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Jaemin’s first snowfall happens on December 1st.
He’s never seen snow before, not from where he came from. He hardly went outside when he was part of his previous pack, not a choice he made on his own, it was one forced upon him.
There was no freedom where he came from, hidden away inside a stifling basement because the elders told him he needed to be there, had to be there in order to keep the village safe. Jaemin accepted it, didn’t have the awareness to question their logic, he didn’t know any better. Worst of all, there wasn’t even a window where he could stare out of and watch the snow fall, left only to stare at peeling paint and listen for the lock on the door opening.
It was a much different environment compared to the pack he’s in now.
Jaemin considers it a miracle, fate even, when Jeno’s pack stumbled upon their small village. It was then he learned how barbaric and unethical his pack was. It was all he ever knew, so he never questioned the right or wrongness of what they were doing to him.
He thought it was normal for lesser wolves like himself to be treated like that, that’s what his pack told him, but Jeno showed him the true reality of his situation. He taught Jaemin—no, showed Jaemin how he’s supposed to be treated, and any less than that is unacceptable.
Mark, the alpha, was the one to challenge his pack leader when he saw the state of things. Jaemin wasn’t the only mistreated in the pack, but he was the only one they kept locked up. His previous pack leader, an older man who still believed in the ancient laws that most packs have started to throw away, foolishly accepted Mark’s challenge.
He stood no chance against Mark, a young and strong leader whose pack was recently passed down to him after his father died.
After it was over, Mark helped bring the pack into order, chasing out any stubborn and cruel wolves and allowing the rest of the pack to elect a new leader. As that was going on, the others were scoping out the rest of the houses, making sure there were no stragglers, and that was when they found Jaemin.
The story never fails to bring a smile to his face.
Jaemin was welcomed into their pack with open arms after they were horrified to learn what was done to him.
Jaemin felt happiness for the first time, true happiness that made his chest feel light, chasing each breath he took with a smile. It was a complete contrast to how he felt before he was rescued, when he dreaded each inhale because the dust that filled his lungs was suffocating in that basement. There was a heavy weight on his chest while he was trapped in his old life, crushing his ribs, making his existence painful.
But not in Jeno’s pack, here he felt safe.
And most of all, he felt loved.
He felt the love from each of his packmates, but most importantly, he felt loved by someone special to him, someone he holds dearly to his heart, someone who became a beacon of light in his life the moment he opened that old, rickety basement door and saved him.
Someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
“Jeno.” Jaemin’s eyes are glued to the sight outside the window. He thinks he’s imagining it at first, wonders if they’re just dust particles catching the light just right as they fall, but then more float down from the clouds, impossible to ignore. “What’s happening outside?”
“Hm?” Jeno looks up from his plate, cheeks stuffed full of food. He looks like an adorable chipmunk. “Wrut?”
Jaemin laughs breathlessly at the sight and Jeno’s unintelligible words. It took him a long time to allow himself to express happiness out loud like this, or let himself cry. He was scolded a lot at his last pack for things that were natural for them to do. He couldn’t laugh or cry, any sound out of his mouth was wrong, an annoyance, a burden.
Sometimes he worries that Jeno, or Jisung, or even Donghyuck will snap at him for expressing himself freely.
But they never do.
Jaemin stands up and approaches the window to get a closer look. It’s so small, little white specks falling from the sky and hitting the ground. Now that he can see the ground, he realizes there’s more of it, collecting in patches over the grass.
Jaemin’s hypnotized by the sight.
“Why is there white stuff everywhere?”
He turns to look at Jeno only to find the older tilting his head curiously.
“White stuff?”
“He means snow, genius,” Donghyuck quips as he walks into the room. “It’s the first snow fall of the season. The ground is cold enough for it to stick, it might be a rough one this year.”
“Snow?” Jaemin repeats.
“I hope we don’t get snowed in like last year,” Jeno groans, clearly less excited about snow than Jaemin.
Jaemin approaches Donghyuck who’s making his plate with the breakfast they made this morning.
“What’s snow?”
Donghyuck has a slice of bread in his mouth that slips out and falls at Jaemin’s question. He catches it with his hand and then gives Jaemin a concerning look.
“Snow? You don’t know what that is? How–”
“Donghyuck,” Jeno presses, giving him a stern, almost scolding look Jaemin can’t quite piece together.
Donghyuck sighs and places his plate on the table.
“Ok, well it happens when it gets cold outside. You’re aware of the seasons right?” He waits for Jaemin to nod his head before continuing. “Good, so you know we have spring, summer, autumn and winter. Currently, we’re experiencing the winter season. It gets really chilly outside,” Donghyuck wraps his arms around his body and shakes to help visualize it, but it just makes Jaemin laugh.
“Donghyuck, I understand the temperature.”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes in playful annoyance. “Well sorry for trying to help. If you don’t need me, then I’ll take my leave.”
Before Donghyuck can grab his plate and hightail it out of here, Jaemin grabs it first and starts to run away as Donghyuck chases him. There’s only a slice of bread on it, and a piece of fruit so it’s not like it’s something that can’t be easily replaced, but Donghyuck is always up for a chase and so is Jaemin.
“Jeno tell your mate to sit!”
Jaemin stops running abruptly and his eyes lock with Jeno’s wide ones. His cheeks are flushed, the color spreads down to his neck and the very tip of his ears. Why? Because of what Donghyuck said? Jaemin’s heard the word mate before, the word was thrown around a lot in his previous pack, but finding a mate was far from the forefront of his mind.
“What about mates–” His words are knocked out along with all the air in his lungs as Donghyuck collides into his back.
They fall onto the floor with a groan. Donghyuck is sprawled over his back, and he’s dramatically whining in Jaemin’s ear about being in pain despite the fact he’s currently putting all his wait on to Jaemin.
“Get off of me,” Jaemin grunts and tries to shake Donghyuck off, who clings to his back instead, like a leech.
“Why did you suddenly stop, you could have hurt my perfect face,” Donghyuck nags into his ear.
Jaemin sighs and then braces his hands flat against the ground and lifts himself up. Donghyuck yelps and rolls off, hitting the floor with a thud.
“Jaemin,” Donghyuck whines, but Jaemin just dusts himself off and goes back to Jeno’s side like Donghyuck isn’t even there. Donghyuck stands up and picks up his plate that somehow managed to fall to the floor without spilling or tipping over. “Fine, have your mate teach you about snow.”
Jeno pinches the bridge of his nose. “Donghyuck,” he scolds, he looks like he’d rather be buried alive than endure this conversation any longer.
“What? You can’t stand there and pretend that you two aren’t meant to be Jeno, it’s clear to everyone here.”
“I don’t want to discuss this right now.” Jeno stands up and grabs their coats from the coat rack in the corner of the room. “Here,” Jeno smiles at Jaemin as he hands him his coat, then he turns around and glares at Donghyuck. “We’ll be outside.”
“Erkay,” Donghyuck mumbles, food already stuffed in his mouth as he grabs Jeno’s seat and sinks into it. “Have fun, lover boys.”
Jeno rolls his eyes in agitation and grabs Jaemin’s hand. “Ignore him,” Jeno mutters. When he meets Jaemin’s eyes, his face softens and a smile replaces the frustrated frown.
“Let’s go enjoy your first snowfall.”
-
Jaemin blinks up at the sky as he’s sprinkled with tiny snowflakes. It chills his skin every time one lands on a part of his skin not covered by his clothes and melts, leaving behind a sheen of liquid.
Something crunches underneath his feet and he looks down. He stepped in a small pile of snow. When he lifts his feet, he sees his shoe left an imprint in the sparkling snow.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Jaemin nods his head with a smile, turning to look at Jeno who’s already watching him with a matching grin.
“Let me see your hands.”
Jaemin gives Jeno his hands and Jeno flips them so they’re palms up, then he places his own palms underneath Jaemin’s hand.
“Try to catch the snowflakes. I heard each one is different.”
“Really?” Jaemin quietly gasps, fascinated with the new knowledge.
Jeno nods his head with a chuckle. “That’s what Renjun told me, and I trust him.”
They catch snowflakes for a while, though each one melts as soon as it hits Jaemin’s warm palms. Still, they try, and Jaemin looks closely at each one that falls into his hand to try and catch every little detail before it melts away.
“Jeno?”
Jeno’s still watching snowflakes fall into Jaemin’s hands, but he tears his eyes away at the sound of his name. Jaemin’s eyes are soft, tenderly looking at him and it makes Jeno’s cheeks flush, not due to the chilliness in the air.
“Are we mates?”
“Um.” Jeno’s eyes flicker down to their hands where snowflakes are still falling onto Jaemin’s hot palm.
A contemplative look falls onto Jeno’s face, one Jaemin can’t read. He thinks he can feel Jeno’s emotions, something he noticed starting happening a few weeks after they rescued him. Whenever he was around Jeno, especially close, skin to skin, he’d feel a fuzzy, tingling sensation in his chest. He was already happy being around Jeno, but it felt ten fold when they were together, and he just knew he was feeling Jeno’s happiness alongside his own.
It was like being on cloud nine.
Right now, he feels Jeno’s nerves wracking through him, and all his uncertainty bubbling to the surface. Under all that though, he feels the warmth of Jeno’s affection for him, all his love he holds for Jaemin.
“I think we are,” Jaemin answers his own question. Jeno’s eyes flicker back to him and stay, the insecurity in them slowly dissipates. “And if we aren’t, I’d like to be,” Jaemin whispers, taking a step closer.
He’s sure they are, and he’s not the only one who seems to be certain of it either. He thinks the rest of the pack figured it out before they did, and Jaemin doesn’t want all of their packmates teasing to be just teasing anymore, he wants it to become real.
“J-Jaem.” Jeno licks his lips, a nervous habit Jaemin has picked up on. He does it whenever Jaemin is close, like this. “Are you sure? I don’t want to force you into something, not like your last pack.”
Jeno lifts his hand and it stays in the air for a moment as doubt starts to settle in his bones again, but before Jeno can retract it, Jaemin grabs it and places it on his warm, rosy cheek. He could feel that was what Jeno wanted to do.
“You’re not like them.”
“I never want to be, that’s why I’m making sure you’re positive about this. I want you to want this, actually want it, not just because of all the stupid teasing we get. I don’t want you to think this has to happen, because it doesn’t. This is a choice, a choice you make.” Jeno’s voice wobbles a little as he whispers those words. He’s nervous, and scared, and worried, Jaemin can feel it all. “You’ll always have a choice when I’m around.”
Jeno’s sweet, that was the first thing Jaemin noticed about him. Sweet, and caring, and bursting with love and affection for the people he allows into his life. Jaemin’s grateful Jeno extended his heart out and included Jaemin in his small bubble, and showered him with endless love.
Jaemin’s lips break out into a smile.
“Of course I want this, I want to be with you Jeno. There’s no doubt in my mind that where I belong is beside you.”
Jeno gasps quietly in shock, like he didn’t expect Jaemin’s boldness.
Jeno sucks in a sharp breath, and somehow manages to one up Jaemin's boldness.
“I love you.”
Jaemin’s eyes crinkle as he smiles big and bright. He leans forward, lips brushing against Jeno’s
“I love you too.”
-
“Do you wanna go for a run?”
Jaemin’s eyes widen. “Won’t our paws get cold?”
Jeno kicks at the ground which is still mostly dirt and grass, though by tomorrow night, it’ll probably be covered in snow. “We’ll be fine for an hour or two.”
Jeno offers Jaemin his hand with a smile and Jaemin grabs it instinctively. Jaemin feels it inside himself and inside Jeno too.
Trust, love, and a deep craving to never let go of each other.
Jaemin’s found his true mate.