificed yet.

Sayori slept against her chest on the plane, small fist curled into her jumper like an anchor. She stared out the window for twelve hours and practiced not thinking about what it would feel like to let go.

—————

Incheon Airport was chaos wrapped in efficiency.

Announcements echoed. Wheels rattled. Languages layered over one another in a way that made her acutely aware of how out of place she was. She adjusted the baby carrier, reached for the stroller, fumbled with her bags.

She was tired. Bone deep tired.

That was when it happened.

Not a sound. Not a touch.

A pull.

Like gravity had shifted directions without warning.

She froze.

Across the baggage claim, seven men stood together, still as if time had stalled around them. Their expressions weren’t awe or joy. They were sharp with something darker. Recognition without context. Instinct flaring into alarm.

She didn’t know their faces.

But her body did.

Heat rippled through the air between them, invisible and undeniable. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs, not with longing, but with panic. Too many eyes. Not just theirs. Others noticing. Whispers starting.

Jimin, she hadn’t known it then, was the one who met her gaze first.

His hand was clenched around his wrist like it hurt.

She swallowed, forced herself to move. She unfolded the stroller. Lifted her bags. Every instinct screamed at her to leave, to disappear the way she always had.

But this time, the world had noticed her.

And it wasn’t letting go.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

The bond did not announce itself with ceremony.

It did not ask permission.

It burned.

Jimin felt it first, sharp, sudden, like someone had pressed a brand into the inside of his wrist. He gasped before he could stop himself, fingers tightening reflexively around the mark he’d lived with his entire life. Heat pulsed beneath his skin, alive in a way it had never been before.

“What—” Taehyung started, then stopped.

Because they all felt it.

Seven men, seven soulmate marks, igniting at once.

Not glowing softly the way stories said they would. Not humming with warmth and affection. This was violent recognition. A pull so strong it tilted the world on its axis and made the air feel thick, charged.

Namjoon’s breath left him slowly, deliberately. “Do not move,” he said, instinctively, even as his eyes lifted.

Across the baggage claim stood a woman with exhaustion carved into her posture.

She was small in a way that wasn’t fragile. Defensive. Shoulders slightly hunched like she was braced for impact. Her sleeves were long despite the warmth of the terminal, hands busy with bags and buckles and straps like motion itself was a shield.

And on her chest—

A baby.

Jungkook swore under his breath.

The child was tiny. Dark haired. Peacefully asleep, cheek pressed against the woman’s collarbone like it belonged there. Like it had always known that spot.

Yoongi’s mind raced faster than his pulse. No. That’s not possible.

Hoseok felt it like vertigo. Jin like dread laced with awe.

Their marks burned hotter.

“She doesn’t have one,” Jimin said hoarsely.

It wasn’t accusation. It was disbelief.

Namjoon saw it too.

The woman’s wrists were bare.

—————

She knew something was wrong the moment she felt the air change.

She didn’t feel heat. Or magic. Or destiny.

She felt hunted.

Seven men. Too still. Too focused. The kind of attention she’d spent her entire life avoiding because it meant questions. Demands. Expectations she could not meet.

Her heart hammered painfully as she forced herself to keep moving. Fold the stroller. Lift the bag. Adjust Sayori’s weight. Her hands shook, but she refused to rush. Panic drew eyes.

And eyes were dangerous.

She risked another glance.

Big mistake.

The one with soft features and sharp eyes, Jimin, was staring at her like she was a wound he couldn’t look away from. His hand was clenched around his wrist, knuckles white, jaw tight with something that looked disturbingly close to pain.

She didn’t recognise him.

But some traitorous part of her brain whispered, You should.

“No,” she breathed under her breath, more plea than word. “No, no, no.”

Sayori stirred.

The moment the baby shifted, the pull intensified.

Jungkook took a half step forward without realizing it.

Namjoon caught his sleeve instantly. “Not here,” he said quietly, urgently. “We don’t know what this is yet.”

But they all knew.

Because the bond didn’t care about logic.

It cared about proximity.

—————

She got her bags and turned away as quickly as she could without running.

She didn’t look back.

She felt them instead, seven points of gravity dragging at her spine, at her ribs, at something deeper and older than fear. Her breath came shallow as she pushed the stroller forward, weaving through travellers and announcements and blinking screens.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She ignored it.

Her chest felt tight. Too tight. The walls of the terminal felt closer than they should have been. She focused on Sayori’s weight, the steady rise and fall of her tiny body.

“You’re fine,” she whispered. “You’re fine. We’re fine.”

She didn’t believe it.

Behind her, the seven men stood rooted in place, watching her go.

Jin broke first. “She’s leaving.”

Yoongi exhaled slowly. “She was always going to.”

Namjoon’s eyes never left her retreating form. “No,” he said, voice low and certain. “She doesn’t know what she is yet.”

Jimin swallowed hard. “Then why does it feel like she’s already gone?”

Because she had spent her whole life surviving without fate.

And fate had just found her anyway.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She didn’t stop moving until the taxi door slammed shut and the driver pulled into traffic.

Only then did her body betray her.

Her hands started shaking first. Then her breath hitched, shallow and fast, like she’d been running even though she hadn’t. She pressed her forehead briefly to the cool window, eyes squeezed shut, Sayori warm and solid against her chest.

“That wasn’t real,” she whispered.

Sayori made a small sound in her sleep, a soft sigh that felt like an answer anyway.

The city blurred past, signs she couldn’t read, buildings too tall, too close together. Korea felt loud in a way that wasn’t sound. She felt exposed, stripped of the anonymity she’d been counting on.

She had planned for everything except them.

Not their faces. Not their eyes. Not the way the air had bent around them like the world itself had leaned in.

Most of all, she hadn’t planned for the pull.

Not romance. Not longing.

Recognition.

And that terrified her far more.

—————

Across the city, seven men sat in a private conference room, the air thick with something that hadn’t been there that morning.

Namjoon stood at the whiteboard, marker uncapped but unmoving. His wrist still burned, the symbol etched there alive in a way it had never been before. It pulsed faintly now, like it was waiting.

“This aligns with the literature,” he said finally, voice steady even as his thoughts raced. “Rare cases. Soulmate convergence events. Usually theoretical.”

Yoongi leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Theory doesn’t explain why my wrist feels like it’s on fire.”

Jungkook hadn’t said a word since the airport. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together as if holding himself in place. Every time he blinked, he saw her again, her guarded posture, the way she shielded the baby instinctively.

The baby.

“There was a child,” Hoseok said quietly, like speaking too loudly might make it worse. “That wasn’t… normal.”

Jin rubbed his face slowly. “No one looks at a stranger like that. Not unless—”

“Unless the bond already happened,” Jimin finished.

The room fell silent.

Namjoon nodded once. “Soulmate pregnancy.”

The words settled like a weight.

Seven pairs of eyes snapped to him.

“That’s not—” Jungkook started, then stopped. His mark flared sharply, heat spiking like it was offended by the denial. He hissed and grabbed his wrist.

Jimin did the same, breath stuttering. “She doesn’t have a mark,” he said again, quieter now. “I saw it clearly.”

“That’s documented too,” Namjoon said. “Extremely rare. Markless carriers. The bond manifests through the child instead.”

Yoongi let out a low, humorless laugh. “So fate skipped her and went straight to the baby.”

“And through the baby,” Hoseok added softly.

No one liked that.

—————

She didn’t sleep that night.

The hotel room was clean, impersonal, too quiet. Sayori lay in the bassinet beside the bed, tiny chest rising and falling, blissfully unaware that her existence had just detonated seven lives.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows on her knees, hands clenched together.

She replayed the airport over and over again.

The way they’d frozen.

The way one of them, Jimin, had looked like he’d been punched in the chest.

The heat she hadn’t felt, and yet somehow had.

Her wrist was still bare.

Always had been.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” she murmured, as if the walls might argue.

Her phone buzzed.

She flinched hard enough to wake Sayori, who made a small, indignant sound before settling again when she lifted her automatically, pressing a kiss to her soft hair.

The message was from the hospital back home. Follow up. Documentation. A reminder that there were legal pathways for soulmate reunification cases.

She deleted it.

She hadn’t come to reunite.

She’d come to return.

—————

By morning, the news had already started whispering.

Not names. Not yet. Just speculation. Grainy airport photos circulating on private forums. A woman. A baby. BTS present at the same terminal at the same time.

Fans noticed everything.

Namjoon knew it was only a matter of time before the whispers became questions.

“She’s scared,” Jimin said suddenly.

Everyone looked at him.

He swallowed, fingers digging into his wrist. “She wasn’t running toward us. She was running away. Whatever this is, she didn’t ask for it.”

Jungkook nodded slowly. “Neither did the baby.”

That changed something.

Namjoon capped the marker decisively. “We don’t approach her publicly. No pressure. No claims.”

Yoongi raised a brow. “And if she disappears?”

Namjoon met his gaze evenly. “Then we find her quietly.”

Taehyung walked the length of the room.

Possessive didn’t mean careless.

It meant patient.

—————

She stood in the shower that evening, water scorching her skin like she could burn the feeling away.

She stared at her wrist as if daring it to betray her.

Nothing appeared.

No symbol. No heat. No proof.

Only the echo of seven pairs of eyes and a pull she couldn’t explain.

“I’m not yours,” she said aloud.

But when she stepped out and wrapped Sayori against her chest again, the baby calmed instantly, faster than she ever had before.

She closed her eyes.

For the first time, she wondered if fate didn’t need her permission at all.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

Sayori cried at exactly 3:17 a.m.

She knew the time because she’d been awake already, staring at the ceiling, cataloguing regrets she refused to call fears. The cry was sharp, brief but urgent, cutting through the quiet hotel room like a blade.

She was on her feet before the second sound left Sayori’s mouth.

“I know,” she whispered automatically, scooping her up. “I know.”

Sayori’s face was scrunched, tiny fists tight, her distress real but not panicked. She  bounced gently, rocking side to side, murmuring nonsense words she’d never planned to learn but now spoke fluently. Usually, this worked. Usually, Sayori settled within seconds, like she’d been waiting only to confirm she was still there.

Tonight, she didn’t.

The crying escalated, louder, more insistent. Sayori arched slightly, face flushing, distress climbing in a way that made her chest tighten.

“It’s okay,” She said, though her voice wavered. She checked the diaper. Dry. Offered a bottle. Refused. Walked the length of the room, then back again.

Nothing.

Panic crept in sideways, quiet but sharp.

She pressed her forehead briefly to Sayori’s, grounding herself in the warmth, the reality. “Please,” she murmured, not sure who she was speaking to. “Please, just—”

Sayori stopped.

Not slowly. Not gradually.

Instantly.

Her body went slack with relief, a soft sigh leaving her mouth as her tiny hand unclenched and then she felt it.

A shift.

Not inside herself.

Outside.

Like the air had changed pressure.

She froze.

Sayori slept peacefully against her chest, completely calm now, breathing deep and even like nothing had happened.

She stood there for a full minute, heart pounding, listening to the quiet roar in her ears.

“That’s not normal,” she whispered.

—————

Across the city, seven men jolted awake.

Jimin sat straight up in bed, gasping, his hand already gripping his wrist as heat flared sharply beneath the skin. His heart was racing like he’d been running, pulse loud in his ears.

“What—” he breathed.

In the adjacent rooms, the same thing happened.

Jungkook swore softly as the sensation hit him like a current, sharp and sudden. Yoongi cursed, sitting up with a scowl that didn’t quite hide the way his hand trembled. Hoseok’s breath stuttered. Jin’s eyes flew open. Namjoon was already awake, staring at the ceiling as if he’d been waiting for this.

They felt it together.

Not pain.

Relief.

A settling. A warmth spreading outward instead of burning in.

“She stopped crying,” Taehyung said aloud, though no one was in the room with him.

He knew it the way you knew when a storm had passed, without seeing it, without hearing it.

His wrist pulsed once, slow and satisfied.

—————

She didn’t sleep after that.

She sat on the bed with Sayori tucked against her chest, eyes fixed on the door like it might open on its own. Every rational explanation felt flimsy. Coincidence didn’t explain the timing. Or the suddenness. Or the way Sayori had gone from distress to peace like a switch had been flipped.

She had spent her life believing she was outside the system.

But systems had rules.

And this one was starting to show itself.

In the morning, she took Sayori out.

She needed air. Noise. Proof the world still worked the way it was supposed to. She dressed carefully, long sleeves, neutral colors, hat pulled low. She strapped Sayori into the stroller and pushed out into the street, heart thudding with every step.

The city buzzed around them. Vendors calling out. Cars honking. Conversations she couldn’t understand washing over her in waves.

Sayori watched it all with wide, curious eyes.

She stopped at a cafe, ordered something by pointing, hands shaking only a little. She sat outside, one foot hooked through the stroller frame like an anchor.

For a moment, just a moment, it almost felt normal.

Then Sayori fussed.

A small sound at first. A wrinkle of her brow. She reached automatically, fingers brushing her tiny hand.

“It’s okay,” she said softly.

It wasn’t.

Sayori’s fussing escalated, tiny noises stacking into sharp distress. Heads turned. Her stomach dropped. She stood quickly, rocking the stroller, murmuring reassurance.

And then —

She felt it again.

That pull.

Closer this time.

Her breath caught.

Across the street, seven men had stopped walking.

They weren’t dressed for the stage. No masks. No disguises. Just ordinary clothes on bodies that carried a kind of presence she couldn’t ignore even if she tried.

Jimin’s eyes found her immediately.

Sayori went quiet.

Instantly.

Her crying cut off like it had never existed, her body relaxing in the stroller, eyes drifting shut as if lulled by something invisible and deeply familiar.

She stared.

The men stared back.

Jungkook looked stunned. Hoseok’s mouth had fallen open. Jin’s expression had softened into something dangerously gentle. Taehyung looked like he was bracing for impact. Namjoon’s gaze was sharp, calculating, already understanding what this meant.

Yoongi took a step forward.

She reacted without thinking.

“No,” she said, the word sharp and sudden, cutting through the space between them.

She grabbed the stroller and turned away, heart hammering, pushing into the crowd with single minded determination. She didn’t look back this time.

But she didn’t need to.

She felt them.

Steady. Patient.

Following, not with their feet, but with something far more terrifying.

Instinct.

—————

That night, she held Sayori close and stared at the dark.

The pattern was undeniable now.

The bond didn’t run through her.

It ran through the child.

And no matter how far she tried to go, seven people in this world would always know when Sayori cried.

She pressed her lips to her daughter’s soft hair, eyes burning.

“This wasn’t the deal,” she whispered.

But fate had never negotiated with her before.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She stared at the screen until the words stopped looking like language and started looking like threat.

She’d pulled the files back up at three in the morning, hospital records, genetic breakdowns, the documentation she’d sworn she wouldn’t read again once Sayori was born. She told herself she was checking details. Verifying. Looking for an out.

She was lying.

The truth was already lodged in her chest, heavy and immovable.

Seven contributors.

All active.

All necessary.

Soulmate pregnancies weren’t additive. They were collective. The child didn’t belong to one soulmate more than another. There was no primary. No hierarchy. Remove one, and the system destabilized.

She swallowed hard.

“You can’t,” she whispered to the empty room. “You can’t do that to me.”

Sayori slept beside her, tiny hand flung above her head, wrist bare, no mark, no symbol, nothing to betray the fate humming quietly under her skin. She watched her chest rise and fall, a rhythm she’d learned to anchor herself to.

The reports were clinical. Cold. They didn’t care that she was twenty three, exhausted, and had built her entire sense of safety around being alone. They didn’t care that she’d never asked for love, or destiny, or seven strangers bound to her through her child.

One line stood out, highlighted from a previous reading she didn’t remember doing, 

“Severing the bond prematurely can result in severe psychological distress to the child and all bonded parties.”

Severe.

Psychological.

Distress.

She closed the laptop like it might bite her.

So much for handing the baby over and disappearing.

—————

Namjoon sat with the same files spread across a table that had hosted far more comfortable conversations.

He read slowly. Carefully. Like the words might rearrange themselves if he rushed them.

“This explains the reactions,” he said finally. “The crying. The calming. The pull.”

Jin leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It also explains why she looked like she wanted to bolt.”

Taehyung was still frozen in time, his brain not catching up to the reality presented to him.

“She does want to bolt,” Yoongi said flatly. “She’s been doing it her whole life.”

Jimin hadn’t stopped thinking about the way she had said no.

Not shouted. Not hysterical.

Just… firm. Like someone drawing a line with the last of their strength.

“She’s not rejecting the bond,” he said quietly. “She’s rejecting us deciding for her.”

That earned him a look from Namjoon, thoughtful, approving.

Jungkook rubbed his hands together, restless. “So what do we do?”

“We wait,” Namjoon said.

Hoseok frowned. “That’s it?”

“No,” Namjoon corrected. “We prepare. We protect the child without claiming ownership of the mother.”

Yoongi scoffed lightly. “Good luck explaining that to the universe.”

Namjoon didn’t smile. “Fate doesn’t need convincing. People do.”

—————

She tried to live normally for three more days.

She failed spectacularly.

Sayori was fussier now, nothing dramatic, but different. She startled easier. Slept lighter. She noticed that she settled fastest near windows, like proximity to the outside world mattered now.

Like proximity to them mattered.

She changed hotels twice.

It didn’t help.

Every time Sayori cried, she felt it, not relief when she calmed, but the anticipation of calm that didn’t come from hermanymore. That hurt more than she expected.

She wasn’t jealous.

She was terrified.

Terrified that her daughter’s first sense of safety wouldn’t be her.

On the fourth day, her phone rang.

Unknown number. Korean country code.

She stared at it for a long moment, heart thudding, then let it go to voicemail.

A minute later, a message appeared.

Namjoon:

I’m not calling to take anything from you.

I just want to talk.

For Sayori.

She breath caught.

He’d used her daughter’s name.

She hadn’t told anyone that name.

Her fingers trembled as she typed, deleted, typed again.

Her:

I didn’t come here for this.

The reply came almost immediately.

Namjoon:

Neither did we.

She laughed once, sharp and humorless, tears burning behind her eyes.

The room felt too small. The walls too thin.

Sayori stirred, making a soft sound, and she scooped her up automatically, pressing her close like she could block the world out by force of will.

“I’m trying to protect you,” she whispered. “I don’t know how else to do this.”

Sayori’s fingers curled into the fabric of her shirt.

For now, that was enough.

But she knew, deep down, in the same quiet place she’d always stored uncomfortable truths, that bloodlines had a way of pulling people back together.

Whether she was ready or not.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She’d agreed to meet them under three conditions.

One, public place.

Two, no touching the baby.

Three, this was temporary.

She wrote the last word twice, like repetition might make it real.

Namjoon’s reply was simple.

Agreed. On all three.

That unsettled her more than resistance would have.

—————

They met in a quiet cafe tucked between glass buildings and greenery, the kind of place designed to feel neutral. She arrived early, chose a corner table with her back to the wall, positioned the stroller so she could see the door and the street beyond it.

Control was survival.

Sayori slept, wrapped snug and oblivious, lashes resting against her cheeks. She kept one hand on the stroller handle at all times.

When they walked in, the room changed.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just… weight.

Seven men, moving together without crowding one another, instinctively aware of space in a way that made her shoulders tense despite herself. They didn’t wear masks. Didn’t hide. But they didn’t draw attention either, like the world unconsciously made room for them.

Jimin saw her first.

Again.

He slowed, something soft and restrained crossing his face before he caught himself. Namjoon followed his gaze and nodded once, subtly, like confirmation.

They approached carefully. No sudden movements. No reaching.

She noted all of it.

“Sit,” she said before anyone could speak, her voice quiet but unyielding. “Please.”

They did.

That unsettled her too.

—————

Up close, it was worse.

Not because they were beautiful, she’d expected that, distantly, abstractly, but because there was nothing predatory about them. No entitlement. No smug certainty. Just seven different flavours of restraint, all held tightly in check.

Namjoon spoke first. “Thank you for meeting us.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” She replied.

His gaze flicked briefly to Sayori, then back to her face. “We know.”

That honesty disarmed her more than flattery ever could.

Silence stretched.

Jungkook shifted, then stilled himself when Yoongi shot him a look. Jimin smiled faintly but didn’t push. Jin’s attention lingered on Sayori with something painfully gentle in his eyes before he deliberately looked away. 

Hoseok watched her.

Really watched her.

“You don’t feel it,” he said softly.

It wasn’t a question.

Her jaw tightened. “No.”

The word came out clean. Final.

Her wrist lay bare on the table, pale and unmarked.

Taehyung exhaled slowly. “But you feel something.”

She stood abruptly, hand tightening on the stroller. “That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

Namjoon raised his hands immediately. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He paused, choosing his words with care. “We aren’t here to convince you of anything. We just need you to know what the doctors confirmed.”

She laughed under her breath. “Confirmed? Like this is a business deal?”

“No,” Namjoon said. “Like this is a child.”

Her eyes flashed. “She’s my child.”

Every single one of them nodded.

Jin spoke for the first time, voice steady and low. “And you’re her mother. That’s not in question.”

Something inside her twisted.

She hadn’t expected that.

—————

Sayori stirred.

Not crying. Just waking.

The moment her eyes fluttered open, the air shifted.

She felt it, not the pull, but the attention. Seven pairs of it, instinctively orienting toward the stroller before they consciously stopped themselves.

Sayori blinked sleepily.

And smiled.

A slow, unfocused baby smile, her gaze drifting, past her shoulder, toward where the men sat.

Jimin’s breath hitched.

Her chest tightened painfully. “Don’t,” she warned, quiet and sharp. “Don’t do that.”

“We’re not,” Hoseok said quickly. “We swear.”

Sayori made a soft sound, content, and settled again.

Her hand shook as she adjusted the blanket.

“You see the problem,” she said, voice rough. “This isn’t neutral. This isn’t something I can just… manage.”

Namjoon nodded. “That’s why we’re offering something temporary.”

She looked up sharply. “I already said—”

“Not ownership,” Namjoon continued. “Not custody. Not permanence. Just… proximity. Stability.”

Yoongi added, “For her.”

Her throat worked.

Temporary.

For her.

She hated how reasonable it sounded.

“How long,” she asked quietly, “before temporary becomes permanent?”

No one answered.

Because none of them would lie to her.

—————

When she left the cafe, nothing was resolved.

And yet, everything had shifted.

She walked the streets for hours afterward, Sayori warm against her chest, thoughts looping and tangling until she was exhausted by them.

Temporary wasn’t surrender.

Temporary was time.

And time, she knew, had a habit of changing things you swore never would.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She moved into the apartment on a Tuesday.

She told herself the day mattered because Tuesdays were neutral. Not beginnings. Not endings. Just something that happened in between.

The place was too nice. Clean lines. Soft lighting. A balcony overlooking a city that refused to slow down. It had been Namjoon’s suggestion, neutral territory, he’d said. Not theirs. Not hers. Somewhere temporary could pretend to exist without lying outright.

She hated how carefully they’d thought of everything.

She arrived with two suitcases, a stroller, and a spine stiff with determination. Namjoon met her at the door alone, hands visible, posture deliberately nonthreatening.

“We’ll keep distance,” he said immediately. “You’ll have the master bedroom. We won’t enter unless invited.”

She brushed past him without replying.

Sayori slept through the move, blissfully ignorant of the negotiation happening around her existence. She set up the bassinet with mechanical precision, unpacked diapers, bottles, clothes. She worked like if she stopped moving, she’d feel it, the way the air hummed differently here. The way her chest felt crowded.

The others arrived later.

One by one. Quiet. Respectful.

Jin left food in the kitchen and didn’t say a word. Hoseok smiled gently and retreated. Yoongi nodded once, eyes sharp and assessing but not unkind. Jungkook hovered awkwardly in doorways like a guard dog unsure of his role. Taehyung’s gaze lingered a second too long on Sayori before he looked away, jaw tight. Jimin…

Jimin kept his distance.

Which somehow made everything worse.

—————

She enforced rules like law.

No holding Sayori.

No being alone with her.

No assumptions.

She spoke softly but without apology.

“This isn’t your home,” she said on the third night, exhaustion thinning her patience. “This isn’t your family.”

Jungkook flinched.

Jimin didn’t look away. “We know.”

“Then act like it.”

They did.

That was the problem.

They were careful to a fault. Polite. Contained. It felt like living with seven men holding their breath indefinitely, and she could feel the strain of it in the way wrists clenched, jaws tightened, eyes tracked Sayori unconsciously before snapping away.

Sayori, for her part, was thriving.

Sleeping longer. Crying less. Smiling more.

She noticed.

She hated herself for noticing.

—————

The first crack came on a night she didn’t sleep at all.

Sayori had been fussy all evening, restless in a way she couldn’t soothe. She paced the living room, bouncing gently, murmuring reassurances that felt increasingly hollow.

“I’m here,” she whispered, over and over. “I’m here.”

Sayori cried anyway.

The sound was sharp. Distressed.

Her heart lurched painfully.

Before she could stop herself, she snapped, “Everyone stay where you are.”

She didn’t turn around, but she felt them freeze.

Her arms ached. Her head pounded. Tears burned hot behind her eyes, frustration clawing its way up her throat.

“I’ve got you,” she said, voice shaking now. “Please. I’ve got you.”

Sayori didn’t calm.

The pull hit her like a wave.

Not warmth. Not comfort.

Pressure.

The kind that reminded her she wasn’t alone in this, no matter how fiercely she tried to be.

She turned.

Jimin stood in the doorway, hands clenched at his sides, eyes dark with restraint. He hadn’t moved closer. Hadn’t reached out.

But Sayori’s cries softened the moment she saw him.

Not stopped.

Softened.

Her breath caught.

“That’s not fair,” she whispered.

Jimin’s voice was low, steady, aching. “I know.”

Something in her snapped.

“No,” she said sharply. “No. You don’t get to look at her like that. You don’t get to feel like that. You didn’t carry her. You didn’t wake up every hour. You didn’t—”

Her voice broke despite herself.

Jimin took a single step back.

“You’re right,” he said. “We didn’t.”

Silence stretched, thick and heavy.

Sayori hiccupped, then slowly settled against her chest.

She sagged with relief and something dangerously close to grief.

“Not yours,” she said again, quieter this time. “She’s not.”

Jimin nodded once. “Okay.”

He turned and left the room.

She sank onto the couch, shaking.

She hated fate.

She hated the bond.

And most of all, she hated how deeply she could feel seven people choosing restraint over instinct, for her.

—————

Later that night, long after the apartment had gone quiet, she stood on the balcony with Sayori asleep against her shoulder.

The city lights blurred through unshed tears.

She pressed a kiss to Sayori’s hair, heart twisting painfully.

“I didn’t ask for help,” she whispered. “But I don’t know how to do this alone.”

Inside, seven men lay awake, wrists warm, instincts coiled tight, learning the hardest lesson fate had ever given them,

Love didn’t mean claiming.

It meant waiting.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

She started tracking patterns she didn’t want to admit existed.

She told herself it was habit, years in tech had wired her brain to notice systems, inputs, outputs. If something changed, there was always a reason. Always a variable.

But this wasn’t code.

This was her life bending around seven people she refused to acknowledge as permanent.

Sayori slept best between 9:40 and 10:30 p.m. when the apartment was quiet and everyone was home.

She fussed more when Jungkook was out late.

She calmed instantly when Namjoon read aloud in the living room, even from another room.

She laughed, actually laughed, for the first time when Hoseok danced absentmindedly while waiting for water to boil.

She noticed.

She hated that she noticed.

She kept herself busy. Remote work during Sayori’s naps. Noise cancelling headphones. Structured schedules. She minimised time in shared spaces, treated the apartment like a temporary office rather than a home.

Temporary. Temporary. Temporary.

The word began to feel thin.

—————

The pull changed shape.

At first it had been pressure, external, intrusive. Something acting on her.

Now it was… orientation.

She found herself unconsciously noting where each of them was. Not obsessively. Not emotionally. Just a quiet awareness, like knowing where exits were in a room.

Seven points of gravity.

She didn’t feel drawn to them.

She felt steadied by them.

That terrified her.

—————

The first time she got sick, she tried to hide it.

It was a simple thing, a fever, probably from exhaustion, but she waved it off, insisted she was fine. She carried Sayori anyway. Made bottles. Answered emails. Pushed through the fog because that was what she did.

Until she nearly dropped the baby.

It happened in the kitchen.

Her vision went white around the edges, her grip slipping for half a second too long. Sayori startled, a sharp cry ripping out of her.

Seven bodies moved at once.

Not toward her.

Toward the baby.

She recovered instantly, clutching Sayori tight, heart slamming painfully. “I’ve got her,” she snapped, panic sharpening her tone. “I’ve got her.”

They stopped. Every one of them.

Hands hovering in midair. Breath held.

Jimin looked like he might be sick.

Namjoon spoke carefully. “We know. But you’re not okay.”

“I am,” she insisted, though her legs shook. “I don’t need—”

“You,” Yoongi cut in, voice low and firm, “don’t get to decide that alone.”

Her eyes flashed. “Watch me.”

She turned away, retreating to her room and locking the door with a hand that trembled despite her best efforts.

Sayori quieted quickly once they were alone.

She sank onto the bed, fever-hot and furious, hugging her daughter close.

“I don’t belong to them,” she whispered. “We don’t.”

Sayori made a soft, sleepy sound that felt suspiciously like disagreement.

—————

The world noticed anyway.

It always did.

First it was speculation, anonymous posts, blurry photos taken at unfortunate angles. A woman. A baby. Proximity. Timing. Patterns fans were very good at recognising.

Then came theories.

Not wild ones. Careful ones.

A foreign woman. A newborn. Repeated sightings. Increased security.

Someone found a hospital record leak. Someone else traced flight manifests. Someone with too much time and too much conviction noticed her accent in a video taken outside a cafe.

The phrase soulmate pregnancy appeared on a forum at 2:13 a.m.

By 9 a.m., it was trending.

She found out because her phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.

She stared at the screen, heart sinking.

“They know,” she whispered.

The apartment went very still.

Namjoon read the headlines without expression. Jin closed his eyes. Hoseok swore under his breath. Jimin paced like a caged animal. Taehyung’s jaw tightened dangerously.

Jungkook went to her door and stopped.

Didn’t knock.

Just stood there.

She watched him through the crack in the door, chest tight.

“I’m not ready,” she said.

“I know,” he replied quietly. “But they won’t wait.”

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“No,” Jungkook said, voice rough. “But you shouldn’t face it alone.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s funny. I’ve been doing that my whole life.”

Jungkook met her gaze, eyes dark with something fierce and unwavering.

“Not anymore.”

—————

That night, she sat awake while Sayori slept, scrolling through articles that tore her apart with speculation and entitlement.

Who was she?

Where was she from?

Was the baby real?

Was it theirs?

She felt stripped bare.

They dug into her past. Her schooling. Her career. The fact that she had no soulmate mark.

Broken.

Defective.

Opportunist.

The words burned.

She shut the phone off and pressed it into the mattress like she could suffocate the noise.

Her chest felt tight. Her breath shallow.

For the first time since Sayori was born, she let herself cry.

Not loudly.

Quietly.

The way she always had.

The door opened softly.

Jin stood there, hesitant. “May I?”

She didn’t trust her voice, so she nodded.

He didn’t come closer than the foot of the bed. Just sat on the floor, back against the wall, close enough to be present but not invasive.

“They’ll try to make you disappear,” he said gently. “Or make you into something you’re not.”

She wiped her face roughly. “I just wanted to give her back and leave.”

Jin’s eyes softened painfully. “She’s not a package.”

“I know,” She snapped, then sighed, exhausted. “I know.”

Silence settled between them.

Finally, she whispered, “If I run… will she be okay?”

Jin didn’t answer immediately.

“No,” he said at last. “Not without you.”

That landed harder than anything else had.

She looked down at Sayori, heart twisting painfully.

Running had always worked before.

This time, it wouldn’t. 

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

The morning she decided to leave, the city was already on fire.

She knew before she opened her phone. You could feel it in the air, tight, electric, humming with attention. The kind that made even closed curtains feel transparent.

She checked anyway.

That was her mistake.

Her name, her real name, was everywhere.

Not just speculation anymore. Screenshots of old LinkedIn profiles. University articles. A conference photo pulled from a forgotten blog, her wrist cropped and circled in red. Headlines translated badly but aggressively.

MARKLESS WOMAN LINKED TO BTS BABY

SOULMATE FRAUD OR FATE ERROR?

WHO IS SAYORI’S MOTHER REALLY?

Her stomach dropped.

They weren’t asking questions.

They were assigning ownership.

She scrolled, numb.

Comments dissected her face, her clothes, her silence. Some were vicious. Others were worse, sympathetic in a way that erased her agency entirely.

She must be overwhelmed.

They’ll take care of her.

She should be grateful.

Grateful.

She shut the phone off with shaking hands.

Sayori slept in the bassinet, blissfully unaware that she had become public property overnight.

She moved quickly.

She packed with ruthless efficiency, clothes folded tight, essentials only. No sentiment. No hesitation. This wasn’t her first exit. She’d perfected the art of leaving before she could be cornered.

Her chest ached, but she ignored it.

The door opened.

Namjoon stood there, eyes dark and alert.

“You’re leaving,” he said.

Not a question.

She didn’t look at him. “I told you this was temporary.”

“It’s not safe.”

“For me,” she shot back. “Or for you?”

“For Sayori,” Namjoon replied calmly.

That made her pause.

“She needs me,” she said, quieter now.

Namjoon nodded once. “Yes. And she needs protection. Visibility just turned into a weapon.”

She scoffed. “You think I didn’t know that?”

“I think,” Namjoon said gently, “that you’re about to do what you always do. And this time, it won’t work.”

Her hands clenched around a folded onesie. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” he agreed. “But the world already has.”

As if summoned by his words, noise erupted outside, shouting, camera shutters, chanting voices bleeding through the walls.

Her breath hitched.

“They’re here,” she whispered.

Namjoon didn’t move. “Yes.”

Her chest tightened painfully. Panic surged, sharp and disorienting.

“I won’t do this,” she said, voice cracking. “I won’t be watched like this. I won’t let them decide who I am. I won’t—”

Sayori cried.

The sound was sudden. Piercing.

She rushed to her, heart in her throat, scooping her up instinctively. “I know, baby, I know.”

But Sayori didn’t calm.

The cries escalated, sharp and distressed in a way she hadn’t heard before. Her small body trembled, fists clenched tight.

She rocked, paced, whispered, nothing worked.

Outside, the noise grew louder.

Inside, seven wrists burned.

They felt it instantly, panic rippling through the bond like a shockwave. Jungkook swore under his breath. Hoseok’s face went pale. Jin moved without thinking, stopping himself only inches closer than she had allowed before.

Sayori’s cries softened, but didn’t stop.

Her eyes filled with tears.

“This isn’t fair,” she whispered. “She’s not supposed to need you.”

Jin’s voice was low, steady, devastating. “She doesn’t need us.”

He gestured gently, to her chest.

“She needs you. But she needs you safe.”

The word landed like a blow.

Safe.

She laughed weakly. “I’ve never been that.”

Jin met her gaze, unwavering. “You are now.”

Outside, security began moving people back. Inside, the apartment felt like a bunker.

She sank onto the couch, Sayori still crying softly against her chest. Her hands trembled, exhaustion finally crashing through the adrenaline.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.

Seven men didn’t speak.

They didn’t rush her.

They simply stayed.

Minutes passed. Then more.

Sayori’s cries slowed. Softened. Stopped.

She slept.

She sagged with her, tears slipping free at last.

“I just wanted my life,” she said hoarsely.

Namjoon crouched in front of her, careful, respectful. “You still get one. It just… doesn’t look like what you planned.”

She looked down at her daughter, then up at the seven men who had become her shield without ever demanding the right.

The world had found her.

Running wasn’t an option anymore.

And for the first time since fate had carved itself into her life, she didn’t feel alone in the fallout.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

The backlash didn’t crest.

It collapsed inward.

What the media couldn’t get from she directly, they dug for elsewhere, with shovels and teeth and no sense of mercy. Old classmates. Former coworkers. A distant aunt who liked the sound of her own voice too much. Anyone with even a passing proximity to her became a source.

“She was always quiet.”

“Kept to herself.”

“Smart, but strange.”

“No soulmate mark? Yeah, people talked.”

The narrative formed quickly, efficiently, cruelly.

She was framed as an anomaly that had finally become useful.

A glitch fate corrected.

She read none of it.

She didn’t have to.

She felt it instead, in the way security doubled, then tripled. In the way her phone stayed off permanently. In the way the apartment became a sealed world where even sunlight felt filtered.

Sayori sensed it.

She was clingier now. Startled easily. She startled toward her, tiny body pressing closer whenever voices rose or footsteps echoed too loudly in the hall.

She stopped pretending she wasn’t unraveling.

She slept in snatches. Ate when reminded. Existed in a constant state of hypervigilance that left her hands trembling even when she was still.

One night, long past midnight, it all caught up to her.

Sayori wouldn’t settle.

Not crying, just restless. Whimpering softly like she was trying to say something her body didn’t have the language for yet. She paced the length of the apartment, heart racing, head pounding.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay, it’s okay—”

It wasn’t.

The pressure built fast and merciless.

Her breath hitched. Her vision tunnelled. The walls felt too close, the air too thin.

She sat down hard on the couch, clutching Sayori to her chest like an anchor, like a shield, like the only real thing left.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t do this.”

The words tore out of her without permission.

Seven men were there within seconds, not crowding, not overwhelming, but present. A wall at her back. A perimeter around her panic.

Hoseok knelt in front of her.

Not close enough to touch.

Close enough to be seen.

“Look at me,” he said softly.

She tried.

Her chest seized, breath refusing to cooperate.

“I’m losing control,” she whispered. “I don’t— I don’t know how to stop.”

Hoseok’s eyes never left hers. “You don’t have to.”

Her hands shook violently now. Tears spilled unchecked, hot and humiliating. “I don’t belong here. I never did. I wasn’t meant for this. I wasn’t meant for you.”

The words tasted like failure.

Hoseok’s voice was quiet but unyielding. “You don’t get to decide what you were meant for while you’re drowning.”

She laughed weakly, hysterically. “That’s rich.”

Namjoon spoke from behind her, steady as a spine. “We’re not asking you to be anything. We’re asking you to rest.”

Rest.

The word felt foreign.

She shook her head. “If I stop—if I let go—I won’t get back up.”

Hoseok hesitated only a second.

“May I?” he asked.

She looked at him through tears, then down at Sayori’s tiny fist tangled in her shirt.

Her shoulders slumped.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Hoseok moved slowly, deliberately. He didn’t take Sayori. He didn’t crowd her.

He wrapped his arms around both of them.

The moment he did, something inside her broke cleanly in half.

Not pain.

Relief.

She collapsed forward with a sob that had been building for years, clutching at his shirt like she might fall apart without it. Her body shook violently, breath coming in broken gasps as the world finally stopped demanding she hold it together.

Hoseok held her.

Firm. Steady. No pressure. No claiming.

Just arms around a storm.

Sayori settled instantly, her small body relaxing like she’d been waiting for this exact configuration all along.

She cried until there was nothing left but quiet.

—————

When she woke, her face was pressed into fabric that smelled faintly like laundry soap and something warm and human. Her body felt heavy in a way that wasn’t painful.

Safe heavy.

She blinked.

Hoseok sat on the couch, back against the cushions, eyes half closed. One arm around her shoulders. The other cradling Sayori, who slept peacefully against his chest.

She froze.

He noticed immediately.

“I didn’t move,” he said quietly. “You fell asleep first.”

Her throat tightened. “I—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Hoseok continued gently. “You didn’t choose this moment. You needed it.”

She swallowed hard.

For the first time since arriving in Korea, she didn’t pull away.

She just stayed.

Behind them, the others watched from a distance, Namjoon’s gaze thoughtful, Jin’s expression soft, Yoongi’s posture protective without being intrusive, Jimin blinking rapidly like he’d just witnessed something sacred, Jungkook gripping the doorframe to keep himself in check, Taehyung’s eyes dark with something ancient and fierce.

She rested her head back against Hoseok’s shoulder.

Just for a second.

Just long enough to breathe.

The storm outside raged on.

But inside, for the first time, she wasn’t alone in it.

☆·❋▪︎◇▪︎❋·☆

Morning arrived softly.

Not with sirens or headlines or the low hum of panic that had become her constant companion, but with light. Pale, hesitant sunlight slipping through the curtains like it was asking permission.

She woke slowly.

Her body ached in the way it did after a long cry, but it was an honest ache. Clean. Like something had finally been released instead of compressed tighter.

She was still on the couch.

Hoseok had shifted sometime in the night, careful even in sleep. His arm was still around her, loose now, respectful. Sayori lay between them, warm and solid, tiny chest rising and falling in deep, content sleep.

She stared at her daughter for a long moment.

Not with panic.

Not with denial.

Just… recognition.

“I’m still here,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

Hoseok stirred slightly but didn’t wake.

She carefully extricated herself, heart racing even though nothing was wrong, and stood. She expected the familiar pull, the panic, the urge to retreat, the instinct to run.

It didn’t come.

Instead, she felt something quieter.

Choice.

—————

The apartment was awake by degrees.

Namjoon stood at the counter making coffee, sleeves pushed up, wrist mark faintly glowing like it was finally at peace. He looked up when she entered, surprise flickering briefly across his face before he schooled it into calm.

“Good morning,” he said gently.

She nodded. “Morning.”

No tension. No negotiation.

Just a greeting.

Jin appeared next, hair rumpled, eyes soft. Jimin followed, offering a small, hopeful smile. Yoongi leaned against the doorframe, assessing her with the sharp care of someone who had already decided to defend her whether she asked for it or not. Jungkook hovered behind them, restless but contained. Taehyung watched from the corner, gaze steady, unreadable, but undeniably there.

Seven men.

Not looming.

Waiting.

She noticed that.

“I’m not staying because I’m cornered,” she said quietly.

No one interrupted.

“I’m not staying because the world is loud or because you’re… you,” she continued, gesturing vaguely. “I’m staying because my daughter deserves stability. And because running doesn’t work anymore.”

Namjoon inclined his head slightly. “Understood.”

She exhaled. “This doesn’t mean I belong to you.”

Hoseok, now awake and standing a respectful distance away, met her eyes. “We know.”

“And I may never feel what you feel,” she added, glancing down at her bare wrist. “I may never have a mark. I may never wake up one day and suddenly believe in fate.”

Yoongi’s mouth curved faintly. “That’s okay.”

She blinked. “It is?”

Jimin shrugged lightly. “Love doesn’t need symmetry.”

That startled her more than anything else had.

She looked down at Sayori, now awake and blinking sleepily in her arms. Her daughter yawned, then smiled, wide and unguarded, at the room, at the people she had already accepted without question.

Her chest tightened.

“I’m choosing this,” she said, voice firmer now. “Day by day. And if I choose to leave someday—”

Namjoon cut in gently, “—we will still protect her.”

“And you,” Jin added softly.

She swallowed.

For the first time, that didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt like a promise she hadn’t been forced into.

—————

Later, alone in the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed and rolled up her sleeve.

Her wrist was still bare.

No symbol.

No glow.

No mark of destiny carving itself into her skin.

She traced the place absently with her thumb, then let her arm fall.

She smiled, small, tired, real.

Still markless.

Still chosen.

Still choosing.

Outside, seven people laughed quietly over burnt toast and strong coffee. Sayori’s giggle rang out, bright and fearless, anchoring something ancient and new into place.

The world would keep watching.

The storm would return in different shapes.

Nothing was resolved forever.

But she stayed.

Not because fate demanded it.

Because this time—

she decided to.

If you have read this far, thank you! Please don't be a silent reader let me know what you liked and didn't like and please feel free to browse the other works I have released.

You woke up in a cold sweat, body trembling. You threw the heavy comforter off of you in a haste. The boys were no longer in your bed. 

A man.

A man that you not dare speak his name was now in your bed. A man from years ago, who you thought you had forgotten. Apparently you haven’t.

“Didn’t you miss me?” He whispered. You shook your head violently. It’s all a dream, you reasoned. I just need to wake up.

“I missed you. I think about you every day. Do you ever think about me?”

“No!” You yelled, now sobbing. “You left! You’re a coward! All you do is run.”

The man grabbed you by your hair gently, making you face him. He wiped the tears off your warm cheeks. “I won’t run this time.”

“I promise.”

Two words. Two words was all it took to wake you from your dream. Or was it a nightmare? It’s up to you to decide.

***

It was a cold, rainy morning. Yoongi sat by the window in the living room, watching water droplets splash off the leaves while bundled up in a fuzzy blanket. It was a drowsy morning for the boys. They were worried about their pack leader, of course. They were curious about his wellbeing.

They feared that they were next.

You did what you could to comfort them, but you knew that without Namjoon home, the boys were never going to feel true peace. It made you sick to your stomach thinking about what the researchers may be doing to him. Taehyung couldn’t sleep without being next to Jimin. Jimin was restless when sleeping without Jungkook.

And Kook had night terrors when he wasn’t cuddling with you.

Hoseok was jumpy. A knock at the door had him running. Thunderstorms woke him from his slumber. Jin was unusually caring. In the morning he already made breakfast, working on lunch. After showers, it gave Jin a sense of protection drying his pack members hair. He even made his rounds, room to room, making sure everyone was sleeping soundly. When Jin had a chance to rest his eyes, all he could picture was the people he loved be snatched one by one.

Yoongi had a caffeine problem.

A cup in the morning, cup in the afternoon, and a piping hot cup before bed. He believed it to be a stress reliever, but he was actually bouncing off the walls, having caffeine induced anxiety attacks. You even tried hiding the coffee maker, but to no avail. He found it every time. And he would never admit that he can’t relax without having the entire pack in his sight.

“Can I come in?” A knock at your office door awoke you from your thoughts. Jin, on the other side of the door with a cup of hot cocoa and a plate of bacon and eggs, awaited your response. “I don’t wanna interrupt.”

You pushed your rolling chair to the door, creaking it open for him. “No, you’re not interrupting anything. Just doing some research...This for me?” You pointed at the plate of food in Jin’s hand. He nodded, handing you the warm plate carefully.

“And don’t worry about cleaning. Tae already put everything away. Watcha researching?” His eyes roamed your desk. A map with written directions. An article titled: Dr. Kim Petitions Court for Hybrid Rights.

And a piece of torn paper with a phone number on it and a fancy name.

“Who’s Hongjoong?” Jin asked you, a little more aggressively than he thought. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You’re free to talk to whoever, I just-“

“It’s okay”, you giggled, showing him that you’re in no way upset. “I was actually going to talk to you guys about something, but now that you’re here I guess I’ll tell you. Come sit”. You pat the velvet ottoman across from your desk. 

“I wanna get your thoughts before I tell the others.”

“Tell the others what, exactly?” Jin sat down with ease, a lot of curiosity.

You prepared your thoughts. How do I say that I want to take the countries most wanted hybrids to the research facility where their pack leader is being kept?

“W-what?”

Shit, I said that out loud.

 “Wait! Im so sorry! Fuck, that came out wrong. I was trying to say that I found a way for us to get Namjoon back, but it requires a lot of work”. You hoped that eased Jins worries. You hoped he would ponder of over the idea, give it some thought. You hoped he would say yes and convince the others.

You hoped.

“So, you want to travel with six hybrid criminals, in hopes of breaking out another hybrid criminal, and make it back home in one piece? Im confused.”

Rightfully so. You didn’t have it all planned out. You didn’t give him all the details. You didn’t even know the details yourself! Now, you’re putting your trust in an old friend who claims that he believes in hybrid rights?

Sounds like a bunch of horse shit to Jin.

“Jin please just hear me out”, you begged. “I have this friend- well old classmate, really. He’s a researcher who is currently on strike for his beliefs on hybrid testing and abuse. If I can get to him, he might be able to help us get Joon back.”

You could see the look on Jin’s face. He was still dubious, and he had every right to be. Why do we have to go? He wondered. Can you promise me we’ll make it back?

“You want my honest opinion?” You nodded frantically. “Okay...”

He paused. “I feel like it’s a shitty idea.”

“Jin-“

“No! You wanna know what I think? I think it’s a dumb fucking idea! God knows what will happen on the way there. Not to mention, Joon may already be dead! Then you have led us into a trap where we will all face the same fate, you included!” 

You sighed. You were getting nowhere. Dead end after dead end. It seemed hopeless.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

A notification popped up on your phone. It was a text message. One that you didn’t expect…

Kim Hongjoong 8:35 AM

Hey, it’s been a while

Been thinking about you…

Im actually back home visiting my parents

Was wondering if you maybe

wanted to catch up?

***

He felt like he was floating. His body was beaten and bruised. His hearing was foggy. He couldn’t hear the whisperings going on in the lab, but he could hear the banging on the metal bars of his cell.

“Leave him!” One researcher yelled. “Dr. Kim said not to touch him until he gets back! Do you really want to upset him?”

The other guy rolled his eyes. “Why would I care what he says?”

“Maybe because he signs our checks?” The researcher continued his tasks, analyzing Namjoons blood in the glass test tube. “Can you at least try to not sound like an asshole?”

The guy smirked, banging on the bars one more time.

“Not possible.”

***

That night you curled up in bed with a good book, needing a distraction. The pack wanted to sleep together, leaving you with a bed all to yourself. You knew how they felt about you, perceiving you as part of the pack, but it didn’t feel right to impose on their personal time together. You’re human after all. You might not ever truly be apart of them…

“You think loudly. Your face shows it all”

You jumped, throwing your book to the side. Wasn’t like you were reading it anyway. “My god Yoongi! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

He shushed you. “Keep it down. It took forever for everyone to go to sleep. I almost didn’t make it here”, he laughed, making his way to the left side of the bed. You scooted over to give him room.

“I thought you guys were sleeping together tonight?” You asked. “Isn’t this like a pack violation or something?” Yoongi stuffed himself under the covers and rested his head on the pillow.

“Just lay down and shut up”, he huffed.

“Well, excuse me”, you giggled, reaching over to your nightstand and turning off the light. Yoongi held his arms out, an invitation for you to be held. He seemed to always know exactly what you needed. “Thanks Yoon.”

“Anytime my love, anytime.”

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When you’d first been hired, the request came through your temp agency, and you knew nothing other than the address before you showed up. By then you were no stranger to the life of an assistant; you had fallen into the line of work after failing to find a job in your field. The first few temp jobs were exactly what you expected. Fielding phone calls and delivering coffee to big wigs in uncomfortable, cheap dress clothes became your new normal for several months, so when you arrived at the gray office building you figured you knew what you were in for. 

Yoongi and Jimin proved to be nothing like your previous employers, and their charmingly personable attitudes made them unbelievably easy to work for. At the end of your week as their temp, you had pouted and delayed your departure by attempting to tidy up their shared studio. 

“You’re not a maid, you don’t have to do that.” Yoongi cooly remarked. Even with his ears sticking out endearingly from the sides of his beanie, his dark gaze made you freeze. 

“I-I know, I just- sorry.” You withered under his attention, shifting from foot to foot as you waited for the anxiety to pass. “I’ll go. Bye Yoongi, it’s been super nice working for you guys.” 

You kicked yourself as the wave of disappointment saturated your words. Yoongi hadn’t done anything wrong, and there was no reason to unload your sadness on him. 

“What? I thought they told you?” Yoongi chirped. “We hired you. I expect you to be back tomorrow.” An unbidden smile cracked your face and you couldn't help but notice Yoongi had mirrored it. 

“Oh, oh! Um, see you tomorrow then.” Your heart thumped embarrassingly fast as you skittered out of the office, only seeing the email full of praise from them once you were tucked into the comfort of your bed.

---

“Remember when you used to be nice to me?” You hiss at the man who had just fully sat on your shins, uncaring that you squirm under him. Jimin rolls his eyes at your remark and stays where he is until you snake your legs out from under him. 

“I am nice to you. I pay you.” Jimin coos and pulls your legs into his lap, his familiar touch skittering over your bare calves. After being their one and only assistant for a year and half, your working hours have become more muddled. Business often mixed with friendship, and the lines of professionalism had officially blurred to a proportion you never expected. 

“We also buy you food,” Yoongi cooly adds, plopping himself in the chair across from the two of you and sweeping his hand toward the boxes of empty takeout that dotted the coffee table. A microphone and mixing board live among the mess. You sigh listlessly. They had been working on this new song for hours, tossing ideas back and forth, and although they all sounded wonderful to you, neither of them were happy with anything. 

“Can I go home?” You drawl, feeling the strain of laying on the couch in the way your neck cricks and radiates a sharp headache. You subconsciously rub your fingers into the tightness at the base of your neck. 

“No,” Jimin answers immediately. You sit up straight on the couch and rip your legs from his lap. 

“Why?” It comes out whiny but you’re too tired to care, still rubbing at the knot in your neck. “Yoongi?” For a second you have hope he’ll let you go but he shakes his head, dark wavy strands slipping over his eyes. 

“Sorry, need you here.”

You sputter, disbelief making your eyes go wide. “Okay...can I at least go get you some coffee? More food? Or something?” Sitting in the darkened studio for so long with no definable task was making you feel a bit stir crazy. You had cycled through all of the games on your phone and been scolded for spending too much time on TikTok. Even the book you kept stashed in the bottom of your tote bag was only able to occupy you for so long. 

Yoongi shrugs, half of a grin on his lips. “Dunno. You have an untrained ear, slightly less bias, maybe you’ll add something to the process...” he trails, sinfully pink tongue slipping out between his lips. “You’ve also got potential as a muse.” 

God. It’s painfully cliche but it makes your heart stop and your thighs clench. Suddenly you feel too hot in your shorts and sweatshirt. Jimin tuts. 

“Potential.” He makes a half hearted jab, knowing all three of you are lingering on the same string of memories from just a couple of weeks before. You push the thoughts away and find a spot back on the couch, suddenly conscious of how close you sit to Jimin on the small couch.

He shuffles just close enough that your knees touch in a reassuring way that sends cascading warmth down your spine. Your face is surely flushed but you do your best to pretend you’re unfazed, picking at the skin around your cuticles as Yoongi fiddles with the soundboard.

“Again.” Jimin’s foot taps into the plush carpet in time to the music, and you know you’re in for a long night.

The track runs on a seemingly unending loop, only punctuated by your bosses bickering about technical intricacies and which word choices would serve the song better.

Yoongi fiddles with a new beat and you whine, sagging into Jimin’s side. He welcomes you into him and the intoxicating scent of his cologne has your eyes fluttering. His jaw ticks and you have to bite back the groan of desire as you watch his muscles clench and unclench as he concentrates, fingertips tapping the new rhythm in time against the top of your thigh.

For a moment you wish you were drinking; dumbly wanting to feign needing help opening the soju bottle just to hear Jimin’s little coos of how delicate you are, to have Yoongi gently take back your hair to see your flushed face when he thinks you’ve had too much to drink. Your saliva suddenly feels too thick and your head spins with the barrage of lustful thought. Jimin’s hand feels as hot as lava on your thigh and the sight of Yoongi’s finger circling one of the little knobs with deft precision makes your stomach tumble. 

“I-are you guys hot?” Your voice is raspy as you spring up from the couch, resisting the urge to fan yourself with your hands. Embarrassingly, they both shake their heads and you catch sight of the thermostat set clearly to cool. Yoongi chuckles as he seems to look inside of your head at the neurons connecting as a flush of embarrassment crosses your face. 

“I’ll be right back,” the words are barely out before you leave the room, slipping into the hallway and all but sprinting to the bathroom. Your body feels both too hot and too cold at the same time, and under the harsh overhead light of the bathroom the dark circles under your eyes are prominent, your baby hairs sticking up in wild directions from your scalp. You bend over the sink, gripping onto the cold porcelain. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Your words echo into the bowl of the sink but you can’t bring yourself to be embarrassed about the potential of either of them hearing you over their music. You stand, glaring at the image of yourself in the mirror for a few seconds before you decide you have probably been hiding in here for a suspicious amount of time. Determined to find a way for them to let you go home, you barrel out of the bathroom and back into the hallway. 

“Hi,” Yoongi’s voice startles you, and his presence in the cramped space is even more alarming. In all the time you've known him, he's never been one to completely abandon his post while in the thick of the production process. 

“...Hi? Are you guys done?” A kernel of hope lights in your chest. If they’re done, you can make your escape to home and deal with the heavy pull of arousal in you core by yourself. Yoongi shakes his head no and raises his hands above him, stretching his arms and allowing your eyes to feast on a strip of creamy skin above his waistband. Your face reheats, tongue darting out to lick your chapped lips. He looks divine. 

Yoongi’s eyes follow your own, and a beautiful little smirk sprouts on his face. “Just came to use the bathroom.” His voice rumbles the same way it did when he dropped you off at your doorstep a few weeks ago with a sinful kiss and your knees quiver.

You nod stupidly, tripping over your own feet as you side step the door to allow him passage. He dips his head in a subtle nod and as he approaches and you can smell the musk of his cologne. Despite the step you took away he makes an effort to brush by you, one of his strong hands clasping gently around your own. You hadn’t even realized you were holding your breath until he leaned in close enough that you could pick out his individual eyelashes. His thumb presses into the back of your hand, a firm reminder of the reality of the situation as his words slip into the air between you. 

“We’re both willing to take a break, if you could think of something else more...interesting to occupy us.” His canines sparkle in the light of the hall and you have the overcoming desire to feel them scrape against your neck. 

“B-both of you?” The question all but jumps from your mouth, a product of your disbelief of the last night they had made you feel this way, which you were still partly convinced was just a delusion of your drunkenness. Yoongi nods, strands of hair obscuring his heavy stare. 

“Yes.” He’s gone in a flash, the bathroom door shutting behind him. The thud reverberates through your body and you stand stunned in the hallway, body buzzing with anticipation. Jimin is waiting just beyond the wall, and the image of his legs spread wide on the couch just waiting for you and Yoongi to return springs into your mind. Desire drives your feet and before you know it you’re back in the dimly lit studio, palms sweating when you finally see him again. 

“You’re back.” His voice is cool and level, gaze fixed on you as you approached him. Suddenly emblazoned by the knowledge Yoongi had given you, you nod and edge closer to the couch. 

“Heard you’re looking to take a break?” Jimin’s eyes cloud with the realization of your words, seeing through the facade of your question easily. He swipes his plush bottom lip with his thumb and hums in affirmation. “If you’re willing to provide one?” His voice is thick with lust, sending butterflies through your stomach.

The subtle tilt of his head is all it takes for you to advance toward him, plopping yourself easily onto his thigh, facing the mess of the coffee table. His hands are immediately on your hips; fingers digging into the flesh with an addicting pinch of pain. Your hips rut at the contact, pushing into the muscle of his leg. The pressure sends a spike of arousal down your spine that makes you moan and Jimin responds by curling his fingers under the waistband of your shorts. His fingertips feel like ice against your hot skin, and he uses the shock to gain control of your hips. 

There’s no use putting up a fight once he has you, manually rocking your core against his leg. Even though you can’t see him, you can hear his little pants of appreciation as your head rolls back against your shoulders. The fabric of your underwear is slick and pulling right against your clit, the layers of friction making you feel like you’re going crazy. Your nails dig into Jimin’s arms, enjoying the feeling of his muscles moving. 

The door swings open and even though you know it’s Yoongi you gasp, whipping your head toward him. Your face flushes at being caught but Yoongi simply appraises you, eyes roving over your heaving chest and Jimin’s grip on your hips. The weight of Yoongi’s stare only makes you wetter, slicking the crotch of your cotton shorts a darker shade. Jimin chuckles and moves faster, allowing a consistent grind of pressure against your clit that makes tears edge your eyelids. 

You gasp, arms flailing outward hopelessly. In your scramble your arms clash into Yoongi’s form, scrabbling to hook into the fabric of his hoodie as your clit throbs and your climax approaches. Yoongi’s hands encircle your face, gathering your hair into a makeshift ponytail and stooping down until you can feel his breath against your cheeks. 

“Pretty girl,” he flutters his thumb against your lashes until you open your eyes. “There you are.” His feline gaze turns your brain to liquid, enjoying the attention from Yoongi while Jimin gives you the release you’ve been waiting for. 

“P-please,” you struggle around the words, and don't have the energy to articulate your needs, but Jimin holds your hips still and bounces his leg, baring your pussy down against him directly. Unable to squirm away from the pleasure, a moan rips from your throat into Yoongi’s chest as you come, pitching forward as the pleasure curls your toes. Despite your exhaustion you continue to cant your hips against Jimin’s leg after you come until Yoongi tuts and pulls you up slightly, depriving you of the surface. 

“Look at the fucking mess you made of my pants, baby.” Jimin growls. Your face flushes in embarrassment but you can’t deny that the sight only turns you on more. Knowing that you were the one responsible for the mess on his sweatpants and the subsequent bulge makes your mouth water. On unstable legs you pull from Yoongi’s embrace and lean down over Jimin, giving your other boss a prime view of your ass in the ridden-up shorts doing little to preserve your modesty. His hands are on you immediately, tugging down the fabric of your shorts and panties as soon as you nod your approval. 

“Can I kiss you?” You relish the way Jimin’s cheeks sport a pretty blush at your question as he nods. A warm fuzzy feeling spreads through your chest as you connect your lips with his own, gently coaxing out the demon of a man you know lives inside- the one who pushed his cock down your throat in the backseat of his car the last time you went out together.  Yoongi’s deft fingers part your folds and you moan into the kiss which only spurs Jimin on. His tongue finds a home in the depths of your mouth at the same time that Yoongi spreads your asscheeks with his hands, humming at the sight of your bared pussy. He pauses all movements, making you twirl your hips impatiently, before releasing a glob of spit that runs hot over your pussy. You shiver, keening at the embarrassingly attractive action. He wastes no time running his fingers between your lips, circling your clit with your combined wetness until your knees go weak. Jimin bites your lip and disconnects the two of you, staring sinfully at the trail of saliva that connects you. 

“Yoongi gonna make you cum again?” The question is rhetoric, but you still nod furiously at the idea. Yoongi laughs heartily, clearly amused by the desperation. 

“Gonna do more than make you cum, baby.” Your head swivels back to catch a look at him sinking onto his knees, easily pushing the coffee table back so he has ample room to work. Your pussy flutters at the idea of him eating you out, a dream that had been plaguing you since you first heard him craft some of his most infamous lyrics. 

You're so enamored at the glassy look in his eyes that you almost miss Jimin asking to shed your sweatshirt. The fabric comes off easily, goosebumps arriving as the garment leaves you. Jimin groans as he’s presented with your tits, hanging perfectly in front of his face as you're bent over for Yoongi. 

Jimin captures one of your nipples in his mouth, tugging at the nub like a man starved. Yoongi dives into your pussy, licking a broad stripe all the way through your folds. His tongue splits your lips and explores every possible inch. 

“Oh god,” the sensation of them both working on you makes you feel lightheaded, in total disbelief of the way the night has gone. “F-feel so good.” You mewl as Yoongi licks tight circles around your clit, Jimin’s teeth scraping against the sensitive skin at the curve of your breast as his hand engulfs the other, pulling and pinching in all the right places. 

“I- can’t fucking, oh my god-” no words seem to do justice to the feeling of pure arousal slipping through you, and the lewd sounds of being devoured sends your mind into a perfectly numb lull. Jimin and Yoongi are everything, everywhere, moving in a sinful tandem of lips and teeth that you don’t think you will ever recover from. The bubbling heat in your stomach rises, aided by the slurps of Yoongi absolutely devouring you, his nose digging into you as he pushes his tongue as deep as possible into your hole. You can only imagine how wet his face will be when he pulls away; chin, cheeks and lips stained with the evidence of your arousal. 

Your legs wobble, knees shaking from the effort of keeping your body upright as your orgasm barrels toward you. Jimin scrapes the top row of his teeth across your nipple as you come, body trapped between two sources of unending pleasure. The short break between orgasms has made you dizzy, keening as Yoongi devours every drop you give him. Over sensitivity rushes in, and the men work faster than your blissed out brain can comprehend.

Once the ringing in your head stops, you can feel the delicate press of Yoongi’s lips against the backs of your thighs: Jimin’s cool fingertips soothing down the bites he created on your chest.

“Come on, pretty. Such a good girl. Come lay down.” Jimin’s hands pull you gently, easily back onto the couch where you had spent countless hours before. The cool leather feels amazing against your heated skin and you quickly resign yourself to pressing the entire front of your body into it, head propped on Jimin’s thigh. This close, there was no mistaking the heavy bulge in the front of his pants. Your fingers twitch, inching toward him.

Yoongi’s dark chuckle makes you pause, peering up to see him standing over you, a satisfied smirk on his face. Just as you’d imagined his chin is covered in a gleam that could only come from being buried deep in your pussy. Your hips twitch against the couch.

“You wanna suck Jimin’s cock? Will you let me sit and watch you make him come?” You nod dumbly against Jimin’s leg, not daring to take your eyes off of Yoongi as he maneuvers himself back into his trusty chair. He sits and makes no secret of palming at himself through his shorts as your mouth waters.

“Please?” You ask, as if they would ever be able to deny you anything. You can feel the sweat drying onto your body, and the heat reigniting in your stomach makes you restless. Wiggling your fingers playfully toward his cock, you fix Jimin with your best pleading stare.

“You know this cock belongs to you, baby. Take it.” Heat flushes your cheeks as you scramble for his waistband. Suddenly seized with an insatiable hunger to have your mouth filled to the brim. Jimin lifts his hips in aid, exposing inches of flawless skin before his cock springs to life, unbidden by any clothing. He takes the break to pull off his top, balling it up and throwing it directly into Yoongi’s face. The older man grumbles in good nature and swats the shirt away. Your hips push against the couch cushion as you reach for him, the weight and warmth of his impressive cock making your head spin. Jimin moans at your touch, encouraging you to pump your hand over him slowly.

He intakes a ragged breath as you speed up, impatient with yourself. “C’mon baby, take it.” He grinds out the words and you shiver, shuffling forward until you can comfortably lower your head over him, wrapping your lips around the tip. It had been only a few weeks since the last time you gave him head, but that didn’t make his length any easier to adjust to. Your eyes water at the intrusion as you push further down, wiggling your tongue against the underside. Jimin’s thighs twitch under your ministrations.

“You’re so fucking good at that, Y/N.”

Emboldened, you push more of him down your throat until you’re fighting against a gag, spit dripping down to the base of his cock. Unable to go further, your hand occupies the rest, pumping in time with the movement of your head. The mess of praise and the burn of Yoongi’s eyes on your body makes you moan around him.

Jimin’s hips immediately jump, pushing further into your mouth. Your eyes widen and tears push forward as Jimin takes full advantage of your mouth, your nails scrabbling at his thighs as you try to clear your mind.

“Shhh, baby. Look so pretty drooling and dumb on my cock. Our girl is so good, isn’t she Yoongi?” Jimin’s voice shakes, a giveaway of his impending orgasm.

“The best girl,” Yoongi’s voice is clipped, and even though your eyes are blurred with tears you’re sure he’s working his hand over his own cock. You moan again, using the vibration to your advantage as Jimin grips your hair, holding you in place.

Your lungs constrict as his whines reach a peak, cock twitching incessantly until he’s coming. You swallow with every spurt he gives you, the bitterness easy to dismiss in the heat of the moment. Jimin’s grip loosens just as the last ropes of his cum shoot out, streaking across your chin and lips. He grins, satisfied at the mess and your performance. His now free hand takes a handful of your ass, pinching it and landing a slap against the flesh.

“Open?” He asks almost sheepishly. You obey easily, putty in his hands as he inspects your mouth to be sure you swallowed everything he gave you. He hums happily at the sight, gathering up the stray bits of cum on your face with his thumb before pushing it into your mouth. You suck the pad of his thumb clean, eyes heavy with lust as you swirl your tongue around it. Jimin growls, ripping the appendage out to slap your ass a few times in quick succession.

The pain makes your spine curve with pleasure and you almost can’t believe how wet you are again, but Jimin’s fingers quickly dip into your pussy, cooing when he feels your slick coating his fingers. Your own mouth parts in a frustrated groan, annoyingly aware of how achingly empty you are.

“Please fuck me.” Your voice is raw and shaky, and you worry that maybe their inaction means they couldn’t hear you. Jimin’s hand stays steady against the swell of your ass while you wiggle your hips in frustration. Impatient tears well in your eyes as you watch Yoongi slowly remove his hand from his cock; the tip an angry red from all the time he spent playing with it while you sucked Jimin’s cock. It feels like years pass before he even gets up from the chair.

“You wanna get fucked?” His deep voice makes your heart do cartwheels in your stomach. Yoongi’s hand caresses the nape of your neck, lightly combing through the mussed strands there. You nod vigorously, attempting to sit up so that you can convey your need to him even more.

“Please Yoongi, please I’ll do-“ a sharp tug on your hair makes your brain short circuit, words dying in your mouth. Your breathing turns shallow, anticipatory when he uses his primal grip on you to pull your body upwards until you’re sitting up on the couch. From here you are afforded the full view of them both. Jimin’s chest is still heaving from coming, his body covered in a sheen of sweat that only makes his appear more surreal in the dim studio lights. Yoongi had shed both his shirt and bottoms, presumably while you were busy with Jimin. His cock bobs against his stomach, gleaming with precum as he moves. Your heart jumps at the proximity of Yoongi’s body, the way you can see the veins in the arm that holds your hair flex as he pulls your scalp harder. You keen, hips pushing against the air at the sprouting pain. Yoongi laughs, licking at his gleaming canines you want to feel buried deep in your shoulder blade.

His grip holds you still, obedient as your eyes dart wildly between them, hungry to see what their next move will be.

“Such a patient girl for us, right Yoongi?” Jimin’s velvet voice makes you want to cry out and beg for release again, but you bite your tongue so you don’t miss what he says.

“Hmm, very patient.” Yoongi appraises you, sitting at attention, nipples pebbled with your arousal. “Although I think she could stand to wait a bit longer.” Your eyes widen, surprised and momentarily terrified they were going to leave you in the dust.

“No no no no, please don’t!” You can’t stop the tinge of anxiety that spikes through you, the sudden concern that they no longer wanted you if they had each other. Not to mention the burning desire that you knew you wouldn’t be able to quell even with your most favorite vibrator. Hot tears let loose down your cheeks, dripping off of your chin in mere seconds.

“Hey, baby, stop,” Yoongi’s hand releases your hair to tap at your cheek, light enough that you blink through your tears to focus on him. He smiles in the sweet gentle way you’ve come to know means he’s sincere. You can feel Jimin’s calloused fingers brushing gently over your shoulders, curling into the tensed muscles as you ground yourself.

“Do we need to stop?” All of the air in the room gets sucked out with his words, all three of you frozen in time.

“No, no,” You puff out. “Don’t wanna stop.” You grasp his arm, fingernails digging into his milky flesh. “I j-just feel so empty.”

His cat like grin returns at your words, your tears receding into glossy begging eyes. “Oh, baby, you’ll be full of cock in no time. Can you sit pretty for just a few more moments?”

Curious as to why you need to wait, you watch Yoongi intently, but are somehow still shocked when he catches Jimin’s plush lips in an earnest kiss. The younger man sighs contentedly, wrapping his arms around Yoongi’s frame. The way their lips move together is mesmerizing, and you faintly remember watching them kiss once before, when you were admittedly drunk and thought maybe you were mistaking the passion between them.

Now you knew for sure what you were seeing, and that it was making fresh waves of arousal drip down your thigh. Jimin reaches for Yoongi’s cock, stroking him with playfully light touches you know are meant to drive him crazy. You can see everything from your seat on the couch, and their symphony of moans sends your hand right between your thighs. You rub your clit in time with Jimin’s tugs, making sure to keep the touch just as feather light as it seems to be for Yoongi.

As sensitive as you are, even the simple touch is making your mind go hazy, losing yourself in the moment and the feeling of your own hand. You moan, pressing down into the pressure of your hand: embarrassing close to coming again just from watching your bosses make out.

“I thought I asked you to sit pretty?” Yoongi’s voice is clipped and breathy at having just pulled Jimin’s hand off of him, but it still startles you enough that you rip your hand away feeling like you had been caught.

“I-I’m sorry, it was just,” you stumble on the words, face flushed as you decide on how much you should admit. Jimin raises an inquisitive eyebrow, his cock fluttering back to life.

“Hot?”

Your blush deepens but you nod, hair falling into your face. Yoongi seems less amused at your disobedience, but the dark look on his face only makes you want him inside of you more. You bite back the whimper growing in your throat and still, waiting for instruction.

Yoongi’s steps forward, easily crowding your vision until he’s all you can see. One hand grips your throat, lightly at first, then increasingly hard as he sees the delight in your eyes. The press of his hand over your throat is intoxicating, just the perfect amount of pressure that has your mouth hanging open absentmindedly. You feel good, knowing that you he was going to take care of you. Jimin’s deep groan at the sight reminds you that he’s there just moments before Yoongi breaks your distance and captures your lips in a kiss.

It’s nothing as gentle and sweet as the few you’d shared before. His teeth are immediately nipping into your bottom lip, tongue surging forward into your mouth without abandon. Spit slicks down your chin and over your cheeks and you moan at the feeling, Yoongi practically swallowing you up like you’re the last person on earth. Through it all he keeps control of you by the hand on your neck, only letting up when you’re gasping for air.

You feel oddly vacant without his hand on your throat, but you have a feeling it won’t be the end of your experience with it.

“Such a pretty, desperate little thing. Can’t wait to fill you up, fuck.” Yoongi’s eyes flutter at the thought and before you know it he’s moving you, pressing the length of your body down against the couch. You’re acutely aware that Jimin must have moved to the chair to make room for you, but all thoughts get wiped from your head as Yoongi looms over you.

Your legs part, unashamed for him to see just how wet you are. He grins, kneeling between them and fisting himself a few times.

“Please fuck me, Yoongi, wanna feel you inside.” The stream of consciousness barrels out of you, followed by a string of curses as he obeys and pushes the head of his cock into you. The stretch is intense despite your extreme arousal, but the loving hands caressing your stomach help morph the feeling into pure pleasure. When the clouds of pain start to clear you moan, high and loud, latching onto the cushions under you.

“You look so good split open on my cock.” Yoongi works his hips into a smooth rhythm immediately, eyes honed in on the sight of your pussy swallowing him up. The press of him inside of you is serendipitous, the perfect angle means he’s nudging against your gspot with every single push.

“Prettiest fucking girl, look at you taking cock so well again.” Jimin is suddenly beside you, hands groping your tits again. You keen, overwhelmed with the sensations as white hot pleasure burns through you. Yoongi speeds up, bracing his foot for more leverage on the perfect angle as he pounds into you.

“So f-full,” you gasp out, tears of pleasure running into your hairline. Your clit throbs for attention, the final thing you need to fall headfirst into that wonderful pleasure. You gasp and writhe, pushing your hips upward to meet his thrusts.

“If you don’t stop that I’m gonna come right inside of you.” The words are a warning but your pussy immediately reacts by gripping his cock tighter. A broken moan spills from his mouth and he growls.

“Wan’ it.” The words come out soft, strangled by the loud squelching of your pussy, but Jimin is close enough to hear. He turns toward you, smiling with the intensity of a million suns.

“You want him to come inside of you? Fill that pussy up and make you ours?” Jimin is sure to speak loud enough that Yoongi will hear, but the man drilling into you looks pointedly only at your face, awaiting his confirmation. You look between them both, shivering with need.

“Yes, wanna have Yoongi come in me,” you lick your lips, “please, and,” You pause as Yoongi swipes his finger across your clit after hearing your affirmation. The last bits of your sanity are about to be washed away with your orgasm, but you breathe through it.

“W-wait!” You yell, Yoongi stilling as well as he can so close to his orgasm.

“Want Jimin too.” You gasp, barely trusting your words. The man grins, placing a kiss on the swell of your breast.

“Of course, baby, I’m so fucking hard right now I can’t imagine not coming all over these pretty tits.”

Tears of frustration brim again, hormones going crazy.

“No, in me.” You whine, petulant at the idea of him not coming inside you tonight. Both of their eyes widen, staring at you like you had just unlocked the secret to eternal life. Yoongi’s thrusts return with vengeance, finger circling your clit deftly.

“Can’t get enough of it, huh? Such a little slut that just one man coming in you isn’t enough?” You nod as his cock twitches, moments away from your own blinding orgasm. Jimin’s lips are devouring your neck, seemingly emblazoned by your admission. It only takes a few more swipes of Yoongi’s nimble fingers before you come, back arching off of the couch like a woman possessed.

The sounds and curses that leave you are barely human and essentially decipherable as your body warms under the glow of an intense orgasm. When Yoongi finally comes, your pussy gripping him tightly so he doesn’t leave, he continues strumming at your clit until your nerves feel set on fire.

“Good girl, taking all my fucking come.” Yoongi praises you as he finally pulls out, watching his come slip out with him before he retreats to stand beside you. Your head is still in the clouds, mind numb from absolute pleasure as Yoongi pats your thighs so he can get out from between them.

Jimin brushes the sweat slicked strands of hair off of your forehead, leaning close enough to him that you can see his individual eyelashes.

“Still got it in you? Want another load?” Your stomach flips, pussy clenching at the idea and you nod so hard it makes your neck hurt. Yoongi shuffles up until he’s next to your head, obviously sleepy as he plops down onto the floor with a lazy grin. He kisses your cheek playfully as Jimin moves.

He wastes no time in assuming the same position Yoongi had just left. Pliant and fucked out, you give him an exhausted smile as you watch him line up and push into your entrance.

“Still so fucking tight even though you just got railed. So willing to have two cocks back to back.” Jimin’s voice burns through you, low and sexy in a way you rarely get to enjoy. His eyes twinkle as you nod, gasping at the length of his cock. He begins his onslaught even faster than Yoongi had, pushing through your walls with a blindingly perfect rhythm.

“F-Fuck me so well,” you slur, grasping for his arms as he drills into you. Jimin is gasping, clearly close to his own end as you start to feel the hazy warmth of an orgasm come on. Yoongi kisses you even more as your moans heighten, sure not to cover your mouth so that they get to hear every sound you can give them. “You’re gonna look so pretty full of me and Jimin’s come, so fucked out and dripping.”

Even without any attention to your clit his words have you just seconds away from coming, and you warn Jimin of this.

“Already gonna come without me even having to touch your little clit? So fucking wet and desperate that just my cock will do it?” Your head spins, eyes tipping back into your head. His hips stutter, faltering for just a second as your knees lock, pushing his cock even further into you until you’re coming. Your eyes squeeze shut as you scream your throat raw calling his name and begging for his come.

You can’t stop the tears that spill out of you even after you feel him empty into you, the weight of his body pressing into your own as he makes sure not to waste a drop. You pant together, chests rising and falling in time. The way your skin sticks together doesn’t even bother you right now, but Jimin moves just slightly and the cool air rushes in.

You mumble, still working on feeling like a human again.

“What’s that?” It’s Yoongi, who’s still sitting by your side, laying his head against Jimin’s toned bicep.

“Cold.” You try, voice absolutely wrecked. You poke at Jimin’s side. “Heavy, too. Move.” You wiggle beneath him and he sits up, giggling at your sudden attitude. He’s still lodged inside of you, his and Yoongi’s come slowly leaking out of you and onto the couch, but this somehow feels just as normal as your usual day at work. Another chill passes through your body and Yoongi tuts, striding order to the thermometer. You and Jimin both watch his naked form as he goes, cranking the number up so that the room gets hotter.

“Told you we keep it too cold in here,” he mutters to Jimin, who shrugs and looks down at the mess between your legs. You flush.

“Sorry about the couch.” Jimin laughs as he pulls out, clearly still a little aroused at the sight of come pouring out of you.

“Fuck the couch. It’s your spot anyway.” His fingers dance over your pussy and you whine, shaking your head and clamping your thighs shut.

“Too sensitive.” It’s simple, and he nods easily, slipping off of the couch. You lose sight of him for a second before he’s back, slipping your sweatshirt back over your head. The warmth instantly cures you, putting a satisfied smile on your face. Yoongi reappears from what you assume to be the bathroom with a damp towel, silently asking your permission before gently cleaning you up.

Your legs twitch and you have to physically bite back a moan when he runs the fabric over your clit, but you’re happy to be cleaned and have him help you into your shorts. He hands the towel off to Jimin as you sit up, pointedly looking away from the mess on the couch.

“Shit, forgot about that!” Yoongi springs forward, shirt halfway on. He leans over the coffee table and flicks off a switch, the recording equipment going dead. His face blanches as he looks over at you.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N, I didn’t turn it off before we…” his hands wave uselessly in front of him. Jimin, at least dressed, looks equally mortified.

“We can delete it all! I promise, we won’t even listen to it again! I’ll do it right-“

Your laugh bubbles out of you and stops them both in their places.

“I don’t care, guys.” Their faces twist in confusion. Surely you wouldn’t want them to keep it? “You were stuck on the song anyway. Use it as the backtrack or something.” You shrug, taking supreme delight in the surprise on their faces.

“You’re so fucking hot.” Jimin groans, appreciative, and you glow under their eyes. He immediately dashes over to the computer, locating and examining the file. Yoongi finishes redressing and even wipes off the couch before bundling you into his chair with him. His hands comb through your matted hair and examine the marks on your neck until he deems you to be okay.

“Thanks for the song inspiration.” He chuckles, mouth tucked against the nape of your neck.

“Happy to help. Let me know the next time you need some new ideas.” Despite your sleepiness the idea makes you squirm, to which Yoongi groans.

“I have a feeling we’ll be needing lots of new ideas. For a very long time.” Maybe you’re crazy, or cock hungry, but you swear you feel him twitch against your ass. “But for now you should probably go home.” You both watch Jimin as he fiddles with some instrumentals, layering them over the peaky audio the three of you recorded on the desktop before popping on his headphones.