Chapter Text
The doctor thawed a little. Before him now he no longer saw a brainless dog who only wanted to stick it in and pull it out, but an ordinary, confused alpha in love, who had not yet fully understood what had fallen on him and how, in a single second, his life had turned upside down. He wanted, brotherly, to ruffle the future father’s hair and promise that everything would be all right now.
“Your presence could help my patient considerably. He needs care right now and an absence of stress.”
At the words “absence of stress,” the doctor looked at the manager so expressively that the man’s stomach twisted into a knot.
“Keep an eye on the IV, feed him properly at home, and give him vitamins. The bedpan is in the bathroom. You’ll find it yourself if needed,” the doctor continued, turning his gaze back to Jimin. At this phrase, he always watched the relatives’ reactions. Usually relatives grimaced, but here this “not-husband” stood and nodded as if he were being asked not to carry a bedpan out for a sick person, but to dab iodine on a scraped knee. Not a single muscle twitched. He gave away nothing foul like: “Can’t we somehow solve this problem?” or “I’m not sure it’s mine.” Maybe not everything was so bad. Maybe this couple had a future. Everyone has one, but not everyone’s is bright and kind. Doctor Jung had seen plenty of pompous husbands who could not hand over so much as a glass of water, let alone a chamber pot. He had also seen those who turned away right from a sickbed and went off to live their normal lives, leaving their loved ones without help or support. Most often it was the husbands of cancer patients and the fathers of children with disabilities who left. They, you see, needed to live and rejoice, not change diapers and treat bedsores. He had seen all kinds of things, but here, at least, there was some hope.
“Since you are the husband,” the doctor addressed Jimin, placing special emphasis on the word husband and raising his brows meaningfully, “according to the rules of our institution, for an additional fee, we can allow you to stay in the room overnight.”
“I… I will fill out the necessary paperwork to stay with my Husband,” Jimin picked up the doctor’s tone, also emphasizing the sacred word. “Do I need to bring anything from home for my… Husband?”
“Not for now. There are hygiene products in the shower room, dinner is brought at seven. There’s a cafeteria downstairs; the food is decent enough. I planned to keep your spouse under observation until tomorrow afternoon, so don’t trouble yourself,” the doctor switched to a calm, everyday tone. “Come along: we need to fill out a form, sign consent for additional tests, take your blood for compatibility, and register you.”
The doctor nodded and strode quickly down the corridor. Jimin kept up, while the manager only blinked, still clutching at his collar. At last he recovered and ran to catch up with the ones who had left.
The day was leaning toward evening. The manager, having given in to persuasion, left. He still had to somehow explain everything that had happened to management, come up with excuses for the photographers, and rearrange the schedule. He took Jimin’s number, told him the password to Yoongi’s apartment, and fluttered out of the room with relief. Jimin remained to guard his star. Not that he was afraid the star would run away somewhere; he simply did not have the strength to step away from the bed and let go of that transparent, weightless palm. His former majesty sat on the edge of the hard hospital chair and stroked the fingers with bitten hangnails. He watched the cloudy yellow medicine run along the transparent tube, watched it drip down toward the needle, toward that strange adapter between the living and nonliving worlds. There, in that magical living world, a new life was being assembled from those drops. Small, defenseless. Suddenly dearer to him than his own.
Looking at the sleeper, Jimin could not stop being amazed. Was this really the person lying before him? His star? His daring rapper, who sent the whole world from the stage in every known direction?
Yoongi’s face shone with the calm, quiet beauty found in Madonnas on old canvases. Jimin had never seen such meekness and tenderness on that face, but no matter how bright the sleeping face was, the alpha’s gaze kept slipping to where, beneath layers of fabric, a new little life glowed like a flame in an icon lamp. A baby. His baby. What was it like? Did it have little arms and legs? Was its heart beating? And Jimin’s own heart clenched at once from sweet anticipation and icy terror.
School biology had been forgotten long ago, so he had to count in his head and search online. By the dates, it came out to the twelfth week. Inside was a real little human being, with a head, arms, legs, and even fingers.
The omega’s chest rose quietly, the second hand in the wall clock ticked, the medicine dripped steadily, devices beeped. The blinds were closed, and Jimin, not daring to turn on the light, illuminated the IV with the flashlight on his phone. He had already run for the nurse three times to report that the medicine was ending and it was time to disconnect it, and each time received a mocking, understanding look and the unchanging answer that it would not be finished before nine in the evening.
The phone battery died before the medicine did. He had to sit in the dark. When the anxiety eased a little, terrible exhaustion came crashing down. Jimin had rushed to Yoongi as soon as he got off the plane. He had only managed to stop for flowers. The thought of putting his head down and closing his eyes for one little second seemed very sweet.
Yoongi woke in the dark. With a blurry gaze, he stared at the large thing directly in front of his face. A white cross with a thickening at the center occupied his whole field of vision. The omega tried to lift one hand to rub his eyes, but it felt as if a car were parked on it. He tried the other and felt a prick of pain. Somehow turning his head, Yoongi saw that on one side of him lay someone’s head, and in the bend of the other arm there was a plaster, with a tube stretching from it toward the very thing hanging before his face. He ran his eyes up and down several times and understood. IV.
“All right. An IV isn’t bad,” he anxiously reconstructed everything that had happened that morning in his memory. “An IV is definitely better than a morgue. But why? Nothing seems to hurt, and in general I feel fine…”
There was a strange lightness in his body. His heart was beating very strongly, but not anxiously; rather, as if in expectation of a holiday, like in childhood before Christmas. His ears did not ring, nothing hurt, he was not nauseous, his knees, lower back, and shoulder did not ache. Even the screw in his temple had stopped twisting for the first time in a week. It was warm and somehow especially cozy. Weightless, as if under a downy little cloud. And he himself was like a little cloud. Fluffy and light.
A terrible thought broke him into sweat. He kicked his legs, checking whether perhaps he felt so good and light because he no longer felt anything at all. Very recently he had read statistics on strokes in people under thirty. The legs obediently twitched, and from the side came a sigh and an anxious whisper.
“Quiet, quiet, everything’s all right. Does something hurt? I’ll call the nurse now. Is it very painful? Don’t worry, everything’s all right. I’ll call her now.”
That voice. How often Yoongi had remembered that voice and driven away the obsessive sweet haze. How often he had woken in tears, clutching a pillow in his hands. How often he had thrown the blue shirt around his shoulders… He shook his head and weakly waved his hand, driving away another hallucination.
“You? Are you in my dreams again? Only why is your head coconut-colored? You’re blond,” he fell back weakly onto the pillow.
“Dreaming again?” Jimin clarified, affectionately stroking Yoongi’s hair. “I don’t think so. Doctor Jung told me to sit with you and lower your stress level. And yes… if anyone asks, I’m your husband.”
At such news, Yoongi sat up sharply and finally focused his gaze.
“You’re real? Husband? Well, damn!” He began greedily examining the alpha’s face, still not daring to touch him. “How long was I out if we managed to get married?” he asked sarcastically.
“A few hours,” Jimin answered with laughter, catching his hand and kissing it. “Sorry I didn’t propose properly.”
“You move fast. Three months thinking, and then three hours and already a husband. Oh, I don’t feel so good,” Yoongi hummed, feeling the room swim from sitting up so abruptly. “Management will eat me alive. You’ll go explain to them yourself.”
“Lie down, lie down,” Jimin fussed, tucking another pillow behind his beloved’s back. “I’ll go explain. Last time they didn’t refuse me, and this time they won’t either.”
“They’re sellouts. Somehow it’s wrong to sell a person,” Yoongi complained bitterly, sinking onto the pillows. “By the way, husband, did they tell you what’s wrong with me, and why did they even leave you here? You’re… actually, why are you here and not someone from the company?”
“You see,” Jimin hesitated, choosing his words. “Basically… how should I put it… there is this… delicate matter.”
“Then give birth to it already,” Yoongi protested.
“Yes! That is exactly the matter… remember what we had on the beach, in the little house, in the room…” Jimin lowered his eyes.
“Hard to forget…” Yoongi snorted meaningfully.
“Well, basically, it turns out… that can have consequences…”
“Surely not syphilis? Not syphilis! That one was brought from the New World!” Yoongi gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.
“God, no, of course not! Not syphilis. But for life, yes. It’ll pass in about six months. Somewhere around half a year from now, you’ll be able to take it in your arms.”
Jimin barely held back laughter, watching how Yoongi’s forehead first wrinkled, then his eyebrows shot upward and his eyes grew round.
“You… you…!” Yoongi inhaled and forgot to exhale, beginning to boil.
“Quiet, quiet, breathe, you mustn’t get upset!”
“Mustn’t get upset? I’m going to strangle you right now, you lustful dog! What have you done, you cross-eyed squid? ‘If it’s not heat, nothing will happen.’ And I, idiot, believed you! You’ve ruined my career. I’ll strangle you right now! Conveniently, the morgue is nearby!”
Yoongi grabbed the IV tube and wound it around his hands like a garrote.
“All right, all right, all right, quiet, quiet, or the catheter will come out. Don’t leave the child without a father!” the alpha coaxed the patient, carefully untangling the tube from his predatorily clenched fingers. “We’re true mates, you and I. Five markers out of six, ideal compatibility. Did you really not feel it yourself?”
“What was I supposed to feel? I thought it was just good. It’s not as if I have that much experience. I thought it was like that for everyone. No? And why are you so sure it’s your child? We… and I could have, during this time…”
“Don’t worry about that. Definitely mine. And you are mine. Jin gave me a whole lecture on true mates, especially the interesting part about prairie voles.”
“Who? About whom?”
“Jin, you remember, the scientist. I went to him to find out why I can’t even look at another omega anymore, why every scent makes my soul turn inside out. So he explained. The three most informative hours since university.”
“Then why didn’t you come right away? Why did you have to do all that… or… oooh,” Yoongi covered his mouth with his palm.
“Exactly. Ooh. The only way out of our business is feet first. So I got out.”
“And how did you? I mean, the yacht? Was all that? Can you even tell me? It’s so horrible and horribly interesting, how all of it…”
“Let’s talk at home?”
Yoongi nodded silently, suddenly understanding clearly that his empty, echoing bachelor apartment had already become home.
“So you came to me, you’re here for me?” Yoongi clarified once more, carefully choosing his words.
“For you. For us… already three of us…”
The door slammed against the wall, bright light cut across their eyes, and a whirlwind flew into the room, filling all the free space at once.
“Who are the three of us?” Taerin-noona raised her brows, shifting a questioning look from alpha to omega and back again. “What? Seriously? So that’s why you’ve been walking around lately like a dead fly.”
“Like a sleepy one,” Yoongi muttered offendedly, squinting from the light.
“Ha! No. A sleepy one has at least some life in it, and you looked as if you were kissing a dementor at night. I was already thinking of going to a shaman, maybe an evil spirit or something… But it isn’t a spirit at all. Very much a person,” she winked at Jimin and held out her hand in greeting. He lightly shook the silver rings.
“Look! All your favorites!” she placed large bags on the table. The smell of meat and sauces floated through the room.
“And who let you in with that?” Doctor Jung appeared in the doorway and advanced angrily on Taerin as she turned. Doctors, apparently, had a sense for contraband.
“And who would stop me with it?” she answered, sweeping the doctor with a mocking look. “And since when do idols work in hospitals? Ah, where are our talent scouts looking?”
Taerin threw her head back and burst out laughing at her own joke, while the doctor lost his breath. The lady standing by the table consisted entirely of sparkle and rustle. Bright radiant eyes, hair blazing copper, pink laughing lips, arms and neck hung with glittering stones, a noisy lush dress hugging juicy curves. A living Titian Venus gave him an assessing look, licked her lips predatorily, and began setting foil boxes on the table. Boxes as shiny as she herself was.
Doctor Jung coughed and, a little more calmly now, began explaining that caring for a friend was wonderful, but from the dishes brought, they needed to choose something light, something that would not overload the stomach or interfere with sleep. Ideally rice and simple chicken soup.
Venus rolled her eyes offendedly, snorted that she was not stupid enough to drag pork cutlets into a hospital, and began tearing the film off the bowl of that very soup.
While the doctor examined, listened to, and palpated his patient, the patient observed a duel between two heavy gazes. His guests were holding the same spoon and silently deciding between themselves who would feed the sick person soup. The opinion of that very sick person was not taken into account. They settled on Noona giving rice and Jimin pouring in soup. Yoongi decided he would not climb into a fight between Godzilla and King Kong. He would eat first and then show them all that he was not a child, but an adult person, an accomplished artist, and in general. For now, the adult accomplished artist obediently turned his head right and left and opened his mouth like a little chick. Two nannies took turns placing food there. Yoongi sighed heavily, chewed, and looked plaintively at the doctor, begging with his eyes not to judge and not to tell anyone.
“Doctor, what did you give him? I haven’t seen him this rosy and alive in about three months,” Taerin exclaimed happily, scraping up the last of the rice.
“Sleep,” Doctor Jung decided to work in his favorite little joke.
“Wow! Could you give me some too?” Noona giggled, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“You, I would not let sleep…” Doctor Jung muttered, turning toward the equipment and studying on the black monitor not the green glowing curves but the beauty’s reflection.
“What?” she blinked, trying to understand whether she had heard him correctly.
“What?” the doctor asked back with almost sincere innocence, quickly turned around, and winked.
Taerin’s mouth opened like a goldfish’s, forming a perfect round “O.” She was about to draw in air to answer, but here Yoongi’s patience ran out. He had held out as long as he could. Waited for everyone to leave, but the pressure inside was growing, and no one intended to go anywhere. He pulled Taerin toward himself and whispered as quietly as possible.
“Noona, I need your help. I really need to go somewhere.” He jerked his head toward the bathroom.
“I’ll help,” Jimin immediately jumped up.
“No! You sit there!” Yoongi grabbed the collar of the hospital gown, protecting the remnants of dignity like a princess on a pirate ship. “And turn away! And cover your ears! And don’t turn around until I come back!”
“What is there I haven’t seen?” Jimin grumbled offendedly, turning around together with the chair and scraping its legs terribly over the floor.
“And you too, turn away,” Noona ordered the doctor sternly.
“One moment, I just need to disconnect the catheter,” the doctor removed the end of the tube from the catheter and plugged the opening with a small cap. Yoongi did not even wince, although it hurt. He was currently concerned with something entirely different. At the speed his noodle legs could develop, leaning on his battle girlfriend, he reached the cherished little room and mentally thanked the designers with all his heart for the two red handrails by the toilet.
There really had been some magical potion in the IV. Even in the blue bathroom light it was noticeable how his face had come alive and rounded. Maybe Jimin had lied to him, and he had not been unconscious for three hours, but three weeks? Bruises under the eyes cannot diminish that much after three hours of sleep, can they? Or was it all because of that mandarin scoundrel? What now? Could he not step away from him? Spend his whole life tolerating that cunning face beside him, holding that little palm?
At that thought, Yoongi felt warmth fill him from within. That is how a hot-air balloon fills with hot air. Any second now, it would lift off the ground. He had to splash cold water onto his face. One must not feel such things for a person. People are unreliable. The higher you fly into the clouds, the more painful it is to fall. Placing a hand on his stomach, he listened. He felt nothing. A stomach like any stomach. But they said someone was already living there… He would have to think of something about work, and quickly.
Leaving was frightening. It seemed that once he took a step beyond this door, the old life would end. He would have to live some other, new one, where he would have his own person… and then another… also his own. A life where he no longer belonged only to himself. He had not belonged to himself before either, but now there would be two more beings before whom he would have to answer, about whom he would have to care. But the new dependence did not seem frightening; on the contrary, at the thought of caring, of evenings not spent alone, warmth flowed through his veins again.
He took the handle and stepped through the door straight into Jimin’s open arms.
“You disobeyed me,” Yoongi whispered, pressing close and breathing in the smell of airports and airplanes.
“You told me not to turn around until you came back, and you’ve already come back,” Jimin whispered in response.
“Doctor, I already feel fine. Can I go home?” Yoongi asked the doctor, who had already moved toward the exit.
“To be honest, I wanted to keep you one more night, observe you, take blood, put in another IV, let you sleep properly. You won’t sleep at home,” the doctor looked expressively at the “husband,” at which the latter began to study the evacuation plan hanging beside the bathroom door with great attention.
“You know, I would listen to the doctor,” Taerin joined the conversation. “There are journalists on duty downstairs.”
“You brought a tail?” Yoongi gasped, sitting on the bed.
“No, it wasn’t me. I walked past them. I’m like a mouse—no one noticed me,” she hurriedly defended herself.
“How could anyone not notice you?” the doctor blurted, unable to restrain himself, already standing by the door.
Venus threw him a pleased look, stroked Yoongi’s head as if he were little, and nodded seriously.
“Stay, my good one. If the doctor says so, you must obey.”
“Yes, one must obey the doctor,” the doctor picked up playfully, looking for some reason not at his patient but at the way a glint of light played on Venus’s white cheek.
“Get a room already, you two,” Yoongi could not stand this stare-shootout.
Now it was the doctor’s turn to study the evacuation plan attentively.
Yoongi had somehow already decided for himself that he would not let Jimin go to any hotel, and in general would not let him move a step away from him anymore. They would be together, alone… A folding bed had been brought for him for the night. Both of them secretly waited for everyone to leave. They so hoped to talk, but the doctor put Yoongi on a new IV, and gave Jimin a sleeping pill, as he put it, for jet lag. There it was—medical revenge. That would teach them to giggle.
In the morning, Doctor Jung flipped through the fresh test results, nodded in satisfaction, hummed, listened to and felt Yoongi, and prescribed one more IV to consolidate the result. By the time the manager arrived, the severe rapper was already sitting there lively, fresh, and well-fed, like a baby after a bath.
They left through the underground garage, but even there, a flash shot them a couple of times. Jimin rode separately in the car he had rented at the airport.
---
They entered the apartment in a strange, awkward silence. It tugged at the nerves and knocked in the temples. Yoongi tried to bury it under words the way one throws handfuls of sand over a burning house.
“Well then… dear dragon, come in, make yourself at home. My tower is your tower. The kitchen is there, the shower is in the bedroom, you should wash up after the road, the bathroom is here. Look! A secret door! The designer said guests would faint, and there are no guests. Drop your shoes just like that. I still can’t get around to buying a nice shelf. I’ll order delivery. Korean food for you, Brazilian? I wonder if we have a Brazilian restaurant somewhere. I’ll order for the evening too, but in the evening I’ll have to go to work. Come in, come in. Where’s your suitcase?”
He bent to gather the fallen orchids, but Jimin beat him to it.
“I’ll put them in water…”
“I’ll find a vase…” And neither of them moved.
Yoongi examined Jimin’s face anew. The wrinkles at his eyes, the front tooth sticking forward, shadows from lack of sleep, two days’ stubble, slit-like little eyes. In those eyes shone the frightened, incredulous joy of a child who has received a gift he had stopped hoping for. A gift frightening to touch, and unwrapping it would be sacrilege.
Yoongi straightened the crumpled, drooping flowers and finally asked the question that had tormented him the whole way home.
“Before we do something stupid, while I can still handle my feelings, I need to know how long you’ve come for. You already said, but I want to know exactly.”
Such bewilderment appeared on Jimin’s face that Yoongi felt ashamed.
“I literally died and came back to life for you alone. Forgive me for not warning you. I couldn’t. Everything was prepared quickly and secretly. I was sure you would accept me. It seems now is the time to ask. Will you accept me? Forever.”
Yoongi wanted to joke that he would think about it, but there was so much hope and pain in Jimin’s gaze, and the orchids he still held were trembling so hard that joking would have been cruel.
“I need to know something,” he decided to stand at the edge of the abyss for one more second. “You bought this ‘forever’ at the price of someone’s life. Whose? You can spare me the details, but… the news talked about several people on the yacht. Who were they?”
“Wow. Where did several come from? There was only one. What swindlers! His name was Caçador de Almas—the Soul Hunter. Not even his own mother would cry for him. Rumor has it she was the first one he sent to the next world. Before loading Cassi onto the yacht, I arranged a meeting for him with the families of the children he had…”
“Children?”
“Yes. He was from that church gang. Cassi looked a lot like me. Same height, also Asian. Once he decided to set me up. I don’t forget things like that. I bought our happiness with the life of a rabid dog whom even the Apostle Peter himself would have shot. Well, Namjoon said that.”
“Well, if Namjoon said so,” Yoongi nodded importantly, feeling the spring in his chest loosen. “And will anyone take revenge for him? His comrades? You have brotherhoods there, families… I read.”
“Yes, there are brotherhoods, but there is no one there to take revenge. We made sure.”
“Oh God. Tell me they were terrible people without whom the world became cleaner, and I’ll believe you.”
“They were terrible people without whom the world really did become cleaner. The bad thing is that even more terrible people may come to take their place.”
“And how did you abandon your own?”
“They think I died. Namjoon and two other people know. The most reliable ones.”
“And the police won’t look for you?”
“The police closed the case with great relief and gladly crossed me off their lists.”
“Enemies?”
“I died.”
“You are here forever now?”
“Now I am not going anywhere away from you until the end of your days, unless you drive me away yourself.”
“That sounds like harassment.”
“That sounds like a promise of eternal happiness!”
The orchids, which had trembled throughout the whole conversation, flew to the side, and Yoongi found himself imprinted, as if permanently, into a hot chest.