Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jungkook doesn’t have time to ditch his work uniform when he gets the text from Sookja, so he drives home in his yellow turnout pants with the black knee patches, suspenders swinging loose at his hips. He leaves his jacket, vest, gloves, and helmet in the car. The rest comes with him.

The trek to their apartment is a miserable seven floors. Bunker gear is no joke on a good day, much less living in a walk-up in the heart of Seoul. His boots alone weigh more than the baby currently growing in Sookja’s belly. At the fifth-floor landing, he pauses to catch his breath and try her phone one more time. It’s been radio silence since the last dry heave update.

on my way up. still nauseous?? he texts her, his 7-Eleven haul dangling from a plastic bag at his wrist.

(The firefighter’s uniform had made for an interesting conversation with the cashier.)

His phone trills with a KakaoTalk notification ten seconds later.

숙자

nope! it passed heh

bathtime now~

thank you for checking up!!

“Checking up?” Jungkook says to himself. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “What do you mean — ‘checking up?’ I’m home.”

정국

hold on

are you sure?

you said you felt like you were going to pass out

i drove over right away

namjoon-hyung has agreed to give me a half day

숙자

jungkook-ah that was mainly a figure of speech

everything is life or death to me right now

i’m nearly 5 months pregnant

my baby is currently a grapefruit ready to harvest!

Jungkook doesn’t even want to imagine what “life or death” will look like to Sookja four months from now.

정국

*our* baby

숙자

kkkkkkkk 

right right

She follows this message up with a voice note.

“Jungkook-ah,” she begins over the sound of running water, “I woke up to a million kicks this morning, so maybe the baby is starting to respond to that Mozart playlist you always put on before leaving.” A splash, like a hand dipped in water to test its temperature. “Ah, and since you’re already home, it would be nice if you could hang up those floating shelves I ordered last week. They emailed me to say the package was delivered! There should also be a yellow envelope in the mailroom with copies of the ultrasound — there’s one for your abeonim and one for Jimin. Or will they want to share a copy, do you think?”

“No, they won’t. They don’t live together anymore. You know that,” Jungkook says, then sends the voice note off and hauls his ass back downstairs to locate their accumulated mail.

“You don’t think so?” she says in her next voice note. “Jimin has seemed a lot happier these last few weeks. I was wondering if maybe they’d reconciled.”

Jungkook pauses with the toe of his boot on the next step. “… Reconciled?” he says into his microphone.

“Yes, and were waiting to share the news with us.”

“Why in the world would Jimin wait to tell us that, in this scenario you’ve made up?” Jungkook says. He thunders down the last two flights of stairs at a clip.

“Given ...” There’s a long pause in this latest voice note. “... your feelings on Jeon Dongju.”

“Jimin shares my feelings on Jeon Dongju.”

“Does he?”

Jungkook pats himself down for their mailroom key, unlocks the door with one hand, and shoulder-checks it open. With his other, he records his response. “Yes. He does. What makes you think otherwise?”

“Well. Your feelings can be pretty intense.”

“I’m a pretty intense person,” Jungkook says. He won’t credit that to his alpha. Even before his presentation, Jungkook was a little ball of vitriol and rage. Afterwards, he leveled out into something more like ferocity, evenly sloped, easy to draw from or sustain for his own purposes. It’s served him well in his line of work. “Jimin is, too. People just misjudge him because he’s an omega.”

“But Jimin is more forgiving than you are,” Sookja argues. “He’s the one who convinced you to start writing letters to your abeonim. He’s the one who pushed you to mail those letters. He got your abeonim to find a therapist and then he got you to try scheduled calls … there was the introduction between me and Dongju … and the Busan trip in June. All Jimin’s doing.”

“Jimin thinks the baby deserves to have a grandparent from my side of the family. For obvious reasons, he refuses to count himself. That’s all.” As in everything, his eomma’s motivations are unselfish. “He isn’t doing any of this because he likes the guy. He’s doing it because … because that’s just who he is! He wants to believe in redemption arcs.”

“That’s a good thing to believe in,” Sookja says, with an emphasis very clearly aimed at Jungkook.

“If it were up to me, we’d make hating Jeon Dongju a national holiday,” Jungkook mutters, then adds, firmer now, “The second that bastard steps out of line, I’m pulling the plug. We’re never seeing or speaking to him again.”

“Sure, but everything has been smooth sailing so far … Jimin and Dongju seem cordial … and since the line of communication is back open …”

“Since it’s back open — what? They’re going to get married a second time? Behind my back?” The thought of it is genuinely laughable. “Jimin calls me when his stove starts making funny noises. He calls me when his peace lilies lean too far in one direction. He doesn’t hide stuff like that. He couldn’t, even if he tried. And anyway, my abeonim is nearing seventy now. Not really Eomma’s type.”

“‘Seventy’ is being a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”

Jungkook props his phone up on a metal rack containing approximately fifty units’ worth of unclaimed packages. “Everything you’re describing is circumstantial. Has Jimin said something to you? Expressed an interest in reconciling with my abeonim?”

“Hm,” begins Sookja’s latest voice note. “Would you be upset if he had?”

Jungkook picks his phone back up in an instant. “Would I be upset if he had?” 

The voice note she sends him next is four seconds of uninterrupted laughter.

It occurs to Jungkook that Sookja is using his unexpected half-day as her newest source of entertainment. Pregnancy begets boredom. He’s being rage-baited for the pure fun of it. ha ha ha, he types out, thumbs mashing his keyboard.

정국

so hilarious -_- 

숙자

i’ve never heard you get angry that quick kkkkkkk

murder in your voice 푸하하

정국

don’t do it again -_-;;

“No, but Jimin really has been acting brighter lately!” she says in her follow-up.

“Jimin’s default state is ‘bright,’” Jungkook says in his response.

“Listen to this. He’s been coming over to clean almost every day. And while he cleans, he sings and dances. He takes breaks but only to touch everything in the apartment. He says dust is bad for the soul. He says you’re the number one source of dust in my life.”

Jungkook hears himself laugh. “Probably true.”

“He’s been getting so overheated around the place, I’m starting to think he’s the one who’s pregnant.”

The smile drops off of Jungkook’s face. “Good one.”

“Everything put together …” Her voice note trails off into silence.

“Has got nothing to do with my abeonim,” Jungkook says decisively. “They separated years ago. If they’d gotten back together, I’d know by now. Like I said, Jimin can’t keep a secret to save his life.” He scans the bottom shelf for a manila envelope. “As to your point about brightness … that’s because you’re giving him a new human being to pour all his love and affection into. Jimin loves love. He loves it more than anything. And then right below love, you’ve got children, puppies, cats, ramyeon, and the rest of us.”

“Surely you rank above ramyeon.”

“Maybe.” Jungkook’s mouth twitches. “Okay. Roughly speaking, what does the package of floating shelves look like?”

Her next voice note: “Roughly speaking, it looks like a brown rectangle with a shipping label that says, ‘Chae Sookja,’ followed by our home address.”

Jungkook hits the call button.

“Hello!” she says upon answering. The sound of running water is still high and coursing loudly behind her.

“Hello,” Jungkook says levelly. “You’re driving me up the wall.”

“If only we had some nice floating shelves for you to sit and rest on while you were up there …”

“What are the shelves for?”

“Displaying the ultrasound, of course.”

“We need multiple shelves for that?”

“And my books also. And maybe some fake plants and taper candles.”

“I wouldn’t recommend putting taper candles on floating shelves,” he says in his best first responder monotone. “Fake plants are also highly flammable.”

“Ha,” Sookja says. “Good one. There’s nobody in this city more qualified to deal with a fire hazard than us.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Jungkook groans, notching two fingers in his eye sockets. He presses down, trying to soothe the tension headache beginning to radiate through his skull. “Sookja.”

“Jungkook.”

“There are probably one hundred packages down here. Did the courier take a photo of the box?”

“As to your other point,” Sookja says, picking back up on an old thread in their conversation. “How can you be so sure?”

“About the flammability of long candles on hard-to-reach surfaces — ? Or about the chemical structure of dyed plastics?” 

“No, silly. About your abeonim and Jimin.”

Jungkook’s hand falls away from his face, landing heavily at his thigh. He blinks his eyes open, staring into the dull blur of the nearest sconce.

“I don’t agree that he’s bad at keeping secrets. Jimin’s poker face is incredible. He can be an excellent liar when the situation calls for it,” Sookja continues. Jungkook hears the click and drip of what he can only assume is ample amounts of bubble bath. “Remember the time he surprised me with that two-tier cake? Or those concert tickets the year after? He even pretended he’d forgotten it was my birthday!”

“He’s an excellent liar if you don’t know his tells,” Jungkook says in reply. “You forget that I grew up with him.”

“I thought he moved in with your abeonim when you were thirteen? By then, you were already relatively grown.”

“I grew up with him,” Jungkook repeats, more adamant now. “When I was allowed to meet him for the first time, I was still very much a — I was young enough that it left … a deep impression on me. Even the idea of it.”

“An eomeonim?” Sookja says.

“An eomeonim. Someone who had put up with my abeonim long enough to get to know me. It’s … he’s been in my life for almost sixteen years.”

“And was it a scandal? Their age gap, I mean.”

“Not in my abeonim’s line of work,” Jungkook says. “If it caused any kind of stir at the time, it would have been minor. Lawyers are largely crooks and perverts.”

“Oh, don’t generalize, Jungkook-ah.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Where was Jimin working when they met? Or was he in college?”

Jungkook sighs. “How many times have you heard this story?”

“I have pregnancy brain!”

“… He was a student at PNU. There was a job fair … advertising career development opportunities,” Jungkook says after a short silence. “He started out as an intern, then became a kind of assistant. Eventually the title was ‘paralegal.’ By then, he’d graduated.”

“An assistant to your abeonim?”

“At his firm, yes.”

“Then Jimin was taken advantage of,” Sookja says somberly.

“And that’s why he’ll never take that sorry fuck back. What he didn’t know then, he does now,” Jungkook says, more heatedly than he intends. He sets a hand on his hip and studies the toe of his left tactical boot, scarred beyond respectability. He should tell his Fire Chief Kim Namjoon to put in an order for a replacement pair, but thinks it would be pointless, considering. “He and my abeonim are over.”

“For good, you think?”

“Over my dead body,” he clarifies. “I’d like to see either of them attempt a reconciliation.”

Jungkook will burn everything to the ground, firefighting credentials be damned. He’ll blow his father’s whole life up.

Sookja makes a reproachful noise. “One day you’ll have to be more charitable. You may hate your abeonim, but I doubt the baby will. Blood is thicker than water, as they say.”

“I’ll be more charitable when I can fan myself with the final pages of his will.”

“Aigoo! God forbid.”

“God willing.”

“Hm.” There’s a splash from Sookja’s end of the line. “At least give me one of his tells, then.”

“Who? My abeonim?”

“No — Jimin. How do you know when he’s lying?”

Jungkook mulls it over. 

He doesn’t just know when Jimin is lying. He knows when Jimin is physically uncomfortable, when he’s overthinking something, when he’s flustered, grouchy, on the verge of tears, hungry but pretending not to be for the sake of courtesy. When he’s relaxed, impatient, restless, inspired. Jungkook sifts through his flip-book of Jimin expressions, the body language animating his bird-like movements: the tilt of his head, the taut hinge of his jaw, the fine bones of his wrists, an ankle propped against a knee, a pair of small hands crossed at the base of his spine, his slow, maddening blinks. 

Those blinks used to work on Jungkook like a skeleton key, unlocking every last door in his most well-guarded chambers. The greatest terror of his childhood was Jimin’s silent treatment, the notion that Jungkook may have disappointed his eomma beyond forgiveness. Jimin needed only to stare flatly at Jungkook — saying nothing, moving not a centimeter — to prompt an immediate confession.

Well before Jimin’s arrival, Jungkook had been an accomplished nuisance. He left no stone unturned in his pursuit to antagonize his father. Some of his schemes were subtle, unseen. Others involved bald-faced treachery, trashed hotel rooms, shirked curfews, underage drinking, stolen packs of cigarettes.

The one and only time he’d tried drugs, Jimin found him out within a fortnight. That particular lecture is still seared into Jungkook’s memory; it remains one of the few instances Jimin has ever raised his voice with Jungkook. 

Jimin, who was normally graceful and soft-spoken, content to withhold his less polite comments, seemed to grow in size beneath the incandescence of this new anger. Jungkook had never seen him like this before. Molten fury rolled off of him in waves. He shut Jungkook’s bedroom door — unnecessary, considering Dongju was still at trial — and then he slammed the bottle of pills down with the strength of a martial arts board break. Silence rang out between them. Jungkook was too petrified to utter the first words.

“Are you suicidal?” came Jimin’s voice, an utterance so sharp Jungkook flinched. “Is that why you have this?”

“No, I’m not …” he mumbled.

“Speak up.”

“It’s — that’s for parties and … things.”

“‘And things?’ Look at me. In the eye, Jungkook.” Jimin was coiled as if to strike, his eyes kindling and flame. “If you’ve decided you want to poison yourself to pass the time, you can move out and do it where I won’t be able to see. Die if you like, alone and unloved in some disreputable alley with the other lowlives. Otherwise I am packing my bag and leaving tonight. Clearly I am not having the influence on you that your abeonim hoped I would —”

Jungkook, fourteen years old and conscience-stricken, dropped to his shins like a man moments from execution. For the first time in his mortal life he touched his forehead to the ground and then, crawling gravely forward, he touched his forehead to Jimin’s slippered feet, bowing over and over. It was the only way he could think to show the depth of his contrition. He was shaking his head back and forth, as if to ward off Jimin’s threats. 

He kept shaking it, whispering apologies, saying, “Eomma, I won’t do it ever again, please don’t leave me, please, you can throw it away right now, don’t leave, I’ll go with you, I’ll leave, too …” until Jimin went to his knees beside Jungkook, a hand pressed to his mouth to stifle his sobs. 

Jungkook’s horror at himself knew no bounds. It kept growing, swallowing him up. That he was capable of pulling this kind of anger and grief from Jimin he found unimaginable. His head pounded beneath the knowledge, novel and frightening. In all things, Jungkook thought of himself as powerless. Powerless and raging against his invisible bindings, the inhumanity of his father, this stern-browed lawyer who took no interest in Jungkook, who outsourced every bit of parenting, who watched his son’s outbursts run their course, then smiled dimly and returned to his work.

Jungkook had deluded himself into believing his own rage was futile, a weapon he dulled every time he used it. Now he knew his notions were false, that there were creatures over whom he’d had power all along and that he’d misused that power when they’d shown him nothing but kindness.

“I didn’t mean it, all right?” Jimin whispered, taking Jungkook by the armpits and wrenching him up. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t listen to me — I’m speaking nonsense.”

In those days, Jungkook still took for granted how young Jimin was. He was so intelligent, so natural at wielding authority, that it often seemed he was ageless, enduring, a real adult. Not the rotten make-believe sort that Jeon Dongju was. Then there were moments like this one, when Jimin looked and sounded his true age: twenty-two.

“Eomma …” Jungkook began.

“Sit up.” Jimin’s eyebrows were drawn in, desperate. He pulled Jungkook straighter, like the sight of him kowtowing was too unthinkable to dwell on. “Don’t die. Don’t go off. That’s … that’s how my appa left me.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry more.” Jungkook clutched at Jimin, pulling him in or pushing himself forward until they were chest to chest. His fingers dug into Jimin’s long-sleeved shirt in a tremulous stranglehold. “Don’t leave me, please. I’ll do anything you say.”

“You don’t leave. Where would I go, dummy?” A watery laugh, skittering down the nape of Jungkook’s neck. “You mustn’t — you’re so young, I — it’s you who’s little. You’re so small and you know nothing. All this life you have left to live. How could I say such things to … ?”

“Eomeonim, don’t say sorry,” Jungkook said, employing formalities to make his meaning more precise. “It’s all right. I don’t mind what you said. I already forgave you.” 

“All right if you want to do that horrible stuff to your body when you’re an adult, if you figure out your limits — healthy boundaries — recreationally, you … I can’t tell you what to do then, once you’ve moved out. But while I’m here, while you’re still little, that’s not allowed. Ever. I don’t want to have to tell your abeonim. I don’t want you to die, or become addicted. And he would only punish you in ways that would make you want to spite him worse. I know how your brain works. That’s the last thing on Earth I want. Okay?”

“Okay … I promise. I won’t do it anymore. Eomeonim, I promise to listen now. I’ll be good since it hurt you. I’m sorry again. I’m sorry I made you sad. I’m sorry for your appa, that he — sorry. I’m sorry I did wrong.” It was the most Jungkook had ever professed to another human being. The words were difficult, strangely shaped coming up, almost painful to eject, but then to hear those same words hit the air was somehow purifying, a restorative violence. It made him feel cleaner, lighter. “I didn’t mean it like that, to make you sad. I meant it for my abeonim … those things I do … the ones that are wrong … I only mean for him, not you …”

“You have too much anger in this little body,” Jimin murmured, sounding disconsolate, like he was talking to himself or consulting his higher powers. His voice seemed ready to cave in. “What can I do? I mean, really … what can I do? How can I help you when you become like this?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook mumbled, ashamed.

“Shall I put you in taekwondo?”

“I already did that when I was younger. Before you.”

“It didn’t work then.” Jimin was back to crestfallen. “So what should we try next? Dance? Baseball? Would you like to learn an instrument? A language? Something new, something to get you out of this big, empty apartment …”

Jungkook buried his face in Jimin’s throat, breathing in all the adrenaline and misery gathered there, the high keening stench that was normally so muted, a base level delicacy woven throughout the rooms of the penthouse. “I want to hit people really.”

“What do you mean you want to ‘hit people really?’”

“I want to do boxing.”

Jimin sat back, already rubbing one-handed at his brow bone. Jungkook’s arms fell away. “Will that help you?” Jimin murmured, eyes falling shut. “Will it make you feel less angry?”

“I don’t like hagwon — I hate it, I hate all the extra things he makes me do, I don’t even like school like that, to study until ten or eleven at night, then ride home with his driver, and sometimes at dinner you’re not here so I eat at the table alone, there’s nothing to do when you’re gone — and I want to hit people,” Jungkook whispered, heart hammering in his chest. “But be allowed to do it. I don’t want it to be like taekwondo was.”

Jimin sighed, but his brow had softened. It was this sort of kindness — quiet, focused — that made Jungkook want to go back to behaving himself. “An art, you mean. You want more lawlessness.”

“Yeah. I want it to be angry. I don’t want all those rules and scenarios. And if I bleed, that’s all right too. So — but you can go with me. No one else can. Only you.”

“As if I require permission from the fourteen-year-old,” Jimin said, eyes fluttering open. His expression was unimpressed. Jungkook felt the crazy urge to smile. “I’ll be there whether you want me to be or not. I’ll be there to tell you off when you’re shocked that it hurts. I’ll be there to sop up the blood and say, ‘I told you so.’ But …” He paused to take a breath. “There will be head gear, and I will thoroughly vet the gyms and their programs. You’ll start out with a trial period. One month. Slow and steady, working your way up with intention and discipline. You’ll have to show me you’re serious. Boxing isn’t a bandaid. You use your fists, but that doesn’t mean you forgo your brain. It may even be …”

“Mn?” Jungkook said, eyes on the tile floor of his bedroom.

“It may be that … that this will help you feel more in control of yourself,” Jimin said and touched an index finger to Jungkook’s nearest knuckle. “But you cannot control what you refuse to face. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“When you feel this way, you can’t run off. You can’t. Look at me.”

Jungkook glanced up through his bangs, glum with embarrassment.

“Do you understand me? Whether you’re bored or angry … why am I here if not to listen?”

“Eomeoni …”

“This is what I want most from you. I want you to believe that I have your best interests at heart. Of course I … I won’t be perfect —”

“Eomma is …” Jungkook mumbled, head ducked again to avoid eye contact, “… good.”

“— but I’ll only get better if you trust me.”

“That part … I do.”

“Then trust me with your feelings,” Jimin said, returned to the graceful and soft-spoken temperament Jungkook had, in the last two years, come to crave. “When you’re bored, at the very least give me a call. I’ll always have a moment to say hello, whatever my hours at the office. And when you’re angry, come see me. Even if you can’t say it aloud, isn’t it preferable to have company? To be angry with someone else beside you rather than alone?”

Throat tight with amazement, Jungkook whispered, “Fine … I’ll trust you … and I’ll … come see you instead.”

“Now, about this boxing …”

Jungkook’s gaze leapt up right in time to catch Jimin narrowing his eyes.

“If it gets too dangerous, it’s done,” Jimin said in short order. “All talk of it. If you were to … I don’t even want to say it. Let’s leave it at … ‘if it gets too dangerous.’ Okay? In that case, I reserve the right to rescind my offer. That you agree to accept. Right now.”

“I accept,” Jungkook said. “But, Eomma, remember that I don’t want my abeonim there. Only you can come along with me.”

“All right,” Jimin said and reached up to thumb an errant tear from Jungkook’s jawbone. Jungkook hadn’t realized he was crying. It seemed Jimin hadn’t either, peering curiously at the moisture caught on the pad of his finger. “I’ll talk to him and see what he thinks. Should you break a bone, however, you’ll be back in hagwon and then some. I don’t care how much you dislike school. I’ll stand over your desk to keep watch.”

Jungkook let the smile unfurl then, slow and steady.

Before Jimin, Jungkook had been an unruly creature, displeased with his lot in life, the oppressive coldness of his father, that lonely waterfront apartment, the tutors and cooks and cleaners, the rigid expectations, the unending solitude. He had been mute, bullheaded, full of spite. He would sooner sleep on a bus bench than try to articulate any of his feelings to his father. Jungkook was well-versed, but only in the craft of treachery and transgression.

After Jimin? He’s something else on the whole.

Sixteen years together, beginning when Jungkook turned thirteen. That’s far more nonverbal communication than can be summed up by words alone. Jungkook doesn’t know where he would even start. By now, it’s something of a frequency in the air, a wavelength only he and Jimin are attuned to.

“Can’t,” he says to Sookja.

He won’t give Jimin’s secrets up — not for anything.

“Why not?” 

“Betrayal of trust.”

“But you’re only betraying Jimin’s trust so he won’t betray mine,” she counters.

“If Jimin is lying, there’s a good reason for it. Therefore, the betrayal to him outweighs the betrayal to you,” Jungkook says, a counter to her counter. 

Sookja cackles, suddenly mirthful. “What a mama’s boy you are!”

“This again,” he mutters, though secretly a small part of him is preening.

Having spent a decade of his life without a mother who wanted him — and what did his father say whenever prompted? That person could barely be convinced to carry you to term. He’s long gone by now. Trust that he’d reach out if he had any desire to see us — Jungkook takes great pride in Jimin’s continued involvement in his life.

The last thing on Earth he would ever do is squander that.

After everything — the separation, the divorce, the fallout of starting over in the same city, then moving across the country to begin again — Jimin never goes longer than a week without calling. When he was still living in Busan, he regularly commuted two hours to see Jungkook. He mailed Jungkook homemade care packages. He eventually let Jungkook move him out to Seoul, and with minimal fuss.

(Granted, Jungkook had spent the previous three years wearing Jimin down, sending him affordable apartment listings, pitching family outings, and by then Jimin was established enough to make a formal career pivot in a big city.)

Now they’re a ten minute drive from one another. Jimin still calls, or fields Jungkook’s compulsive check-ins. They spend their weekends trailing each other through the night markets and visiting the Seoul Arts Center, catching up over chai and biking along the Han River, making each other dinner or planning movie nights. Jimin seems to have settled into himself and this second life away from the sea, the law firm, the marriage, that old penthouse apartment belonging to Jeon Dongju.

They’re happy here together, thanks in no small part to the work Jungkook has put into rewriting his father’s wrongs. Thanks also to Jimin’s boundless optimism, his heart of gold, his ability to make friends anywhere and everywhere he goes. 

Thanks — thanks above all else — to his willingness to humor Jungkook’s whims.

“And about the package,” Sookja says, interrupting his thoughts.

“Right,” Jungkook says. “It would be nice to know where to look.”

“I just remembered they also dropped off the chandelier replacement I ordered last month — delayed shipment. Try looking for something large and heavy. It should be sealed with orange packing tape.”

“Hold on. What chandelier replacement?”

“Thank you!” Sookja chirps.

“You didn’t tell me —"

“I’m getting into the bath now. My back is seriously killing me. Remember: I’m pregnant so I get whatever I want whenever I want it!”

“Sookja —”

Behind Jungkook, the knob belonging to the mailroom door rattles. He turns to intercept his neighbor, offer them a greeting or an apology for blocking the entrance. Before he can get a word out edgewise, the door has clicked open and a silver-haired ajumma is letting out a teakettle shriek. She slaps a hand to her mouth, giving Jungkook a wide-eyed once-over. 

“Good Lord!” she says, muffled.

For a moment, he has no idea what to make of her reaction. He’s no bigger or scarier than his usual tattooed intensity, and he hasn’t treated anything more serious than Class A and Class K fires today. Sure, he could use a shower, but that goes without saying in his line of work. 

“… Firefighter-nim … should we all be evacuating?” the ajumma says in a voice of pure terror.

Jungkook runs a hand through his sweaty hair. Into the phone, he says, “I have to go. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

Seven flights of creaky stairs, balancing a convenience store haul and a tower of boxes in his arms. Jungkook drops everything at their welcome mat, ignoring any flashes of the word FRAGILE in large red print. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to care right now. He digs for his keys, arms aching. He is going to have words with the mother-to-be bathing somewhere behind this door. ‘No one more qualified to deal with fire hazards’ his ass.  

Letting out a grunt, Jungkook heaves the boxes over the threshold and drops them one more time for good measure, slamming the front door shut. He pauses in their cramped entryway to take stock of himself. His feet are killing him. Min Yoongi, the Assistant Chief, is going to give him hell tomorrow for running out of the station in his uniform again. And to top it all off, he had to talk his third-floor neighbor down from a trauma-related panic attack. 

Jungkook’s hierarchy of immediate needs is as follows:

1. Rinse the grime off.
2. Nurse a cup of ginger tea (with milk and honey).
3. Try to squeeze in a power nap before it’s time to cook dinner.

Sookja’s pregnancy baths tend to run long, though, so he’s doomed to at least an hour of sitting in his own filth. He tries phoning his neighbor (and frequent gaming buddy) Taehyung as a last resort, but he’s sent straight to voicemail. you owe me at least 5 marvel rivals matches, Jungkook messages him and pockets his phone.

Sighing, he wrenches his tactical boots off, setting them out of the way of the more decent (less destroyed) footwear, ten or fifteen pairs of shoes overflowing from the hallway closet. His are the most heat-damaged by far. He nudges a pair of ballet flats out of the way, eyes landing on the pile of unopened packages. The manila envelope from the doctor’s office is sitting at the very top.

He still can’t believe he agreed to send his father a copy of the ultrasound, but every time Jungkook closes his eyes, he sees Jimin’s soft bangs split over a pair of darkly imploring eyes, can hear him saying, “You don’t have to forgive him. You only have to be more mature than him. Okay? I don’t want you holding onto any grudges for my benefit.”

The grudge is by this point still alive purely for Jungkook’s benefit. Jimin has long since forgiven Dongju for every misdeed Jungkook is holding onto — the HR violations, the coercive marriage proposal, the emotional and financial manipulation, the unpaid labor of raising a burgeoning alpha with little to no help, the constant tyrannical demands made of a twenty-something-year-old omega from a working class family. These are hardships so old and so deep-set, to let go of them now would mean liberating Jungkook from the parts of himself that love Jimin the most. The younger, more vulnerable parts, the parts that identified with Jimin’s early suffering, that saw in that suffering his own bleak childhood, its sterile conceptions of care, its iron-handed disdain. 

Jungkook can’t let go of it. Any of it. He grew up with the grudge. It’s fused to him and his alpha. He wears it like a second skin, warmed by the hatred, terrified that without it Jimin will forget himself and go back. Jungkook needs the grudge to feel in control. Certainly he needs it now that he’s on speaking terms with his father again. His father, who’s grayer, less vindictive, sixty-three and somewhere on his fourth or fifth divorce, still living it up in coastal Busan.

But Jungkook doesn’t know how to say any of that to Jimin. That man is not my abeonim — he never will be — and you’re something other than my eomma. Something different. Something more. 

With a wretched exhale, he tears a slit in the yellow envelope. There are six copies in total, most of them for Sookja’s immediate family. The last two are for Park Jimin and Jeon Dongju. Jungkook gazes down at the shadowy blob, shades of silver and charcoal. His lips lift in a small smile. He got to experience this live, but seeing it laid out still robs him of his breath. Here is the baby he helped make, tiny fist balled up protectively.

(The ultrasound technician had to point that detail out. At the time Jungkook couldn’t tell fist from head behind the film of tears.)

“This baby is going to be a boxer just like you were,” Jimin said that same afternoon.

He hadn’t been at the appointment, and Sookja made it clear Jungkook should hold off on any show-and-tell demonstrations. She’d ordered extra copies for a reason. Already she was hatching plans to hand-deliver ultrasound photos to each and every family member’s doorstep.

But Jungkook couldn’t help himself. He had to see his eomma right then and there. As soon as the appointment was over, he dropped Sookja off at home and drove over with the original in hand. He needed to see it hit Jimin’s face, because he knew it would. It was something they’d always shared in common. A love of children broadly and babies specifically. 

He couldn’t see why he should have to hold off.

For the first time in Jungkook’s adult life, Jimin was a ten minute drive away. Jungkook had spent a dedicated three years convincing him to move to Seoul, pulling out every last stop, all manner of persuasion tactics (threatening and ingratiating — everyone is artsy up here, you’d fit in perfectly, there are plenty of jobs for dancers and creative directors, think of all the coffee shops with wall-to-wall shelves of records, there are coin noraebangs on every corner, the shopping options are endless, first snow in Seoul is unlike anything in Busan, in fact it’s much colder here, you’d get to do all kinds of layering, the infrastructure is sound, the food is spicier, if you don’t come, I’ll die of sadness, it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask of you for as long as I live, don’t you want to put as much distance between you and Dongju as humanly possible? etc. etc.), until Jimin was so sick of revisiting the subject that he up and signed a lease without telling Jungkook. 

Jungkook woke up one morning CC’d to a rental agreement email, the subject line being, are you happy now??? He checked the date. Yes, it was real. He opened his front camera to confirm that he was, in fact, still himself: Jeon Jungkook, alive, breathing, twenty-six years old, so desperate for this day that he’d only let himself seriously entertain thoughts of it under the cover of darkness.

He sat up in bed. Then he left Jimin a voicemail that began and ended with the words, “Yes I am, thank you very much.” 

pick up the phone, he wrote over text, sleepy-eyed and no less needy for it. why ignore my calls now of all times?? i want to celebrate.

Jimin responded forty-five minutes later, in the vein of: you are forbidden from celebrating. you’re already getting exactly what you want.

정국

seriously?

지민

yes seriously

정국

i’m looking at the lease again

you’re really close to me

it sounds nice, wow

searching up the address..

why do you have the tastes of a seoul native?

eomma wow

wowow

i’ll never complain about anything again

i’ll pay for all your meals

i’ll buy you a new winter coat

지민

enough

정국

you signed without touring the place??

지민

i have a friend living nearby who went and saw it for me

he gave his stamp of approval

정국

which friend?

hoseok-hyung?

지민

yes

정국

see, you’re going to love it here

you already have me and hoseokie-hyung

what about work? do you need help finding stuff?

i can ask around

지민

no i do not

focus on getting that job offer

정국

pick up the phone

hurry up

지민

no

정국

????

what the ㅎㅎ

why not

stop hanging up on me

지민

because i don’t want to talk

i’ll be able to hear it in your voice

정국

....really

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

i’m not gonna gloat

i swear

anyway you’ll have to talk to me sooner or later

you can’t run from this conversation forever

지민

i choose later then

정국

-____-

enjoy it while it lasts

when you’re my neighbor, we’re doing things differently.

지민

farewell~

talk soon~ ^_^

정국

stop doing aegyo over text

shameless

at least wait until we’re in the same room again

Three weeks later, Jungkook drove down to Busan with a moving truck. Jimin tried not to be a sore loser about it, but Jungkook was a worse winner (smug) and his antics were obviously driving his eomma up the wall. Yes, fine, Jimin would miss the beaches, and the drinking buddies, and his picturesque little neighborhood by his favorite bakeries and community theatre. All well and good. But he would come to love this new life with Jungkook even better. What Seoul lacked in natural bodies of water it more than made up for in manmade attractions. Jungkook spent two full days following Jimin around his deconstructed studio apartment and grinning from ear to ear. It got so bad that Jimin temporarily banned Jungkook from being in the same room as him.

(Unless Jungkook was performing manual labor of some kind, which suited his ass-kissing alpha just fine.)

So it would be a waste not to take advantage of this newest privilege. Jungkook had fought to get Jimin here. It was silly to play the part of over-polite guest now. Jungkook was many things — some of them because of Jimin, some of them in spite of Jimin — but he was not an over-polite alpha, the kind who bided his time, sat on his hands, pretended he didn’t want to impose.

Jungkook’s desires were many and momentary, and the vast majority of them he acted on. He couldn’t bear to live any other way. Rarely did he listen to the little voice in his head that was always saying, Stop, pause, slow down, think before you act.

It was both his strength and his fatal flaw.

Ultrasound in hand, he dropped by Jimin’s little Seoul loft in Yongsan-gu, a hop and a skip from the Han River, all purple tile and boundless built-ins, one whole living room wall made entirely of glass (in addition to the balcony). His unit overlooks a tree-lined street, and, several blocks over, a slice of the glittering river. No matter where they live, Jimin has always needed to be within arm’s reach of the water. 

Jungkook didn’t call or text ahead. He just showed up. 

It’s one of his favorite parts of living in the same city; Jungkook is free to spring himself on Jimin whenever he likes. Any time you need me, I’m here. Always. You know that. Jimin’s words. They were practically a promise — and one Jungkook intended to make good on.

Last summer, he took that pledge a bit too literally following a bad fight with Sookja, and when he discovered Jimin wasn’t home to let him in, Jungkook made himself comfortable on the doormat like a complete and utter creep. Admittedly, he was a bit wine-drunk, too befuddled to remember Jimin was organizing a jazz class that ran long on Thursdays. By the time Jimin made it home, Jungkook had started to doze off, head propped loosely against the front door. It gave Jimin quite the fright (in his words: “I thought you owed a debt to a murderous gangster and that gangster was teaching me a lesson by leaving your corpse on my doorstep!”). Jungkook went home the next morning with Jimin’s spare key, so all in all, he considered it a roaring success. He was still in an active fight with Sookja, sure, but he now had unrestricted access to Jimin’s apartment. 

He used that same key copy to let himself inside the afternoon of the ultrasound appointment, only too happy to ambush his eomma. It was fortunate Jimin was home, a lazy day between his work as a Cultural Coordinator for a renowned theatre program.

This baby is going to be a boxer just like you were. That was the first thing that Jimin had said, peering down at the ultrasound. He was standing by the natural light of his balcony door, one finger smoothing gently over the baby’s shadowy face. When he smiled, it seemed almost wistful.

Jungkook misread the look on his face and felt his heart plummet. “Eomma,” he said, stepping forward to take the ultrasound back. He slipped it into his coat, ears hot with shame, already chiding himself internally for a mistake so obvious. “I’m sorry. I should have given you a warning first.”

Slowly, Jimin took back his empty hand. “A warning?”

“I’m … this was insensitive. I know how long you’ve struggled with — your journey with — with —”

A look of understanding crossed Jimin’s face. “Jungkook …”

With a wash of fury, Jungkook recalled the days of arguing, long and incessant, tense voices rising up behind closed doors. How could he forget? There was no problem Dongju wouldn’t throw his money at, and Jimin’s infertility struggles were no different. All the forced lifestyle changes, those were immediate: strange meal plans, medications, even surgery. Injections and weight loss regimens. He’d subjected Jimin to every conceivable treatment plan, many of them in-home and so invasive Jungkook could go a week or longer without seeing a single glimpse of his eomma.

When he finally did, Jimin was too pale and too withdrawn to utter a word beyond, “Are you hungry? What shall I make?”

“Eomma, you have to eat first,” Jungkook was always saying, and when that didn’t garner a response to his liking, he changed course, refusing food, starving himself loudly and theatrically, the only bargaining chip he could see that would push Jimin beyond this hollow detachment.

It worked. Jimin had no choice but to join Jungkook at the dining table with a small plate of his own. That evening, their meal was simple — beef sirloin, one cup of white rice, and baechu kimchi. Of the beef, Jungkook had little to say. The cook time was poor and the flavor minimal. Jimin barely had enough energy to muster eye contact in those days, much less cook for two.

Jungkook watched his eomma hawkishly, monitoring the listless angle of his wrists, the silverware he was toying with. He kept up a mental count, tracking every single bite Jimin took, waiting with impatience to see his throat perform a real swallow. Only when Jimin had cleared half of his plate did Jungkook lift a fork to his own mouth. By then his meat had grown cold.

“Hunger strikes are quite extreme for a boy your age,” Jimin said, the first bit of humor Jungkook had heard from him all day.

“You have to stay with me until you go to bed,” Jungkook declared. 

In another three years, he would present, give up on this pretense of blustery swagger, start listening to the alarm bells coming from his own body. But at thirteen he got by on pure bravado, the belief that he could achieve anything he set his mind to if only he tried hard enough.

“And why is that?” Jimin said.

“So I know you digested it all.”

Jimin scoffed, like he found Jungkook’s antics amusing, but unserious.

“You have to. I’ll throw mine up if you don’t.”

With a loud clink, Jimin set his fork down. He was finally looking Jungkook square in the eye. “Say again.”

“I know how to. A girl at school explained it.”

Jimin’s eyes narrowed.

Jungkook lifted his chin, stubborn as a mule. 

“It’s funny … I don’t doubt for a second that you would,” Jimin said, after a moment more of contemplative staring. Then he let out a small laugh, almost against his will. Shaking his head to himself, he picked his fork back up and shoveled another bite of rice into his mouth. 

“Why do you want a baby?” Jungkook said impolitely, into the silence between them. The only sounds were their silverware and their chewing. It was a gulf he wanted to cross, shrink down to a negligible nothing.

Jimin swallowed. “Because your abeonim does.”

“So? Ignore him. You’re too little for one.”

“I’m not little.”

“You are,” Jungkook said, belligerent. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I know what to do with you just fine.”

“I’m not little like a baby and anyway I did most of it myself before you got here,” Jungkook said, and because that sounded to his own ears unforgivably mean, ungrateful even, he added, “I like you, but I don’t need you.”

“Then why call me ‘Eomma?’”

“Eomeonim,” Jungkook said, to be a know-it-all. 

At that age, he couldn’t put into words why he liked Jimin so much — the sudden onset of the fixation, or its intensity. What he didn’t see then he does now.

Jimin arrived to Jungkook prim and proper, alert, maybe even straitlaced. Billowing dress shirts with lots of buttons, belted slacks, silver jewelry. Everything tucked in nicely, for an optimal silhouette. He’d been “dating” Dongju for a year by then, had been introduced to Jungkook and moved into the apartment without fanfare. It felt like Jungkook woke up one day — abrupt, out of the blue — to a step-mother who loved him.

Jimin cleaned like he was repaying a debt. He never cut corners. He had firm moral convictions, but he was easily bent by money — most people are, Jungkook grants. He didn’t tire of tasks or give up partway through. Just the opposite. When he found something difficult, he applied himself to it more tenaciously than before. It seemed he was grateful for everything because he’d grown up with nothing; this imbalance created the kind of hungry tension that Jungkook could follow with his eyes forever. 

Park Jimin was the antithesis of Jungkook’s father. 

For his father’s part, the answer was simpler. Dongju wanted what was new and young and beautiful — all things Jimin embodied. He wanted what was full of life, having so little of it himself.

Across the dining table, Jimin snorted and returned his attention to his plate.

“You shouldn’t take care of me if it makes you tired,” Jungkook remarked. “I’m old enough to cook and clean and everything else. My abeonim gets annoyed when I do it, saying it’s your job or the people he pays. I can do it, though.”

“I like to,” Jimin murmured after a miserable pause.

“Fine,” Jungkook said, trying to sound old, adult, like he was granting Jimin the privilege of his care. “Then I’ll take care of you too, but … you can’t lie to me like my abeonim. If you do, I’ll know and I won’t forgive you. After … I won’t let you take care of me anymore. You can’t ignore me either. And … and if you don’t lie, I’ll be honest with you too. So don’t get sad when I say things like this. It’s the truth. You’re too little for a baby. You shouldn’t have one very soon. So don’t listen to my abeonim.”

“‘So this, so that.’ As if it’s that simple.”

“Just do like I do,” Jungkook said in plain terms, “and dislike him.”

Jimin, twenty-one then and too pretty for words, lowered his eyes to the dining table’s red-tinged wood grain, wide as a porous network of veins. He was biting back an unwilling smile. In a voice that seemed to want to tremble, he said, “Someday I might want one, you know. I’d like to know … if it’s possible.”

Jungkook shrugged.

Jimin shot him an unhappy look. 

“Someday you can have one with someone else.”

“Or not.”

Again, Jungkook shrugged. “Or not,” he parroted. “But you shouldn’t starve yourself or you won’t ever have any. And then I’ll join you. So we’ll both be hungry, the two of us. I’ll put my fingers down my throat until it all comes back up. And we’ll dislike my abeonim together. No matter what, we’ll dislike him.”

Jimin sighed, dropping his forehead into the crook of his arm. His hair was black as crow, but his bangs framed his face in the shape of a sweet half-heart, as if even this part of him had surrendered to that strange golden warmth he gave off. “What trouble you are.”

“I know,” Jungkook said, and for the first time in his mortal life, the knowledge brought him the pleasure of devotion rather than the pleasure of malice, rage, ill will.

Now, Jungkook slid his hand over the ultrasound in his coat pocket, stone-faced, searching Jimin for signs of the rage he was feeling — the powerlessness, the old, blistering wounds left behind by his father. “Eomeoni …”

“Don’t apologize to me,” Jimin said, older now and just as beautiful as he was at that redwood dining table, “especially if you’re going to do it so stiffly.”

“I wasn’t … I wasn’t thinking when I drove over. I was in a rush to show you the baby, but it must feel like — I’m rubbing it in your face, after everything that —”

“After everything? After everything, I’m quite convinced you’re incapable of rubbing anything in my face, unless it involves my new postal code.”

Jungkook averted his eyes, hands in his pockets. Not even a joke as obvious as this one could lift his spirits.

“Are you feeling sorry for yourself?” Jimin said, after a considering pause.

“No.”

“All right. Are you feeling sorry for me?”

Jungkook threw him a look, harassed, halfway to apologetic.

Jimin had one eyebrow cocked. “The last thing I ever want from you —”

“I know. I know, Eomma. I can’t help it.”

“If you know, don’t be sorry for me. I’m thirty-six years old — that door is close to shutting for lots of omegas my age. Some of my friends, even. I’m otherwise healthy, I love my job, there’s delicious food and better liquor within two hundred meters of me at any given moment, and I am very loved. Or do you object to the quality of my life here?”

“I don’t —”

“Because it’s a life you’ve gone out of your way to give me.”

Jungkook’s pulse ticked higher, either a stress response or a heady shot of serotonin straight to the bloodstream. He couldn’t tell which it was right then. He was getting plenty of mixed signals from his alpha already.

Jimin folded his small hands at his thighs, gazing down at himself. He looked as he had that evening at the dining table, biting back a smile — of pleasure, and gall, and earnestness. “Do you believe me when I say I like my life in Seoul?”

“Of course I —” Jungkook cut himself off. “It’s what I’ve wanted to hear you say for — a long time. I’d delude myself into believing it even if it weren’t true.”

“If it weren’t true, I would simply leave.”

Jungkook felt himself go still. It was a fractional change to his nervous system, but it hit his brain in the form of a sudden spike in adrenaline. The mere thought of Jimin’s absence was enough to stop his world where it spun.

“But here I am and here I intend to stay. For the foreseeable future, at least. Please believe me when I say … I’m so pleased for you and Sookja.” Jimin glanced up through his bangs, no longer biting the smile back.

It changed his face, opened him up in a way that lodged something heavy in Jungkook’s throat. Was it the air in the room leaving or was he thirteen years old again, threatening self-harm if Jimin didn’t continue living — loudly, feelingly — and if he didn’t do it where Jungkook could see? 

“I believe you,” Jungkook murmured.

“It makes me happy to see you so excited. It makes me happy to think of this creature you’ve helped bring to life — that I’ll meet them in a few short months. Knowing what I know, that fatherhood is for you both … an intention and a promise. That it’s … that it is … generous rather than authoritative or ‘traditional.’ It’s been many, many years since I’ve felt truly cut up about my own deficiencies.”

“It’s not a deficiency,” Jungkook interjected, his voice breaking on the last vowel.

“Thank you for thinking so.” Jimin shrugged. “Not everyone did.”

In seconds, Jungkook’s expression had darkened.

“That was a joke,” Jimin said, seeing the change in Jungkook’s face. “I’m fine. No hard feelings. Not anymore.”

“In general or about my abeonim?”

“About your abeonim, and about … my issues.”

“Well, you should,” Jungkook said. “You should have hard feelings. He deserves all of it, tenfold. Seriously, it’s —”

“It’s all right. I can’t hold grudges the way you can,” Jimin said. “You’ve always been good at channeling your anger, making it known … making it useful. Mine is easy to bury or forget about. I never know what to do with it.”

“You’re too forgiving,” Jungkook said, which had been his formal opinion on the matter for many years. “But what you do with it is … you grow, and you change, and you get rid of it. And … I suppose that’s fine, too. So long as you’ll let me hold onto this grudge for you.”

“You can hold onto whatever you like, for as long as you’d like to. I’m not the only person he hurt, am I? Let it be for your sake and not mine, though,” Jimin said, soft-voiced. He crossed his arms more fully at his chest, turning toward the liquid warmth of the sun as it sank below the horizon through his balcony door. “The fact remains … I’m very content with where I am. With everything I have here. I don’t have any reason to dwell on what I lack.”

Jungkook edged a little closer, studying Jimin’s shoulders in one of his ever-present sweaters, the backlit heat of his blond hair, turned into something sweeter and more orange by all the natural light. “Then … Eomma doesn’t ever get lonely?”

“Hm?” Jimin blinked up at Jungkook, chin drawn into his shoulder, his lashes flickering. “After a marriage like that? No.”

“Good.”

Jimin hummed in acknowledgment and glanced back at the cityscape, clusters of glass skyscrapers burnished a brilliant fire-like color. He was elsewhere, lost in his churning thoughts.

“... Do you say that because you don’t get lonely or because you have people to take care of your loneliness?” Jungkook went on, intent now on his line of questioning.

“Everyone gets lonely on occasion. Here and there, it’s inevitable,” Jimin said. “But I have lots of wonderful people around me.”

“I see.”

Another short silence.

Jungkook said, “By people, do you mean —”

Jimin whirled, his expression caught somewhere between exasperated and affectionate. “If I ever have anything worth announcing, you’ll be the first to know.”

That did nothing to settle Jungkook’s overanxious alpha. “All right,” he ventured.

Jimin glanced at Jungkook’s hands, buried in the pockets of his coat. Perhaps his mind was still on the ultrasound, and the miraculous gray blob, and his own struggles with pregnancy. “Are you waiting on the gender?” he wondered.

“Mn.” Jungkook made a conscious effort to remove his hands from his pockets, affecting to look less tense, less like a wild animal poised to flee. “Until the birth. We’ll know then.”

“I like that,” Jimin said. “What about a name? Do you have one yet?”

Jungkook shook his head, boring a hole into Jimin’s forehead with his black eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jimin said immediately, as if he could sense the reverence brewing in Jungkook’s expression. “I know my name is unisex, but I forbid you.”

All at once, a hard gust of laughter came out of Jungkook. “Jesus,” he coughed. “You know me too well …”

“Of course I do,” Jimin said. “And I suspect Sookja has her own ideas in mind, so don’t go making her angry on my behalf. I won’t be held responsible for a lovers’ quarrel. Save that for after the baby has learned to walk.”

“Sookja thinks you hung the moon and stars. She’s more likely to take your side than mine these days.”

A smile flickered at Jimin’s lips, the first etchings of a dimple showing up on the right-hand side of his face.

“She still calls you ‘Gyemo’ though,” Jungkook said. “I keep telling her to stop.”

“Well, that is what I am. Actually, I’m probably less than that after the divorce.” Jimin tilted his head like he found this thought interesting. “I’m not technically your anything anymore.”

“No,” Jungkook said. In a hard voice, he added, “That’s not true. You’re —” Language momentarily abandoned him. Along his throat, he felt his pulse climbing again, a minute jump in the flow of his own blood. Stress response. Anger. Something large and impossible to name behind his ribcage. “You’re not Gyemo. You’re something else.”

“I’m ‘something else?’ Wow,” Jimin said, teasing. “What a poet my Jungkookie is.”

Jungkook huffed, disgruntled some but distracted from his original argument by the warmth behind my Jungkookie. “It used to be, ‘What trouble.’ Now, ‘What a poet.’” He gave Jimin a look he was sure Sookja would describe as mushy. “I’ll take it, even if you’re only kidding.”

“Yes, you’re a poet and your baby is a future featherweight boxer.”

“Mn,” Jungkook said, satisfied by the thought. Satisfied by a similarity between him and the baby — already! — even if hypothetical. Alpha, beta, or omega, they would be a fighter. It was fated. “You really think so?”

“They must be, with a fist closed that tight. All the better to knock out their opponents,” Jimin said. In a quieter voice, he added, “Though you know my feelings on the matter.”

Jungkook’s expression gentled. He could feel his face becoming sympathetic. Sad, even. “There’s no way I would ever forget.”

“... So I won’t open that can of worms back up,” Jimin went on, a little more forceful now.

“Probably for the best.”

“Probably.”

Jungkook inhaled through his teeth, hoping to lighten the mood. “I turned out fine though, didn’t I?”

“… Yes,” Jimin said and a spark flared to life in his eyes as he homed in on Jungkook — Jungkook, who was taller, calmer, more put together now than he had been as a rambunctious teenager, with too many ugly feelings and nowhere to stow them. Even still, the familiar sound of Jimin’s anger kicked Jungkook’s heart into high gear. “After that behemoth of an alpha from down the street broke your nose, after I begged you to quit your lessons, after I threatened to make you study until your fingers fell off, after I cursed your abeonim to the depths of hell for allowing you to box in the first place —”

“Eomma.”

“You were fourteen when you started, and unpresented at that! You barely knew left from right! And I don’t even believe in hell — I was raised a Buddhist, for fuck’s sake — and — !”

“Eomeoni.”

Jimin’s mouth snapped shut. Jungkook reached up to slide a calming finger behind Jimin’s left ear, pressing down with the cool weight of his calluses. With his thumb, he tilted Jimin’s jaw back, angling his face up, forcing him to meet Jungkook’s eyes and the expression he wore: a look of pure, cleansing atonement.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook said, soberly.

“That’s … your second or third apology of the day,” Jimin murmured. “I … lost count.”

“It must be Christmas morning, hm?” 

Jimin lowered his eyes to the floor, unsmiling.

“I’m sorry I put you through that,” Jungkook said, studying the grim line of his eomma’s mouth. This was as thin as those lips ever got. “You were young, too. Too young to figure out how to raise someone like me. Too young to have to do it alone.”

“It’s not your fault. I don’t know whose it is. Well. Mine, no doubt. I could have persuaded you —”

“Maybe,” Jungkook said. “Then again … maybe not. Nothing ever made my brain as quiet as those gloves. At that age, I … needed it. I don’t mean my rational brain, either. I mean … the hindbrain everyone associates with wolves.”

“That day, it — it didn’t even happen in the ring. It was bleeding over, Jungkook. Into other things. Other parts of your life. I know that boy threw the first punch and — there were others involved, kids you wanted to protect — your sense of justice has always been very strong, but. You — you came to me gushing blood, you were too shocked to even make a sound, you were just … completely stunned, the bone was — I thought —” A sharp breath drew Jimin’s shoulders up, high and quivering. “I don’t know. What I thought.” His voice buckled on the last word.

“Come here,” Jungkook whispered and pulled Jimin closer, soothing him through a tiny hiccuping exhale. He slid his hand up the back of Jimin’s skull, raking his fingers through the satiny fall of his blond hair — a new stylist, lighter dye job than ever, practically cornsilk now — guiding Jimin’s face into his chest and petting him through a silent bout of tears. They were tears of the furious variety, Jungkook could tell. Jimin hated crying in front of Jungkook. “I’m doing my penance now. Okay?”

Jimin wedged a hand between their chests, trying to push free. “Your sixteenth birthday was right around the corner and then … how awful to have such an important celebration turned into … to … to have to present, even, while you were recovering from —”

“I didn’t mind so much,” Jungkook said, an admission of such honesty it brought a foolish smile to his face.

The memory was still glorious even twelve years later. Two months of neurotically doting care from Jimin, so much focused attention it even began to fluster Jungkook. How cold Jimin became with Dongju, who insisted this behavior was excessive, that a sixteen-year-old boy didn’t need anything more than rest to heal a broken bone, that Jungkook was no longer a child. Coldly, Jimin dismissed Dongju, returning again and again to Jungkook’s side. One night he woke to the sound of his bedroom door clicking open, Jimin tiptoeing in with his phone flashlight angled at the wall, then freezing guiltily when Jungkook sat up in bed, whispering, “Eomma, I’m not gonna stop breathing in my sleep …” even as warmth flooded his system.

Jimin crept over to Jungkook’s bedside, one hand pressed to his mouth. “Did I wake you or were you having trouble falling asleep?”

“Both. I don’t know. I can’t get comfortable like this.”

“Aya, Jungkook,” Jimin scolded, leaning over to inspect Jungkook’s set-up. “You keep moving the pillows. You have to rest at an elevated angle …” Then, with a sigh of resignation, he circled the queen mattress and climbed under the blankets from the opposite side.

“Eo … Eomeoni is sleeping here?” Jungkook whispered, too fraught with nerves to move a single muscle.

“I’ll just watch videos with my earphones in for a little while. I’m already awake, it’s fine. I was up reading files for your abeonim. Don’t move your pillows any more,” Jimin was whispering, and briefly shoved over to rearrange Jungkook’s mountain of pillows to his liking, small fists pounding them pliant. “Do you want the swelling to go down or not? Lie back. You need to be unconscious long enough to hit stage three NREM sleep.”

“Stage three … what?”

“Stage three is when your body heals injuries,” came Jimin’s voice through the darkness of Jungkook’s bedroom. “It’s babies and children who need that stage the most. That’s what worries me. If you’re not getting enough stage three, you’ll wake up groggy in the mornings. It delays the recovery process.”

“What are you talking about,” Jungkook muttered, suddenly sullen, and collapsed back against his newly formed pillow pile.

“Jungkook — !” Jimin whisper-hissed. “Be careful! Don’t throw yourself around! Aigoo, trying to give me a heart attack …”

Laughing — laughing even as it sent bolts of dull pain through his skull, a price he was more than willing to pay in exchange for this — Jungkook whispered, “You watch one science video and act like you know everything.”

Gently, mindful of the broken nose, Jimin batted a pillow against Jungkook’s hip. “Go to bed. I know the congestion makes things difficult, but you have to get used to it in this new position. On your back, raised up. No tossing or turning. I’ll go to back to my room once you’ve hit stage three. Tell me if my phone disturbs you.”

“How will you know when I’ve hit stage three … ?”

“Because stage three is very deep. You won’t stir if I get up.”

When Jungkook woke up the next morning, his neck was achy from holding his upright position so long (clearly he had no problem sleeping through the night with a little help) and Jimin was fast asleep beside him, an open palm sandwiched beneath his cheek. His whole face was smooshed, mouth a fish-like pucker.

Anyway, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Jungkook presented five days later.

Now, Jimin said, “Back then, I blamed your abeonim for that injury, but … in truth, it was me who brought him the idea in the first place, who told him to let you take a class —”

Jungkook shushed him, tightening the hand he had clasped to his eomma’s skull. He threw in his free hand for good measure, pinning Jimin motionless from two separate points. Skull and waist. Yes. Jimin was too kind and too brave for his own good. This would do just fine, though. Both arms occupied, Jungkook’s alpha retreated as Jimin finally allowed himself to submit to the careful attention.

Jimin was a fastidious creature on the best of days, very nearly a control freak himself. He guarded his personal space like an exotic cat, batting away unwanted advances, showing his teeth when and where necessary. He tolerated Jungkook’s touch because Jungkook was needy, puppyish, permanently attached to Jimin by the miracle of his father’s second marriage.

Rarely did Jungkook allow his alpha to press for an advantage. Not now that he had a pregnant omega waiting for him at home. Nearness was enough. Sharing a room, taking in the sight and smell of Jimin to balance the scales, undo all the monotony and exhaustion of reality. But these were extenuating circumstances. Circumstances in which Jungkook felt well within his right to demand physical submission, though he knew — he knew, of course — the implications behind a gesture like this one. It was a taboo for a reason. An alpha immobilizing an unclaimed, unmated omega, and not the one carrying his baby.

“If it was your fault, it was mine first,” Jungkook said reasonably. “I planted the idea. I’m to blame. Now I … I’m making it up to you.”

“Penance my ass,” Jimin muttered into Jungkook’s t-shirted chest. He sniffled, nudging forward to dry his tears. In doing so, he almost seemed like an omega scenting his alpha. Jungkook’s pulse echoed through his ears, loud and vivid. “You continue to risk your life every single day.”

“Don’t curse so much.”

“I’ll curse if I damn well want to,” he snapped. “There are no babies in the immediate vicinity.”

“What about me?”

Jimin quieted at once.

Silently, Jungkook began to laugh.

Jimin used the hand wedged between them for leverage, throwing his weight forward, applying just enough pressure to shove Jungkook away, and then — wham! He thumped a tiny fist against Jungkook’s chest, letting out a noise of haughty passion.

Jungkook caught his wrist on the second attempt, drawing it up and away, so that Jimin looked a little bit like a vexed bird with its wing pinned back, ruffled and beating madly at air.

“I wonder,” Jungkook said, studying Jimin’s tightly closed fist, “at what point the baby will surpass you in pinky size. One year? Two, maybe? Or right after being ejected from the womb? What do you think?”

With pleasure, Jungkook watched Jimin turn pink. He tried fruitlessly to wrench his wrist free and, when that proved impossible, used his free hand to land a flat-palmed slap to Jungkook’s breastbone. It rang out like a gunshot.

“Ouch,” Jungkook said, not meaning it. “This is why I was the boxer and you weren’t.”

“Bring me your face.”

“Kiss?” Jungkook said, head cocked thoughtfully.

“I’ll slap some sense into you,” Jimin said, rising on tiptoe in his socked feet and nearly slipping against the wood floor in his haste to get a jab in.

Jungkook snagged his hips, pulling Jimin back to standing like a puppet-master marionetting their little doll. “Eomma has never slapped me in the face a day in my life,” he reported in a proud voice.

“I will now that we’re on even ground.”

Jungkook’s thumbs were caught in the belt loops of Jimin’s jeans. He used those thumbs to urge Jimin taller, more authoritative, and when even that emphasized their difference in height, Jungkook felt his smile turning stupidly boyish.

“This is ‘even ground?’”

“You’re in shoes!” Jimin cried, face tipped back to fling a wide-eyed accusation at Jungkook.

“I was too excited to show you the baby,” Jungkook said in explanation.

“Then take them off now.”

“The shoes or my hands?”

“You need your hands to do the shoes.”

“Do not,” Jungkook said. “I can kick my shoes off just fine.”

“Then … both.”

Jungkook pretended to think about it. “No.”

Another attempted slap. “Lousy little —”

“Poor Eomma,” Jungkook said, almost cooing, as Jimin exhaled a breath of beautifully potent spite, open-mouthed, his blond hair in disarray. “I’m not as little anymore, mn?”

“Unhand your eomma.”

“Shall I fix your bangs for you?”

“No.”

“Shall I wipe the tears from your cheek?”

“No.”

“Shall I quit my day job?”

Jimin froze, on high alert for false alarms. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. He turned a look of utter skepticism on Jungkook, a slow swivel of his small face. “What day job?”

“What day job do you think? Firefighting, of course.”

“You would never do that,” Jimin said, struggling now to keep the hope from his voice.

“I would,” Jungkook began, and after the pause between them had grown almost painful, he added, “if you asked me to do it. If it would make you happy. If you say to me, ‘Jungkook, I need you to quit your job for my peace of mind,’ I’ll quit. But you should mean it. And you should know it won’t be an easy decision for me.”

Jimin gazed into Jungkook’s face, saying nothing.

“Happier,” Jungkook amended.

“I — would never ask that of you,” Jimin whispered, seeming unconvinced himself.

“Hm,” Jungkook said. “But would it please Eomma? Would it make you happier with me?”

“Of course it would,” Jimin said. Then, sensing his advantage and judging it to be temporary, at risk of disappearing at any moment, almost drunk with sudden power — overwhelmed by his own good fortune — he wriggled free of Jungkook’s grip, demanding a bit of elbow room with which to plead his case. “Yes, it would. It would please me if you found a normal job. One that isn’t a threat to your life. No injuries, no hospital visits, no cancer risks. If you — I — all right. Fine. I would be much happier. I mean, if it would make you happy to — to make me happy, then …”

“It would,” Jungkook said, and left it at that.

“In that case … yes. I — yes. Yes please. Quit. I want you to. I really, really want it. Please, this is all I’ll ask from you.”

“So polite,” Jungkook said, sounding a touch too approving even to his own ears. “All right. After the baby is born, then.”

“That’s it?”

Jungkook felt his eyebrows climbing his forehead. “Do you want to shake on it?”

“But … there’s no catch?”

“Catch? What do you mean ‘catch?’ Do you think I would trick you?”

“No, I mean … you’ll do it just like that? I don’t have to do anything in exchange?”

To Jungkook’s horror, a single nerve-ending came alive in his groin, one subtle and compelling flare of inner sensation. It was his wolf’s doing and he knew it. He slammed the brakes on the chemical direction of his thoughts, cutting himself off before physical suggestion could become a fully formed image — an idea, even — and cleared his throat, rough-sounding.

“You don’t have to do a thing,” he said. “It won’t be like in childhood, when you begged me to give up my gloves. Okay? I’ll listen now. Happy?”

Jimin tried not to look like the answer was yes, but in seconds his face had split open on a silly, full-body grin, too much mouth and a peek of his snaggletooth too. The sight of it was worth every bit of pain and trouble this would cause. Every last bit.

In childhood, Jimin hadn’t been shy about voicing his dislike of boxing. He was loud and clear on that front. Jungkook’s father didn’t share these same concerns — CTBI and its associated risk factors. Even still, Jimin never missed a single match, tagging along for every bit of Jungkook’s training, the low-stakes sparring sessions Jungkook participated in with other youth boxers (amateur) and the occasional military-grade muscle pigs (not so amateur). Especially those. Jungkook had so surpassed his same-age peers in strength and stamina that his gym had begun to pull from their pool of more advanced fighters.

Jimin always looked gloomy, standing off to the side in his oversized cardigans, arms crossed tightly at the chest. Any time Jungkook took a hit to the face, skull ricocheting on his neck, a dazed look and a small splatter of spit, Jimin yanked his wool collar to his mouth to cover a sharp cry of sympathy.

It was like he was hot-wired to feel all of Jungkook’s pain. Sometimes this fact embarrassed Jungkook. Sometimes it intoxicated him. It depended on the day, really.

All the good-for-nothing alpha fathers who were assembled on the sidelines heard these cries uttered and treated them like a courtship invitation. A pretty, unmated, sweet-smelling omega was all by his lonesome and noticeably sensitive to violence? They assumed he was ripe for the taking — even if he was currently wearing an engagement ring. 

Like vultures they swooped in, preening at the ring’s edge, scent-peacocking to try to draw a reaction from Jimin, sometimes throwing out awful one-liners like, “If you need a shoulder to dry your tears on, this one right here is yours.”

And every single time, that sweet-smelling omega turned on his foot and showed his teeth until they shrank back.

When Jungkook’s session was finally over, he liked to hop from the ring with a quick crouch, maybe a neck crack for dramatic effect. He pounded a gloved fist to his t-shirted chest to mark yet another triumph over his sparring partner. Then he slung a gloating arm around Jimin’s shoulders and looked those good-for-nothing alpha fuckers in the eye, spitting his mouthguard out to say, “My eomma isn’t that easy,” in a low voice, fierce with it.

… With what, he didn’t know exactly, but that was right about when Jimin rolled his eyes and said, “Pick your mouthguard up right this instant.” He pointed a disapproving finger at the floor.

“But,” Jungkook whined, holding his arms out like a baby, “my gloves …”

Jimin unknotted them one at a time, fingers working deftly. He made sure to issue Jungkook admonishing looks all the while. “Say goodbye to your sabeom,” he said halfway through the second glove. “We’re going home.”

“Eomma, this isn’t taekwondo,” Jungkook muttered, starting to feel a bit embarrassed. One of the alpha fathers from before coughed to hide her laugh, averting her gaze when Jungkook threw her a withering glare. “I told you … we don’t call them ‘sabeom’ in boxing … it’s not like that here …”

“Taekwondo is respectable,” Jimin said, dealing his usual killing blow. This was a lecture that Jungkook had heard weekly since he’d first signed up for youth boxing classes. He was fifteen and a half — that was almost two years’ worth of lectures. “Boxing is beastly. Don’t ask me to pay one of them more attention than the other. I won’t. I absolutely refuse.”

“You pay me attention,” Jungkook said under his breath.

Jimin looked at Jungkook through his dark fringe, arranged across his forehead in an artful curtain. He was wearing silver hoops in his ears, a glittering Tiffany pendant around his throat from Jungkook’s father. He looked immaculate, as usual.

“That’s because you’re my baby,” Jimin said, like that closed the case.

Jungkook, who was drenched in sweat and even a bit of his partner’s spilled blood, flexed his now freed fingers. He yanked his leather headgear off, picked up his mouthguard, then shot his eomma an uncertain look. “Even if you didn’t give birth to me?”

“That just makes you more my baby,” Jimin said, carding a pair of dainty hands through all that sweat-soaked hair. He combed it into something approaching presentable, a casual slick back. “I chose you, didn’t I?”

“You chose my abeonim,” Jungkook said, just to be annoying.

“I chose your abeonim and his Jungkookie. Two-for-one deal — fried chicken and a side of pickled radish.”

“Ah? Why do I have to be the radish?”

“Because daikon is my favorite,” Jimin said.

“Oh,” Jungkook said, and when Jimin offered his arm, Jungkook took it without another word, sliding his hand down that pale little wrist until he’d caught Jimin’s fingers in his own and tangled them together.

He swung their arms to an imagined melody on their way out of the gym. Still gloating, his mouth quirked at every last one of those presumptuous alpha fuckers.

Jungkook lays the ultrasound envelope on the arm of the couch. He casts his gaze critically over their beige apartment, tight and cluttered. He knows it’s irrational to be unnerved by the mess; the whole point of moving in together was mixing Sookja’s objects with his own, until habit overran habit and the living space began to seem like a synthesis of their personalities. But with a baby on the way, chaos of this kind makes his wolf uneasy.

Across the length of their living room, he spots a paper bag bearing the logo of an expensive patisserie a five minute drive from the apartment. It’s been ripped open and abandoned on their coffee table, along with a stapled receipt detailing its exorbitant delivery fees. Sookja’s laptop is open beside it. She’s left two half-finished tea mugs beside the laptop, and three bottles of vitamins beside the mugs. A magazine and a highlighter, for the baby registry. And a scented candle, burning away unattended. From the paper bag, he can smell dark chocolate: she’s ordered éclairs, in addition to the floating shelves and chandelier replacement.

Sighing inwardly, Jungkook picks up the candle and blows out the flame, setting it somewhere Sookja won’t be able to reach.

Jungkook was twenty-six years old when he and Chae Sookja first crossed paths. He was by this point a passionate resident of Seoul — a fanboy, even — and a probationary firefighter, what the Assistant Chief Min Yoongi referred to as a probie, the rookie division of their emergency response team. This meant Jungkook’s first year on the job was mostly menial labor. 

For twelve months, he was forbidden from performing interior operations and in fact spent most of his time watching from the sidelines, cleaning up after his crew members, and running equipment to and from the threshold of incident areas. Occasionally he was brought in for salvage operations, which involved entering unsafe buildings only after they’d been evacuated and all fires extinguished. He entered these buildings in an effort to reduce damage to the original structures or to deem them too unsafe for anything but condemnation. 

Some days he was called in for salvage and the threat was not fire, but flooding. In that case, Jungkook could expect to spend his day diverting, collecting, and cleaning up water. Most people assumed this was the lesser of two evils: I’ll take water over fire any day! 

Jungkook? Not so much.

Beaches in Busan are one thing. Contaminated floodwater is another matter entirely, particularly in residential buildings involving bathrooms and broken plumbing. 

Floodwater salvage was by and large his least favorite call. For hours, he swept and shoveled and mopped, lifted heavy furniture up onto blocks, cleaned drains, vacuumed the water from sopping carpets. He laid salvage covers only to wash and dry and roll them back up hours later. If the carpet was too squalid to be saved, he used a box-cutter to carve and rip it away, kneeling in dank pooling water. If there were no floor drains to divert the flooding, he improvised them himself with a drill and a pair of safety goggles.

Those initial twelve months were grueling, to say nothing of Yoongi’s twisted sense of humor (“Everyone, please welcome our newest probie, Jeon Jungkook. He’s a rookie from the coast and he is delighted to make his debut with us here today. Jungkook-ssi, we’re all looking forward to your upcoming promotions! Would you like to give us a taste of your first stage?”). Kim Namjoon took Jungkook under his wing with far less sarcasm, though Yoongi seemed to bring out of the Fire Chief a rare silly side Jungkook never saw otherwise. 

(The Fire Chief and the Assistant Chief were like two divorced husbands who refused to admit they were still in love. That was what Jungkook had learned in his first year at the station.)

By his fourteenth month on the job, Jungkook was allowed to respond to active calls and enter burning buildings without direct supervision from Yoongi or Namjoon. It was at this point that Jimin up and signed the Seoul lease, kickstarting his cross-country move. Jungkook was ecstatic — really, he was — but this surprise threw a bit of a wrench in his job announcement plans. 

It’s not that Jimin is sensitive or delicate in a general sense. It’s just that he can sometimes, often, occasionally be sensitive and delicate about Jungkook in particular. Given their long history together, and the boxing phase, and the broken nose, Jungkook had decided he should hold off on advertising his newest career pivot. 

After he earned a real title, he would come clean about firefighting. As it stood, he was still technically a ‘probie’ and not making great money from it. 

It amused Jungkook that he had been discharged from an eighteen-month stint in the military only to be swept up in an eighteen-month probationary period at a Seoul fire station. For fourteen of those eighteen months, he’d been feeding his eomma partial lies over the phone (“I’m taking classes right now — doing intense vocational training, basically. I have some really experienced mentors and they told me I should expect an official job offer by next summer. Don’t worry, it does not involve hitting people. I don’t want to get your hopes up, though, so let’s discuss things in detail once I have a real title we can celebrate …”). 

Jungkook knew he was playing with fire. Literally and figuratively. But he felt sure he could convince Jimin this job was the right fit.

Give him time to think through his speech. Give him a nicely ironed button-down, a tabletop grill, and a bit of mood lighting. Give him a bottle of wine. A pair of tongs. Give him Jimin’s nearest hand and the confidence of a free diver, and he could do it. He could ply his eomma with excellent food, explain his reasoning, vow to spend the next fifty years making it up to him. Jungkook could butter him up and sway him away from any lingering anger. He knew he could do it. 

He just had to be the one to break the news to Jimin.

And, technically speaking, his emergency response modules did count as classes, the training was more intense than even boxing had been, and Yoongi and Namjoon were consummate professionals with a combined thirteen years of experience under their belts. Four months from now, Jungkook would be given the official and full operating title of: Firefighter.

(Not nearly as cool or fancy as Lieutenant, Captain, or Battalion Chief, but beggars can’t be choosers.)

In Jungkook’s defense, Jimin never pushed for details. He seemed satisfied with the knowledge that Jungkook had given up on all forms of fighting, and the eighteen-month stint in the military had shaken them both in ways neither could articulate. They were just happy to be together again, no longer beholden to strict schedules for visits or phone calls.

Jungkook would never admit to having been depressed by the isolation, in the same way Jimin would never willingly volunteer information about his own sadnesses or anxieties. They had learned to understand each other without any need for explanation. Back in Busan, explanation would have been a waste of time; their suffering had always been shared, exacerbated and exploited by the same source. 

At sixteen and seventeen and eighteen years old, it went without saying: Jungkook loathed his father and loved Jimin. 

Now, in adulthood, this reticence had become an inconvenient crutch — paradoxical, dangerous. Jimin felt he understood Jungkook just fine, in the same way Jungkook told himself he knew his eomma inside and out. They didn’t need to spend all day saying, I like you and I love you and I need you. They already behaved that way. They didn’t need to ask each other, What’s been worrying you lately? Anything wrong, they felt they would be able to sense.

Then Jimin moved to Seoul and it all went up in flames.

(Literally. There were actual flames involved.) 

Over the last fourteen months, Jungkook had been on a generational run — of misfortune. That was how he felt at the time, anyway.

Jungkook was twenty-six years old. It was late February, his fourteenth month as a probie. Jimin had only just made it to Seoul. Most of his things were still in moving boxes, taped up and covered in Jimin and Jungkook’s Sharpied handwriting (SHOES, BOOKS, WINTER COATS, BATHROOM). And although Jungkook felt a preternatural obligation to Jimin, his training at the fire station was beginning to really ramp up.

He’d already taken time off to pack the old apartment away and drive his eomma’s belongings across the country. In the world of firefighting, three unpaid “sick days” was considered slacking, and Yoongi was working Jungkook to the bone to make that belief clear. Jungkook was down to nightly phone calls with Jimin, during which he promised to swing by and help unpack everything. Samiljeol was one week away — he’d be over before then.

Jimin waved this off. He, too, was busy. He was transitioning away from his Busan job with one last month of remote work. His pots and pans and dishes were still sealed away with packing tape, so every meal he ate was either takeout or store-bought in those first few weeks. He didn’t know his new city well yet, bright and endlessly infested with college students, but hunger was expediting the process. He was in and out of his Yongsan-gu loft, already cheerfully thrown into the hustle and bustle of Seoul.

(If Jungkook were a smarter man, he would have seen that all of these insignificant details were in fact omens.)

That afternoon, the station received a routine call to a Seocho-gu café experiencing a small cooking fire. It was a Class K fire — common among the food service industry, dangerous and quick to spread if handled incorrectly. The barista on the clock obviously knew what she was doing, though, because she’d smothered the flame without incident and then called it in. 

Confined cooking fire. No one hurt. And to top it all off, it had been extinguished by a civilian with exemplary knowledge of fire protocol. This was a rarity in Jungkook’s line of work, and after the week he’d been having, he was ready to declare the barista an honorary firefighter for it.

He was in high spirits when he arrived to the scene, dismounting the truck with a casual whistle. In he went, still whistling, to begin herding the stragglers outside. Most everyone had already vacated the coffee shop. They were now assembled in loose groups on the curb outside, intrigued by the drama and pressing for a closer look at the fire engine.

Jungkook stepped aside to brief the coffee shop staff. The building’s breaker panel would be cut while appliances and outlets were inspected. A few people had questions, and Jungkook was more than happy to answer them. Part of his job as a probie was acting as the social buffer between whiny civilians and the more high-powered emergency personnel needed at the site of a call-in (the Namjoons and Yoongis).

Another part, to quote one Min Yoongi, was being eye candy. It was a well-known stereotype and one Jungkook was still getting used to. He found it hard to feel sexy while sweating his ass off under three layers of fire-resistant fabric. And yet, it didn’t seem he had much of a say in the matter.

Half of the time, civilians hated his guts for interrupting their daily activities. The other half, they had no problem whatsoever objectifying him. He was in the middle of fending off a compliment from an omega in yoga pants and Uggs when a cursory survey of the staging area brought him up short.

“Pardon me,” Jungkook said, and ducked the conversation to stalk over to the café’s patio seating.

No one had noticed the slender blond sitting at a little metal table in the far corner, his back to the chaos. His chin was in his palm and a bulky pair of headphones were pulled over his ears. Apparently that blond was listening to his music at inadvisable volumes, given the non-reaction to blaring sirens.

Jungkook walked over with the idea that he would tap this person quickly, then dive back into the fray before Yoongi could complain about time wasted. He set a large gloved hand to the nearest shoulder and began to speak, defaulting to his usual script — Excuse me, I’m with the Fire Department and we’re conducting a sweep, can I ask that you join everyone on the curb to avoid congestion, etc. etc. — when it occurred to him that he recognized the small brown mole at the base of the neck and also that there were suspicious amounts of tattoo ink tendriling past the oversized sweater he was touching. That he didn’t recognize.

The slender blond half turned, startled by the light touch. He didn’t need anything more than a fleeting glimpse of Jungkook’s uniformed chest to realize his own error. Already he was removing his headphones and shoving to his feet, hip knocking against the little metal table. His porcelain cup rattled frenetically against its saucer.

Jungkook steadied the cup with his free hand, his eyes on the dregs of a chai, heavy on the cinnamon.

“Aigoo …” the blond was muttering, turning back to scoot his tea away from the edge of the table. “I’m so sorry! I’ll pack up right away!”

Jungkook couldn’t find the strength to remove the hand he had on that shoulder. His eyes lingered at the neck, and the serrated edge of a tattoo. The ink was dark. Healed but fresh. The blond shut his laptop and turned in Jungkook’s loose hold, as if he needed his next steps laid out. For a moment, though, he was too distracted by the background chaos — crowds, emergency personnel, a giant red truck — to look Jungkook in the face.

Jungkook therefore got a good look at the face before the face could look at him. It was a face he dreamt about, winter-pale and without any of its usual freckles. The freckles would come out again in another few months, as the heat deepened and the rains arrived.

On this particular day, Jimin had apparently decided to get a bit of work done at an independent coffee shop across the river. It was the café Jungkook used to whisk him to for chai during their old bullet train trade-offs — Busan to Seoul and Seoul to Busan.

“I’m sorry — should I … ?” Jimin said, clutching reflexively at the sleeve of Jungkook’s safari jacket. He turned again towards his little table, trying to decide between his laptop and the severity of the evacuation order. “Should I follow you?”

This was not a tone of voice Jimin often turned on Jungkook: soft, uncertain.

Back around he went, twisting again in Jungkook’s arms. Jungkook’s gloved palm followed the movement, sliding across the blades of Jimin’s shoulders. They were once more chest to chest. Jimin tipped his head back, eyelashes flicking up. His gaze landed on Jungkook’s face.

Jungkook’s stomach sank. There it was.

He couldn’t imagine a worse way to break the news to his eomma. At least this one was short and to the point. Here he was, taller than normal in his tactical boots — wider, too, what with all the layers — wearing the cold weather version of his uniform and no less reflective for it. He was so sweaty it might as well have been summer already. Worse, he didn’t smell like himself. He smelled like his workday so far.

He felt Jimin stumble very slightly, fingers tightening around the sleeve of Jungkook’s jacket. His expression was uncomprehending. Then recognition hit and his mouth dropped open. Jungkook could see Jimin’s tongue struggling to form a sentence, but no sound came out.

Jungkook, sooty at the temples from his day so far, was bombarded by sudden clichés: Wait! It’s not what it looks like! I can explain! I meant to tell you — ! 

This part he hadn’t planned for. He was hoping to ride out the last four months of his probationary term with minimal lying, maximum evasion, and to close out this eventual chapter by taking his eomma to a lavish restaurant during golden hour. Ideally, there would be rooftop seating of some kind. No monsoon warnings, either. There was an Itaewon restaurant-bar that fit the bill. It had live DJs and a view of the mountains, so expensive it would surely put Jungkook in short-term debt (worth it), and known for its tasting menu, too. He’d been calling this place up every few days for the last week, but their outdoor section was booked out until July. 

“Still no cancellations, sir,” the bored-sounding host said every time. 

This restaurant was perfect for the conversation he and Jimin needed to have. There, Jungkook would break the news — I’m a Firefighter now, capital F, I’m so sorry, it’s not nearly as violent as boxing, please forgive me? — as gently as possible. Wounds would be soothed with single-malt whiskey. Jungkook would hand-feed Jimin truffle French fries. They would stand with their elbows against the railing, looking down at the glittering city from above. Jungkook would wait for a lull in their conversation to strike. 

In that moment, he would turn to his eomma and he would say something devastatingly cool, something like, “I know how to rappel down buildings like this one now.”

Jimin would gaze up at him, eyes wide. “You do?”

“I’m basically,” Jungkook would say, “Korean Spiderman.”

Then Jimin would do something devastatingly adorable, like laugh or pretend to punch Jungkook in the arm.

… So none of that was an option anymore.

In his panic, Jungkook’s mind went blank. His carefully workshopped plans? Gone. The speech he’d been practicing in the shower? It no longer existed. He had no clue how to salvage this situation, and he was quite literally trained in salvage operations.

With no other option but certain disaster, he slapped on a dopey grin and squeezed Jimin’s shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you got a new tattoo,” he said, which was his idea of an icebreaker.

Jimin could apparently think of nothing worthwhile to say to that. Jungkook wasn’t just in trouble; he was beneath consideration. Jimin was so furious, he left his things at that metal table. He took off down the sidewalk without a backwards glance, coat and laptop and computer bag abandoned. There was just his prim, athletic little silhouette. There he went, stalking down the tree-lined street in a V-neck sweater so large it kept sliding from his left shoulder, baring another bewitching centimeter of his crescent moon tattoo. Then a hand shot up and yanked the knit fabric back into place.

Jungkook swore colorfully and started packing his eomma’s things up, hand over hand and working at the speed of a thief. He kept craning his head to check that Jimin hadn’t broken into a full-blown sprint. Jungkook wouldn’t put it past him.

Namjoon appeared at the rear of the truck. “That blond omega — yours?” he said, his eyes following the blond’s progress down the street.

Jungkook shouldered past the only other rookie on their team, a short, stout beta who was much more graceful about all of Yoongi’s K-pop hazing. He was too frazzled to notice he’d shoulder-checked them. “Yup,” he muttered and threw the strap of Jimin’s computer bag over his neck. He tossed his helmet away, where it rolled to a stop at the toe of Namjoon’s tactical boot.

Namjoon itched at his hairline with the edge of a thumb, looking vaguely emotionally constipated about all this. “In the future … this is not the kind of career change you keep from loved ones.”

“Yup,” Jungkook repeated, more emphatic now, and took off at a dead run.

“Jeon Jungkook-ssi!” Yoongi bellowed from the doorway of the café. “We’ll be docking this from your pay!”

“No we won’t,” Namjoon said in long-suffering tones. 

“Going in your personnel file,” Yoongi went on.

“Make it quick,” Namjoon added.

“Eomma!” Jungkook called, already gaining on the furious blond. In his haste, he shot past Jimin and had to double-back, panting now. He threw himself and his bulk directly in the way of Jimin’s escape route. “Stop … hang on … give me a moment … to explain myself …”

Jimin’s loafers faltered. Then he drew himself back up and moved to side-step Jungkook.

Jungkook side-stepped in the same direction. When Jimin tried the left, Jungkook copied him, stepping left until they were once more toe to toe. When Jimin went for the right, a clear fake-out, Jungkook was already one step ahead of him, back to the left and cornering Jimin against a brick wall belonging to a stationery shop. 

Jimin paused, reassessing his options. 

Jungkook took that as his opportunity. “I know it seems like a practical joke,” he said. “It’s not. I didn’t — you — I hoped you would — I wanted to be able to tell you myself. So it wouldn’t seem like a joke or — or — thoughtless.”

This — Jungkook tripping over himself trying to get a single sentence out — did not seem to impress Jimin.

“Will you listen to me?” he said, quieter. “Just for a moment. Just stand here and … you don’t even have to respond. Just listen to me, okay?”

Jimin crossed his arms at his chest. It was the most Jungkook was going to get in the way of a response.

He lifted the camel coat Jimin had left draped over the back of his chair, expensive wool and knee-length. “You left this behind,” he said and snapped the coat open. He drew it around Jimin’s shoulders, covering up the one bared by the heaviness of his knit sweater. Jungkook was sorry to see it go, pale and perfectly round, but it was too chilly for such a daring wardrobe choice. “It’s cold out today. You’ll catch something for sure if you aren’t careful. Why were you doing your work on the patio?”

Jimin’s expression said something along the lines of, As opposed to working inside? The place where the fire that brought you here broke out? Which was a fair point, all things considered. Jungkook straightened the lapels of the coat, hands smoothing the fold of the collar. 

This wasn’t the molten fury from Jungkook’s childhood, a deadly anger that would burn itself out within minutes. This was something less flashy, but deep enough that Jimin was determined to take it out for a spin, make it his for the foreseeable future. He wanted to live in this fury. Jungkook could tell.

Jungkook began to button the coat up, working methodically, from the top down. “All right. Let’s do away with clichés,” he said. “This is the part where you tell me to go die in a fire. Then I get down on my knees and kowtow to you and your benevolent ancestors. Afterwards, I’ll refrain from dying and make you ramyeon the way you like it best.”

Jimin did not find this joke funny. He didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t blink. He stood there, his stare hard and flat. He was unmoved by Jungkook’s shamelessness. This part was as in childhood: Jimin’s silent treatment. What was different now was the lack of true fear.

Jungkook wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t ashamed. Guilty, sure. But afraid? Not anymore.

What he felt in place of these things was difficult to describe.

He felt winded, stirred up, lured by the familiar edges of Jimin’s displeasure. This displeasure was a task Jungkook took seriously. Soon, he would find a way to turn it back into pleasure. It was this particular task that stirred him, that brought his heart rate up and made him feel almost excited. 

In childhood, Jungkook felt sure anger meant abandonment. Control. Coercion. But Jimin had shown him something different. Something almost enticing. Even in the depths of his eomma’s worst anger, Jungkook knew he would find forgiveness. This was one of his favorite parts of being loved. It was lifelong.

Better: it was a choice. Every hour of every day, seven days a week, for the rest of their lives, no matter the minute or the month or the year, they would problem-solve their way into staying together. When it was difficult or worrisome, when it was as easy as breathing, when Jungkook was inaccessible or isolating, when Jimin was too outraged to speak, they would choose each other again, in some new and intriguing way.

“I know you’re angry with me,” Jungkook said, taking a deep breath and schooling his expression. “That’s all right. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

Jimin’s sweet brown eyes narrowed.

“I meant to tell you, but not before they hired me officially.”

Jimin opened his mouth, as if to raise a complaint.

“Don’t speak yet,” Jungkook said, low and urgent, and the lips shut very gently. “I’ll tell you everything, what I’ve wanted to say to you all along.”

Patient now, Jimin waited.

“What you said to me when I was a kid — when I was stupid and angry and didn’t know what to do with myself,” Jungkook went on, “I … I remember that still. You told me, ‘Slow and steady.’ Do you remember? Working my way up with intention and discipline. To this day, I think of you saying that. I carry it with me. Even when I can’t do things slow or steady, I carry it. That’s what I wanted this time. I didn’t want — I don’t want to bleed where you can see, this time around — of course not — and this last year, I’ve really taken it seriously. Doing my job right. Learning from people who are smarter and stronger than me. I haven’t been injured yet. I can’t promise that I won’t be, but … I mean to do it right.”

Jimin’s jaw was beginning to look less tension-fraught than it had a moment ago. He didn’t shift in place. He didn’t drop his stare. He just gazed up at Jungkook, drawing his own conclusions in the privacy of his mind. Winter was on its way out, but the chill still ran deep on days as gloomy as this one. A hard gust of wind tossed the blond fringe at his forehead roughly away.

Jungkook studied the face. For every bit of displeasure leaving Jimin’s expression, Jungkook felt his own pleasure heightened, magnified wonderfully. He noticed then that his eomma wasn’t wearing makeup or contacts. There were the silver-rimmed eyeglasses he usually saved for home. Below the lenses, there were his warm, probing eyes, long dark lashes that seemed suddenly receptive to Jungkook. There were Jimin’s thin shoulders in his best coat, an old Christmas gift from Dongju that he refused to give away, it was so expensive.

The wool coat was a great sacrifice on Jungkook’s part — that he had retrieved it and buttoned it back up for Jimin. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to pretend he’d never seen it in the first place. To “forget” to give it back. But it was a quality coat, he had to admit, and he cared about Jimin’s health more than he did his own petty grudges.

“Eomma, you can forgive me later, but don’t run from me today. I’ll just chase,” Jungkook said, encouraged by the focus and stamina of the brown eyes. “If you run, I’ll run faster. I’ll follow you all the way back to your new apartment, carrying your things like a pack mule. I’ll even let my Fire Chief dismiss me for it. I swear to you I will.”

“Tell your Fire Chief he can die in a fire for all I care —”

Jungkook was already laughing, enjoying the strike of pink palms against the flat of his chest and staggering willingly from it. He had Jimin by the hips and so Jimin staggered with him, back into Jungkook’s muscled chest and the fireproof jacket, their ankles a clumsy, traveling tangle. Jungkook was happy. He was overjoyed, even, to stagger beneath that grumpy touch, to tug Jimin back into his orbit, to watch the silver glasses slide down the bridge of his small nose.

“In four months, I planned to tell you everything,” Jungkook informed him, hoping this would earn him a point of approval or two.

“In four — ?” Jimin’s expression was thunderstruck. “And when you came to me smelling like smoke — what? You were going to say you’ve been getting really into BBQ lately?”

Oops.

“When I finally told you, I wanted to be able to say, ‘This is official, and I’m fully trained. I’m not a rookie anymore,’” Jungkook said. “But I have to wait for the Assistant Chief to stop bullying me first. Right now, I’m not technically an operating firefighter. It’s all grunt work until I get a job offer.”

“Well, you certainly look like one,” Jimin said in a disapproving voice. 

That disapproval was intoxicatingly good.

“Certainly,” Jungkook said, amused, and leaned back against a conveniently placed ginkgo tree. It was largely leafless, still a few months out from a regrowth. “Does Eomma like my new uniform?”

“No, I don’t. You look like — a fool.”

“I was planning to look much worse, going down on my knees in front of you, begging for your forgiveness like I did when I was a kid. I still might,” he said in a smug voice.

“Please don’t do that,” Jimin said.

“Because you forgive me?” 

“Because I’ll run back to Busan.”

“I’ll chase,” Jungkook muttered, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Now that you’re already here … you might as well stay and keep an eye on me. And I’ll show you how skilled I’ve become, how much I learned this last year.”

“If you die —”

“Eomeoni, I won’t die.”

“If you die,” Jimin repeated, fiercer than before, “I won’t forgive you. I’ll convert religions and curse all of your ancestors. Every last one. I’ll curse them to an eternity of damnation.”

“Curse them,” Jungkook said, tender and amenable now. “I’ll tank it if it means my abeonim gets to suffer at your hands.”

Jimin sighed, exasperated by this logic. "You’re troublesome.”

“Though not nearly as bad as I was before.”

“Back then, you were only a child. Now, you’re …” Jimin trailed off, scanning Jungkook from head to toe: the elbow patches and reflective tape, the overpants and huge cargo pockets. 

Across his chest, an embroidered name tag, sewn in two languages. 전정국. JEON.

“Mellow?” Jungkook suggested. “Well-behaved?”

“A man,” Jimin murmured.

Jungkook squinted. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Both,” Jimin said without hesitation.

Jungkook had no idea what to do with that. 

“Come,” Jimin said, before Jungkook could think of an adequate reply. “Shouldn’t you go back to your … the incident site?”

“No,” Jungkook said, loath to move now that he had the furious blond in his arms, and at a more manageable emotional temperature, too. “I’m having a nice time here. I want to talk more, to see how Eomma feels …”

“I thought you wanted to prove to me how skilled you are … ?”

In an instant, Jungkook had pushed up from the trunk of the tree. This earned him his first laugh (small, almost soundless) of the day. He nudged Jimin in front of him, back in the direction they’d come. Jungkook removed the computer bag he was still wearing and hooked its strap around Jimin’s shoulder. They began a slow amble back to the staging area. 

Jungkook poked Jimin, right in the middle of his back. “Tattoo,” he said, and waited for an explanation.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Mad still?”

“You don’t get to wonder about my secrets when you have so many of your own,” Jimin said, a flawless example of his former legal training. 

Jungkook glared at the back of his blond head, poking once more at a prominent knob in his spine. “How deep does it go, that crescent moon?” he wondered aloud, then answered for himself: “Not too deep, since Eomma only has a few small pieces. You like your ink inconspicuous.”

“Deep,” Jimin said, turning at the neck to show off the beginnings of an exultant smile. “It goes almost all the way down.”

“... Huh?” Jungkook said, dumbfounded, but they’d already made it back to the staging area.

The crowd had thinned quite a bit since Jungkook went sprinting for Jimin. Everyone was drifting up the block, into the clutches of the dessert shops and restaurants without any looming evacuation orders. Namjoon was helping the beta probie through the staging process, describing equipment assignment and thermal imaging. 

A moment later, Yoongi emerged from the café and began conferring with the others, saying, “Power has been cut. Namjoon, there are some concerning wiring paths I want you to look at in the kitchen and the boiler room is —” He cut himself off as he caught sight of Jungkook. “Yah, there you are, rookie! You’re on dish duty when we’re back at the station. Make up for the cardio break you decided to take. This is a job — not a music video or movie set.”

Jimin was leading the charge and therefore reached Jungkook’s Assistant Chief first. Although it was clearly one of his lazy days, Jungkook thought his eomma quite stylish. His sweatpants were the thin kind, a loose boot cut in black cotton, and his loafers were fashionably demolished, the heelcounters flattened from the reckless way Jimin wore them. His pale heels flashed, further crushing the leather into the ground. His camel coat tied it all together and he was clutching his computer bag to his hip, peering at Min Yoongi through his eyeglasses.

Yoongi broke off in the middle of this lecture to size up the omega booking it for him. “Excuse me,” he began to say, “but this area is —”

“Are you the Assistant Chief?”

“That I am,” Yoongi said. “And you —”

“Whatever your rank, I would like to bring to your attention two things,” Jimin said in an utterly amiable voice. “The first is that Jeon Jungkook is very likely the hardest worker you will ever, in all your years — and may they be long, or longer than what you’ve racked up already — see at this station.”

Jungkook, sensing calamity, began to speed up, rushing to get to Jimin before he could release the proverbial nuclear codes. “Eomma, that’s — you — okay —”

Yoongi’s expression was inscrutable. “And the second … ?”

“And the second,” Jimin said, smiling very faintly, “is that I am motivated by his safety and happiness, so if you see fit to threaten either, I will put —”

Jungkook caught Jimin around the midsection and began carrying him in the opposite direction, laughing loudly to cover the sound of his ongoing villain monologue. He tried to seem less like he was smothering the furious blond with the palm of his gloved hand and more like he was caressing his sweet little face. 

“That’s fine, Eomma, thank you so much — for that speech. Your sense of humor is — we can’t get enough,” he said, raising his voice in the direction of Yoongi. “Hyung-nim, I do apologize. He was only joking about — whatever you heard him say.”

“Hang on,” said Yoongi, holding a hand up. “I want to know what he’ll put where.”

Jimin, speaking through the fingers covering his mouth, was probably unleashing the fury meant for all those Jeon ancestors narrowly damned to hell today. Most lovely of all, he didn’t kick or thrash in Jungkook’s arms, just turned his head slowly to track Yoongi with his terrifying catlike stare. Jungkook walked them to the far end of the street, out of earshot of his bosses. He set Jimin down on his awful, destroyed loafers.

Something unspeakable was burning through Jungkook’s chest. He took Jimin by his lapels and jerked him gently in place. “Go home,” he said.

He hoped it sounded threatening and not hopelessly devoted. It was possible it sounded exactly the way it felt: like unending wonder. Jungkook could now say to Jimin, Go home, and have it mean Seoul rather than Busan. A ten or twenty minute trip by car or train. Unbelievable.

“Have I embarrassed you?” Jimin asked, seeming intrigued.

“Yes,” Jungkook said. 

Yes, he thought. Ask me no further questions. Don’t look at me for a second longer.

“That’s what I intended — and it serves you right,” Jimin said, then beamed with triumph. He was such a little snake. “I’m going now. Apologize on my behalf. No one should die in a fire and if you call me before midnight, I’ll send you straight to voicemail.”

“Because you’re angry with me?”

“Because this fire interrupted my workday,” Jimin said. 

“I’ll call you in an hour,” Jungkook said. A moment later, he added, “Should I ask Namjoon-hyung if I can drive you … ?”

Jimin mimed a two-armed swing with his computer bag, thwacking repeatedly and invisibly at Jungkook.

“Tonight, let’s have a meal together at mine or yours, and then you can show me that —”

“No,” Jimin said. He’d already spun on his foot and was moments from turning the corner, his camel coat flaring around his knees in a slight breeze. “You won’t see the full tattoo. I have work to do and I’m taking the subway home.” At the last second, he sent Jungkook a sidelong look, the affectionate version of his cat stare. “Be safe.”

Back at the staging area, Jungkook’s Assistant Chief seemed less surly than usual. Yoongi patted Namjoon on the shoulder and met Jungkook at the truck’s hydrant intake. Jungkook was gearing up to deliver a heartfelt apology — Oscar-worthy, certainly — when Yoongi eyed him and uttered the words, “Is your abeoji still in the picture or … ?”

Jungkook opened his mouth, nonplussed.

Was his father … ?

Then he realized what Yoongi was really asking and began to glower. His right hand twitched. He stemmed the wild urge to take a swing at the alpha’s head.

Yoongi cackled. He clapped a hand to Jungkook’s shoulder and said, “Come on. To the boiler room we go.”

Jimin wasn’t so angry he was avoiding Jungkook, but the new job wasn’t water under the bridge, either. It was a hiccup, and hiccups were worrisome. They intruded on Jungkook’s idyllic domestic fantasies. Finally, after almost a decade apart, he and his eomma were living in the same city again. To think this miracle was being tainted — one month in! — by something as absurd as the job change he’d decided to keep a secret.

Jungkook was still working out the finer details of his apology tour. He wanted to pull out every stop (home-cooked meals, letters of gratitude, bouquet deliveries, perhaps he would introduce Jimin to his Fire Chief Namjoon, an alpha who was less offensive to the senses than Min Yoongi and who could clear the air regarding any former ‘death by fire’ wishes Jimin might have once sent his way). 

Jungkook would come at this apology tour from a different angle than he had his ‘Move Jimin to Seoul’ plan. This time, there would be less manipulation all around. 

He wasn’t interested in forcing Jimin to forgive him. What he intended was to show his eomma how seriously he took adulthood. He was going to do it the right way: expunging his anger without any of the old, unhealthy outlets from before. No drugs or binge drinking, no broken noses, no sneaking out or sleeping on the street to spite his family. He’d matured past all of that. 

Firefighting was so physical, it was immediately fulfilling to both Jungkook’s body and his brain, a more profound balm than even boxing had been. This job wasn’t a whim. It wasn’t a happy accident. It wasn’t convenient, not in the slightest. It was, however, an important part of the healing process. That was more difficult to explain. Jungkook would have to let his hard work speak for itself.

On one such night, early into his apology tour and after they’d finished off Jungkook’s pork cutlets (Jimin had practically licked his plate clean), they were sitting at his eomma’s keyboard fiddling around with a beginner’s booklet of sheet music. 

Jimin played the piano like he was making ripples in water, his wrists held lightly, his head tilted in consideration of the muscles at work in his body. Every so often, he glanced up and nudged Jungkook with his shoulder, a wordless request for a bit of singing, a third hand to join him at the ivory keys. 

This was one of Jimin’s newest habits — teaching himself to play the piano. He’d had a brief guitar phase when Jungkook went off to college and now he was learning Mozart’s sonatas. They’d always been musically inclined, the both of them, but that inclination had taken a backseat to more important matters, the practical business of being less miserable and making greater amounts of money. 

Jungkook sometimes had the thought that, if they’d met under different circumstances, at precisely the right time, in a universe other than their own, they might have both been musicians. Then he remembered himself and it was all right, this small and quiet life where they sat together in Jimin’s loft, toying with a fold-up keyboard after a hot, home-cooked meal, all the moving boxes unpacked and broken down in a recycling bin somewhere outside.

But on this particular night, Jimin dropped his hands to his knees in the middle of playing a chord and began to speak, interrupting Jungkook’s humming. “I’ve been giving it thought …”

Jungkook cut off mid-note. He felt trepidation at what might come next: and I plan to move to rural China, this speedy Seoul lifestyle just doesn’t suit me, I hate my new job, I miss my old friends, I need a change, something new and exciting, I want to start dating again, I’m going to have an arranged mating. Etc. etc. Every possibility was worse than the one that came before it.

“And I won’t be angry with you anymore,” Jimin went on.

Jungkook froze. Then he turned his head very slowly, watching Jimin like a hawk. “You won’t … ?”

“Thinking about it … upsets me …” Jimin murmured, his eyes on the piano keys. He performed a quick and thoughtless glissando, as though to distract himself. “I can’t always cause a scene that way, just because you’ve chosen something for yourself.”

Even though Jungkook recognized the smallest nugget of truth here, the delivery displeased him. He hated to see Jimin with that downcast stare, speaking in a shy and regretful voice. 

“When you were a child — although I made many mistakes myself, in the ways that I reacted to your behavior — I felt it was fine to cause a scene. To feel so angry or betrayed when you acted out. But you’re older now and this is your life that you’ve begun, away from any controlling … authority figures,” Jimin said. He flipped between pages in his booklet. Abruptly, he shut it, deciding against any more Mozart. “I understand why you hid it from me. You — you recalled all those old fights about boxing and you wanted to put that off, or avoid it entirely.”

“Eomma —”

“I don’t blame you for lying, or omitting. Though I … would like to say sorry for proving you right,” Jimin murmured. “I shouldn’t have run away … or tried to. I was acting like a child myself.”

“Eomeoni, you weren’t.”

“So I’m going to — from now on, I’ll only react positively when you tell me things like this. I’ll only support you and cheer you on and yell, ‘Fighting!’ from the sidelines. I won’t kick up a fuss. You’re an adult and I’m an adult and we can’t nitpick each other’s life choices, as if … like we still live together.” Jimin glanced up from the keyboard, finally meeting Jungkook’s eye. “I support your decision to become a firefighter and I wish you all the luck in the world.”

Jungkook wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t grimacing. It was something in-between, a visible show of his top teeth touching his bottom teeth. He was thinking through his feelings and the best way to word his reply. As in all things, the simplest explanation was also the easiest.

“I don’t want it,” he said.

Jimin stared at him through his silver eyeglasses. “Excuse me? You don’t want … ?”

“Support,” Jungkook said, then backtracked: “Well, yes — okay, I do. What I mean is … Eomma, I thank you for the apology, but I don’t find you immature or childish or — or, if I do and I don’t realize it, I like it. When you behave like that. It’s best that way, seeing you kick up a fuss.”

A small wrinkle appeared between Jimin’s eyebrows.

“I don’t want you to stand on the sidelines and yell, ‘Fighting!’ … though that would be nice too, if you really felt that way. But the other way … I like it. When you cross your arms and make mean faces and insult other people. I even like when you insult me. If you … I mean, knowing how that guy raised me, long before you got there —”

Jimin, snorting at the sudden dip towards informal language, turned his face away to hide his smile.

“— and all he ever did was say two or three words at a time, then leave the room. He didn’t care whether I lived or died. The most convenient solution, the quickest punishment, that was his way of doing things. I don’t …” Jungkook inhaled heavily and set the heel of his hand on the piano bench, right where Jimin’s compact body rested. He was trying to sort through the gnarl of his blackest thoughts. “That … is my least favorite way of being loved. If you can even call it that. I wouldn’t. To me, that’s not love.”

At that, Jimin glanced up.

“I like when it’s loud and it’s fine when it’s unkind, because it’s you. To take … with you … the most inconvenient path … is — that’s what I want. As you are, and as you’ll have me,” Jungkook said. How strange, he marveled, that it had become so easy to talk this way. Still effortful, yes. Still cleansing. Of course. But easier than it had ever been before. “And I know you’re only unkind to me because you …”

“Of course I do,” Jimin muttered, blinking back over to the sheet music booklet.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said quietly. “I mean, I know I’m not a kid anymore. Like you said, I’m a man. I know … you … if you control me now — whatever ways you control me — it’s only because I let you.”

Jimin ducked his head, inspecting a hangnail where his left hand was back to resting against the keys. “Don’t … say that,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

“So you should be childish with me, knowing I’ve allowed it.”

“As,” Jimin muttered, face beginning to turn pink, eyes studiously locked on the keyboard in front of him, “if.”

“I like it,” Jungkook said, leaning sideways and bumping his shoulder against Jimin’s. “It’s like a game we play. One runs and the other chases. One kicks up a fuss and the other goes down on their knees.”

“It’s not fair,” Jimin said in undertones. “I always disapprove of the things you do. I shouldn’t —”

“I’ve disapproved of Eomma before.”

“When?”

“When you don’t return my calls. When you stay out late drinking. When Seokjin-hyung texted me that one time, to say you got up on a table and did a whole dance routine and did I want to see the video?” Jungkook said. That video was burned into the back of Jungkook’s mind. “When you overwork yourself to the point of exhaustion. When you skip or put off a dentist’s appointment. When you … a lot of stuff, from … way back in the beginning …”

“What beginning?” 

“When that guy wanted to give me a sibling,” Jungkook said under his breath.

“Oh … that.”

“And when you stayed with him — though I don’t blame you anymore. But back then, I wanted to kidnap you and take you somewhere else. I thought, ‘How can he bear to be around this guy, putting up with his shit all the time?’”

“You didn’t think that,” Jimin said, sounding flabbergasted. “You were too young to curse like that.”

“As you know, I was too young for a lot of what I did at that time,” Jungkook pointed out. “Some of it you saw firsthand and some of it … some of it I kept to myself.”

“What, the cursing?”

“The cursing.” Jungkook nibbled the edge of his mouth, an old habit from the days when he still had a lip piercing. Most of the metal in his face he’d been forced to remove if he wanted to don the firefighter uniform. “The cursing … at that age, it was pretty bad. Like a nonstop narration style in my head.”

Jimin’s mouth twitched, torn between humor and exasperation. “I’m glad you kept that part from me, then. I wouldn’t have been too pleased with you.”

“Now, though …”

“Now, if you’re ever unhappy with me,” Jimin whispered, “you should tell me. So I don’t feel as bad for scolding you all the time.”

The thought of a role reversal like that made Jungkook want to run a kilometer. “If Eomma curses,” he whispered back, affecting a menacing expression, “I’ll scold him thoroughly.”

“That habit I rarely partake in around you.”

“Hm,” Jungkook said, starting to feel exhilarated by the offer Jimin was making him. “When you lived in Busan and I was all the way over here, I couldn’t really kick up a fuss. Since we lived so far apart. But now that you’re in Seoul, if you ignore my calls or stay out too late or get so drunk you start stripping in public establishments —”

“It — that time was — only a few articles of clothing. Not all of them!” Jimin spluttered.

“— now it’s within my power to react poorly. I can tell someone to pull the fire alarm for me and evacuate the bar. I can drive over and pick you up myself, then tuck you into bed. I can make you brush your teeth while I watch.”

Jimin scowled. “Don’t joke.”

“Eomma,” Jungkook said, leaning heavily on the heel of his hand, sitting at a leftward slant. They were touching from two separate points — their shoulders and their knees. Jungkook’s legs were taking up a lot of the bench, spread so insouciantly, and Jimin had too much thigh fat not to overburden his half of the seat. Jungkook trailed his gaze down his own arm, cordoned with tension. “Do you forgive me … ?”

“I forgave you that day,” Jimin said honestly, “but … after all that you’ve said tonight …”

“After all that?”

“I am angry still … that … that you kept this from me for over a year …”

Jungkook felt himself smiling. He stared sightlessly at his own knuckles, ribboned with old scars, and then he stared at the small of his eomma’s back, the duck-tail of loose fabric sticking out of the waistband of his sweatpants — too loose. Always too loose, all of Jimin’s comfiest clothing. It was a habit he seemed to have taken from Jungkook.

Jungkook extended his thumb, his nail idly brushing the fabric. “Don’t forgive me,” he said in a quieter voice and shot Jimin a look through his eyelashes. “Let’s fight a little longer … the way we did that day, when you ran from me …”

Jimin was frowning, turned very slightly toward the protective arm arranged at his back. “That’s not the only way to show I care.”

Jungkook tilted his head and began to trace the hem of Jimin’s t-shirt, running his thumb back and forth, following the hypnotizing lines of the stitching. “Then Eomma should show me …” he said, well and truly pushing his luck now, “... that new tattoo of his.”

The wooden bench creaked under the weight of Jungkook’s concentrated strength. This sound seemed to burst some small and imperceptible bubble. Jimin, slamming his hand to the piano keys, surged to his feet as a few discordant notes rang out. He snapped up his booklet and started for the kitchen.

“Eomma …” Jungkook said, straightening back up on the bench. “Where are you going? Let’s watch a movie, at least.”

“Dishes. I’ll wash tonight,” Jimin said and vanished down the hall.

Alone in the living room, Jungkook sighed. 

“Then I’ll dry,” he said a moment later, and stood to follow. 

They’d both been given permission to kick up a fuss. Jimin went right back to unshy after that night, indiscriminate with his anger. Now that Jungkook was older, this anger was even a little bit exciting. It lured and winded and stirred him.

He recognized the truth in his eomma’s words: You’re an adult and I’m an adult. The power differential had shrunken to almost nothing. Jimin could run and Jungkook was well within his right to chase.

Jimin could shut his door and Jungkook could pound a fist to the wood, could say, “Let me in,” in his most assertive voice and mean it, to hell with consequences. 

Jungkook could turn his own anger on Jimin and see it experienced differently than in childhood, when Jimin only laughed and scoffed and pinched Jungkook’s cheek, endeared by this stubborn little creature.

Jimin could say, “Don’t do that,” and Jungkook could do it anyway — pushing his luck, testing the boundaries between them.

This was revelatory.

First was, “Don’t send me any more flowers,” to which Jungkook sent another three bouquets. He staggered the deliveries, spread them out over the month of April. One went to Jimin’s doorstep. Another to his place of employment, where his coworkers fawned over the fresh blooms, wondering at such a diligent, golden step-son. 

The third Jungkook had sent to his own apartment during a movie night with his eomma. He pretended to pee while it was being delivered and when he emerged from the bathroom a moment or two later, there Jimin was, standing in the kitchen with arms crossed. The bouquet was sitting on the counter in a large crystal vase, a bright spray of flowers with an attached card. 

Jungkook played dumb. “Huh,” he said, feigning confusion. “Is that for me? Someone must love me a lot.”

Jimin picked up the card and read aloud from it. “‘To the one with hair blonder than the blondest roses.’” The bouquet was an explosion of yellow: roses, lilies, button spray chrysanthemums, bupleurum. “‘Blonder, and smells better.’”

Jungkook approached to take down a water glass from the cupboard. In passing, he touched his fingers to the tiny ponytail gathered at the back of Jimin’s skull. “You have two bouquets now,” he observed, filling his glass at the refrigerator’s filter. “This one on your head, and that one in the nice vase.”

“Who wrote this?” Jimin said, holding up the card.

“I did,” Jungkook said, immediately giving up on his own game. He set his cup down, offended by the implication. “Who else?”

“So you admit —”

Laughingly, Jungkook took Jimin’s wrists in hand and rerouted them elsewhere, away from the fragile water cup and the crystal vase. He only needed one hand to disarm two of Jimin’s, his large, tattooed knuckles squeezing those skinny wrists together. Jungkook used his free hand to pick his glass back up. He took a casual sip of water, reveling in Jimin’s irritation. Jungkook was being a show-off, sure, but he enjoyed his eomma’s little tantrums too much to dial it back.

“Stop sending me things,” Jimin said, a flashy show of annoyance. Jungkook had been trying his patience over the last month. “Nowhere is safe. When I’m in public restrooms now, I’m peeing in fear, thinking a flower delivery boy is going to bang down the door of my stall with another one —”

“Who’s banging down your door? Flower boys … ?”

“If you keep sending them, I’ll … I’ll …” Jimin lowered his eyes to his own immobilized wrists, still caught in Jungkook’s vise-tight grip.

The wrists were by this point purely ornamental. Jungkook didn’t need to immobilize them any longer, but he was really enjoying looking at them, sipping his water every so often. By contrast, Jimin seemed unnerved by Jungkook’s strength, as if he was coming to the sudden realization that his power was no longer vast and unlimited.

“What will you do?” Jungkook said.

Jimin, giving up completely on threats, said, “You didn’t write that card. Someone helped you.”

“No one did.”

“Your Fire Chief, Kim Namjoon. You went to him for advice. He told you to give me these flowers and this — this card. To make up for our fight in February.”

“This is your favorite then. Of the four bouquets, you like this one best,” Jungkook decided, examining Jimin’s expression and his insistence on this make-believe scenario. 

“No! I don’t have a favorite! I — all of them are too much! And how will I carry this home without a car? I can’t. I won’t take it. You keep them, these … yellow ones.”

Jungkook took a moment to consider his options. Like his newfound power, he considered these options vast and unlimited. “If you sleep over tonight,” he bargained, “then I’ll keep them.”

Jimin paused, weighing his own options in turn. Evidently, this one was preferable to the alternative. He broke out of Jungkook’s hold and he said, “Fine,” in his haughtiest voice.

Jungkook tried not to openly celebrate his victory. If he acted too smug, Jimin would turn sour. He would make Jungkook pay, running off in his threadbare loafers, a thirty or forty minute trek back to his loft. He knew Jungkook hated it when he traveled alone after certain hours.

That night, they made up their beds and went to sleep in the same room. Jimin took Jungkook’s mattress and Jungkook rolled out his futon on the floor beside it. This was an old sleeping arrangement they’d settled on during their bullet train excursions back and forth. It was by now a happy medium: they got to be close without crossing over into social indecorum.

It was one thing to share a bed with someone when you were related to them by blood.

In Jimin and Jungkook’s case, something unspoken now hung over their heads. It was awkward or self-conscious, this unspoken something, and neither had ever tried to articulate it. Jungkook couldn’t say exactly when it had begun. He’d started to notice it after college, a palpable pause whenever they were together and it came time to begin their nightly routines. Part of it was their own secondary genders, he knew that much. Another part was the assumed attraction they felt to the other person’s secondary gender.

Well, in Jimin’s case, it was a documented attraction. He’d only ever been with alphas. In Jungkook’s, it would have been assumed.

Not that they felt that way towards each other (they didn’t), but that their bodies might get it confused somewhere along the way. Best to avoid that altogether. Best not to mix scents any more than was strictly necessary. Best not to fall asleep in a way that might lead to — well — uncomfortable situations come morning.

In the morning, Jungkook woke to a stream of sunlight fighting its way through his blinds. His forehead was warm from it. He squinted, lifting his heavy skull up to search his surroundings. His nose was full of Jimin. Jimin, who was tiptoeing around his bedroom, collecting and packing up all of his loose objects — wallet, keys, lip balm, phone. He bent over to cuff his overlong jeans. Then he rose and retrieved the pile of clothes he’d kicked to the floor. He folded up Jungkook’s borrowed sweatpants and t-shirt, stacking them neatly on the dresser. 

Jungkook watched him, low-lidded, still half asleep but full of quiet, dormant pleasure. His eomma was conducting himself like this was a one-night stand and he had to make himself scarce before his irksome bedmate woke up. The thought was hilarious. Jimin was the last person on Earth to resort to a walk of shame. One-night stands weren’t just out of character for him, they went against his lifestyle. 

Jungkook settled in to enjoy the show, knowing it was as rare and impossibly placed as a solar eclipse. A year ago, such a scene would have been impossible. Now, it was so possible it might even happen multiple times a month: his eomma sleeping over, then sneaking off to work the very next morning. Jungkook felt himself smiling foolishly, large and thoughtless.

Jimin went to the mirror mounted above Jungkook’s dresser, already scraping his blond hair back into a ponytail. He had a hair tie clamped between his teeth. A moment later, he snagged it and secured that blond bundle — small, sitting lower today than it had been yesterday. His hair no longer looked like a bouquet. This ponytail was shyer than the first. Head tilting, he pulled a few pieces free, combing them out, twisting them to his liking so that they framed his face.

Jungkook hadn’t made a single sound, but Jimin straightened very suddenly in the mirror. Turning at the waist, he said, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Jungkook muttered, voice thick with sleep, and groaned as a pillow hit him square in the face. He collapsed back onto his futon with an air of accepted defeat. 

In the kitchen, he heard the fridge opening and closing. A splash of water. Jungkook met his eomma at the front door. Jimin was stooped over and sliding his loafers on. 

He glanced up through his bangs, fidgeting with his shoe’s abused heelcounter. The leather was soft and wrinkled from wear. “Keep those flowers.”

“All right,” Jungkook said.

“Don’t forget to cut the stems at an angle.”

“Mn. I’ll put them by the window.”

“And don’t call me today. I’m mad at you.”

“What did I do now?” Jungkook said, head tipped against the entryway wall.

“I don’t know,” Jimin said and stood to retrieve his camel coat from the hallway closet. He shouldered it on, then pulled the strap of his bag over his chest. “I just have a feeling you’ll do something.”

“Eomeoni, what would I even do?” Jungkook said, his morning voice still so deep he sounded a bit like he was battling a smoker’s cough. Before Jimin could begin a list, Jungkook backed him into the front door, sliding two arms around his small body. He breathed in against the blond hair, eyes briefly shutting. Humming, he murmured, “Will you go home to change?”

“Change?”

“Into a new outfit.”

“No — who cares about all that? It’s just clothes. I don’t have any important meetings today,” Jimin said, beginning to fuss in Jungkook’s arms, like a baby annoyed by an adult’s doting attention. “I’ll be in and out of the studio to help with rehearsals, and I have a locker there. Ah … let go now, that’s enough.”

“Good.” Jungkook patted Jimin’s back, solidly, firmly, a few loud thwacks until Jimin jolted from the force of that open palm.

He pulled away to glare, hitting Jungkook in the chest — tit for tat. “Good,” Jimin said, “bye.” 

When he turned to fumble with the door’s brass chain, Jungkook got a good look at the thick card he’d stuck to the middle of his eomma’s coat, thanks to the adhesive used by the flower shop: To the one with hair blonder than the blondest roses. Blonder, and smells better. The card was white, with a thin border of gold foil. The text was printed, large and perfectly legible. Jungkook regretted now that he hadn’t signed his name at the bottom.

“Be safe.” Jungkook propped himself against the doorjamb and watched his eomma stride down the hall, repressing a self-satisified smile. He crossed his arms at his chest, lifting his wrist in a wave only as Jimin turned the corner.

It was quite a while before Jimin noticed Jungkook’s little prank. Six and a half hours into his workday, Jungkook received a KakaoTalk message reading, i am filing a complaint with your place of employment, i’m going to see kim namjoon and min yoongi myself, to apologize for my earlier behavior and to tell them to fire you.

This was followed up with: and i don’t want to see you for 14 days and i am not sleeping over at your apartment anymore. i won’t make bargains with you ever again.

And: and i’m no longer a buddhist and your abeonim will suffer the imperial bureaucracy of hell thanks to me.

And: and if you come see me at work ever again, i’ll key your firetruck and flatten a tire and i’m putting it in writing because i don’t care anymore, it’s fine if they lock me up, report me all you like to the appropriate authorities.

Jungkook was at the station, in the middle of a kitchen deep clean. He had to take fifteen to go laugh it all off, delighted by the length and intensity of this tantrum. He texted his eomma back immediately, writing, come complain, come see me. we’re all at the station rn.

지민

not talking. leave me alone

정국

at least tell me....

who saw it and pointed it out to you?

지민

half of my coworkers saw it, but they were too lousy and timid to point it out until i was getting ready to leave!!!!!!

and i only kept my coat on this long bc it’s a bit chilly still

that’s your fault too. you did this evil thing on an overcast day.

even when i removed my coat for a bit, i didn’t notice anything sticking to the back… 

all day these jerks were tittering and taking pictures of me 

i thought they were putting me in a work tiktok or something

정국

i hope they put you in a work tiktok.

if they did, will you link it to me

?

지민

thankfully, before i left for the subway, hoseok-hyung stopped me 

he asked if i’d put that card there myself or if i was being stalked by some creepy alpha on public transport

정국

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

tho i’m very charming

지민

you moved me out here to bully me

정국

just to stalk you, actually

지민

-_-;;

it’s because i made you keep the bouquet, isn’t it?

정국

maybe

have i embarrassed you?

지민

stop trying to get even with me

정국

never

After that it was, “I don’t want any other letters from you,” spoken in a satoori so thick it made the hair on the back of Jungkook’s neck stand up. Jimin went on in this fashion, saying, “Whether they’re apologetic or thankful, it’s — that’s enough. I told you I forgive you and yet you continue to … ! As if your teacher is sending you home with a Parents’ Day craft you worked on in class!”

In reply, Jungkook said, “You’ve already banned me from gifting you anything on Parents’ Day.”

“That’s because I'm not —"

“Careful," Jungkook said, “or I’ll want to spite you even worse.”

Jimin held up the letter. It was, in Jungkook's opinion, quite short for an apology and existed largely to reiterate the points he'd already made to Jimin's face (I've thought this through for a long time, I take my safety and education very seriously, still I went about things in the wrong way, every day that I strive to do better, it's only because you showed me how, I won’t keep a secret like that from you ever again, etc. etc.). Halfway through, his wrist had begun to cramp up and he lamented his choice to write everything out by hand.

“The next one I'll type,” Jungkook said.

“I don't want a next one,” Jimin said.

“The one after that I'll do with traditional hanji and ink.”

Jimin said, “Come here.”

“Why?” In response to this question, Jungkook dodged a throw pillow to the head. Somewhere behind him, there was a dull crash that sent him hunting for the collateral damage, laughing with shock. Jimin had a hand pressed to his mouth to cover his horror. “Nice aim. Let's see what you'll be paying for.”

(It was a bag of half finished granola. Jimin's throw had knocked it from its spot on the counter, and also exploded the entire bag. He paid for his spill in another heartfelt letter, this one with a small doodle at the bottom.)

And after that, it was, “If you cook for me, the meal has to be fresh — and I have to be present while you’re cooking it, so I can help you make it or clean everything up afterwards.”

“Since when is that a rule?” Jungkook said.

“Since today,” Jimin said in a flat voice. “You broke into my apartment this week.”

“Legally speaking,” Jungkook said, “I exercised a privilege you bestowed on me. When you told me, Jungkook-ah, I'm always here, my apartment is your apartment, come over any time you need something, that was binding.”

“Is that your argument, really?” Jimin said. “What did you need from me this time, then?”

“I needed to feed you,” Jungkook said, point blank.

“You broke in, without my permission, and you meal-prepped for me. My entire fridge is full of — of your spicy carbonara!”

“Inadmissible evidence,” Jungkook said. “What burglars do you know that break and enter, take nothing of value, and also cook you a lovely meal while they're at it?”

“The only burglar I know is you!”

“Your locksmiths happen to really like me,” Jungkook said, then began to laugh as Jimin charged him.

“First my Busan studio, and now this — !”

“Busan was my practice run,” Jungkook said and took a moment to reflect fondly on the few times he’d called Jimin's old locksmith up when he needed help surprising his eomma at his studio apartment. He also took a moment to reflect fondly on the tantrum-prone blond he was currently holding hostage in his arms. “Seoul is where I level up.”

“How do you keep … getting away with this!”

Jungkook shrugged. “I just tell the truth and people tend to take me at my word.”

“If they let you into my place with as little as a phone call, who knows what other people they might —”

“No way. It’s me and me alone. I’m your first and only emergency contact,” Jungkook said, interrupting right off the bat. “Your building management knows this — and I verified my identity.”

Jimin fell silent. He peered up into Jungkook's face. “How do you know that?”

“How do I know that I’m your emergency contact … ? Because you’re my emergency contact, and you are me, I am you,” Jungkook said. “So if you’d like to burglarize my place in return, please feel free.”

“I don't want to burglarize your place,” Jimin said.

“Good. Don’t.”

“Who knows what unsavory characters you might have staying over …”

“What? What do you mean ‘unsavory characters?’” Jungkook started doing the math in his head. In a totally normal-sounding voice, he said, “Do you … have unsavory characters staying over at your … ?”

“No, of course not,” Jimin said, demure as always. “But I’m not a red-blooded alpha like you. I’m divorced, and you’re a young adult venturing out into the world and … and gaining hands-on experience in these … in young adult matters.”

“Any time you want, come over,” Jungkook said, and meant it. “Break in, knock down my door. Whatever method you prefer. You’re not going to find anyone here who you don’t already know by name.”

Jimin stared, perhaps doing the math in his own head. He no longer seemed aware of the fact that Jungkook was holding his arms pinned together from elbow to wrist. “Though if you’d like …”

“That’s all right,” Jungkook said.

“… One of the noonas I work with has a son in your age range and I think you two would —”

“That’s all right,” Jungkook said, with a note of real warning, and started herding Jimin into his living room, walking him backwards, towards the television their evening was supposed to be organized around.

“Just because you’re a firefighter now, that doesn’t mean you can manhandle me any way you like,” Jimin said, stumbling blindly on his socked feet to keep up with Jungkook’s demanding pace.

“If it was any way I liked, it would be a lot less polite than this,” he said, flashing a gloating smile as Jimin began to scowl.

“This son I mentioned,” Jimin said, carrying on as though he wasn’t being forcibly corralled towards Jungkook’s couch, “he’s twenty-five years old and he’s an omega. Very cute. He’s also a grad student at SNU, so he’s already local to you. From what I understand, he’s into visual art. Noona said he’s looking for single alphas with a strong sense of ambition —”

Fed up with this line of discussion, Jungkook slid an arm under Jimin’s knees and heaved his little body into the air. Jimin was so shocked he broke off mid-sentence, but before he could readjust himself towards any kind of physical defense, Jungkook had already tossed him onto the couch, small light body caught and bouncing against the cushions. Jungkook picked up the remote and turned on the TV, flinging a hostile look over his shoulder.

Jimin, sprawled adorably across Jungkook’s sectional and glaring up at him from under a scattering of blond hair, said in a flustered-sounding murmur, “I’m removing you as my emergency contact.”

“Do that,” Jungkook said, “and I’ll show you the real meaning of a burglary.”

Jimin picked up one of Jungkook’s throw pillows. Jungkook thought he might have to dodge another attempt on his life, but Jimin just buried his face in the fabric, knees bent and arms squeezing. Muffled into the fabric, Jungkook could hear a new villain monologue starting up.

“Take it back,” Jungkook said. “We have reality TV to watch. No time for curses.”

“No,” he heard from behind him, the sulkiest version of Jimin’s satoori, and then felt the pillow connect with the back of his head.

Jungkook let that one slide. He’d really put his eomma’s patience through the ringer this last month.

The last stop on his apology tour was a piece of jewelry stunning enough to make a statement. Jungkook wasn’t broke, per se. He wasn’t rich, either, and although he no longer felt he needed to ass-kiss his way into Jimin’s good graces (Jimin’s good graces were mood-based, which meant he was sweet with Jungkook some days and grumpy with him others), the jewelry idea had remained fixed in his mind for the last two months. In place of his old rooftop restaurant fantasy, this would have to do.

For the last several weeks, Jimin had returned relentlessly to the topic of dating, recommending potential suitors, showing off photos sent over by their mothers, pestering Jungkook about his preferences. Omega, beta, alpha? Which would it be?

It was starting to make Jungkook paranoid.

Of what? He couldn’t say exactly. He didn’t want his eomma to think he was some kind of inexperienced virgin, too afraid to approach another person without help. Such was not the case. Like most college students, Jungkook had been around the block, thoroughly involved in Seoul’s drunken hook-up scene, which was random and varied and incredibly educational. Most of these hook-ups had been unremarkable, the kind of energy alphas burn off because they’re told by the world at large that’s what they’re supposed to do with any pent-up frustration.

(Jungkook only felt more frustrated by these hook-ups, but that was a separate conversation.)

The fact was, he had experience. He wasn’t shy in matters relating to sex. He certainly wasn’t virginal. He was a mossol, sure, but only in the sense of long-term relationships. Suffice to say, he felt confident in his bedroom abilities. Dating, however, didn’t interest him in the slightest.

And yet Jimin continued to bring up his coworker’s son, with a persistence that verged on neurotic.

Jungkook was still trying to figure out why this made him so paranoid. Did he seem lonely? Emotionally inept? Was Jimin feeling suffocated now that they lived in the same city? Did he want so badly to find Jungkook a boyfriend in order to free up his own social calendar, enjoy a little bit of breathing room? Was Jungkook clingy?

No, more to the point: was this clinginess starting to frighten Jimin?

Jungkook began hanging around a small jeweler in his neighborhood, going back and forth in his head about the same pair of earrings, about gift-giving among family, about what that gift-giving said when your family was chosen rather than biological, if earrings were safer than pendants or bracelets or — he knew it would be out of turn to even consider — rings. Rings were exchanged by couples. But earrings should be fine.

What was Jungkook trying to say with these earrings, though?

His apology tour was over. No more bouquets or hand-written letters. The home-cooked meals were fine. Nothing would ever threaten his culinary habits (even if he vowed to stop breaking into Jimin’s loft). It was true that Jungkook had no further reason to resort to grand gestures.

Still the earrings obsessed him. They were gold-plated, not so expensive that they were out of his budget, with little pearls that dangled from enameled violet blooms. They were a bit like a permanent bouquet — one that would never die. Jungkook kept thinking about Jimin’s camel coat and all the Tiffany pieces Dongju had gifted him over the course of their relationship. He thought of the unnamed omega doing his Master’s degree at SNU, and Jungkook’s clingy behavior, and what it would feel like to direct this clinginess at someone who did not go by the name of Park Jimin.

Would that make Jimin happier?

It was during one of these outings that the girl behind the counter finally commented on Jungkook’s continued presence in the shop. He was standing at the glass counter, peering forlornly at the bed of crushed velvet on which these earrings rested. In his peripheral vision, he sensed movement, and when he looked up, a platinum blond omega smiled, head tilted. The sheet of light blond hair tilted with her.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” she said. “But I see you here quite often and you always seem drawn to the same piece. This pair — a very enchanting anniversary gift, if that’s what you’re shopping for. Or perhaps a non-traditional proposal?”

Jungkook shook his head, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “No, nothing like that,” he heard himself say. “It’s — I want to get something for my eomeoni.”

“Ah, really?” The girl dropped all pretenses of professionalism and folded her elbows on the glass-top, leaning forward with a conspiratorial grin. “But that’s so precious! How often do alphas come in here to shop for their eomeonims? Now, tell me, what’s stopping you from pulling the trigger? If this one is too pricey, I can point you to something more understated but just as elegant!”

“That’s all right,” Jungkook said. “This pair, I can see him wearing them in my head. But … do you hold pieces at all? I want to be sure the earrings are unique, that he doesn’t already own something like this.”

“Not really, no,” the girl said. She was gazing up at Jungkook with interest. “However, if you come back quickly — say, in the next forty-eight hours, after thinking on it a little more, maybe even asking your eomeonim his preferred metal or going through his jewelry box when he’s not looking — no one should notice that I hid this pair somewhere in the back.”

Jungkook looked at her in surprise. “Really? Will you get in trouble with your bosses if you do that?”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “For a son as filial as you, I can make an exception.”

Jungkook immediately sank into a bow. “Wow, thank you …”

“Chae Sookja,” she said and bowed in return. On second thought, she extended her hand across the counter’s glass-top, a small, pale wrist poised above rows of diamonds, tiny and glittering. “And you? What’s your name, so I don’t forget when I see you later this week?”

It was May. Jungkook was one month out from completing his probationary period at the fire station. He would soon be a Firefighter — officially. In another four months, he would turn twenty-seven and start to object to Jimin’s insistence on referring to him as a young adult. He would tire of his eomma’s attempts to set him up with singles in his age range.

He would say, finally, once and for all, “That’s no longer necessary. I’m already seeing someone.”

He would pretend to read shock, or displeasure on Jimin’s face. He would pretend to notice a pause between them, not unlike the one that rose up whenever it came time to begin their nightly routines together. All of this, and only in the immediate aftermath of his confession. In the three months following his initial conversation with her, Jungkook and Sookja had been on two dates in total — a walk by the Han, and a dinner. Jungkook hadn’t so much as kissed her yet.

And when Jimin asked, “Who … ? Someone from work?” Jungkook would not say, She’s my jeweler of choice, I go to her when I want advice about you, when I need to talk to someone about my family situation without judgment, when I need objectivity or understanding, even kindness, the exact sort that allowed me to buy you those earrings you’re wearing today.

He said none of that.

He never will.

Now, Jungkook shuts the laptop sitting open on their coffee table and calls out, “Sookja-yah!”

No answer from the bathroom.

“Tell me if you’re having cravings,” Jungkook says, raising his voice to be heard over the bathtub, “and I can bring your dessert home for much cheaper!”

Behind the bathroom door, there’s the thunderous sound of the jacuzzi jets. They’re competing with a head-banging indie rock playlist coming from her portable speaker. Jungkook has no hope of beating out all that white noise.

“Yah, no more nagging your pregnant omega,” comes a chiding voice from the direction of the kitchen. “Let her bathe in peace.”

Jungkook picks his head up with the speed of a hunting dog, nose raised. “Eomma?”

“Who else?”

Jungkook snags the 7-Eleven haul on his way over. He resents that this tiny apartment has become so overstimulating of late, he’s no longer able to pick out Jimin’s smell — not even when it’s fresh. His nose is usually better than that, ultra sensitive for an alpha. Now, behind pastry cream and candle smoke, lotus leaf tea and Sriracha sauce, he detects a purifying thread of Park Jimin. Jimin, who smells as light-footed as a spring breeze, the sparrow’s first call following snowmelt. Blue and blue and more blue.

“Eomma,” Jungkook repeats, annoyance giving way to whiny undertones. He comes to a stop in the doorway of the kitchen. “She wants us to live like French aristocrats.”

“You are far too fit to be a French aristocrat,” Jimin says from his station at their stovetop. He has on a lightweight button-down and linen slacks, comfort wear for a day of pregnancy errands, no doubt. The house slippers he’s wearing belong to Jungkook, bulky against his thin ankles. “Sookja, however, I have no comment on.”

“We could probably buy waterfront property by now with the amount of money she spends on takeout.”

“I bought her the éclairs,” Jimin says, like that’s that.

“You bought her those?” Jungkook says, skeptical.

Jimin throws him a look, eyelids low with unimpressed humor. “Why would I lie?”

Jungkook sniffs, his alpha for the moment appeased. “No one told me you were coming today ...”

“That’s because she and I are conspiring against you.”

“Can you conspire to have her drink all her tea next time?”

“Oh. That.” Jimin turns to give Jungkook a full-body appraisal, thumbing the corner of his mouth as his mind wanders. It just makes his bottom lip look even fatter. “She was getting up to pee every twenty seconds. If I didn’t make her stop, your water bill would have been through the roof. In the end, I was looking out for you.”

“She also left a candle burning on the coffee table,” Jungkook says and pauses for theatrical effect.

“Yes? What about it?”

“You three could have gotten seriously hurt — you and Sookja and the baby.”

Jimin rolls his eyes, returning his attention to the stove. “I burned the first serving of bibimbap, so that probably would have killed us first.”

“How do you burn bibimbap … ?” Jungkook says, with appalled affection. He can’t believe Jimin is real. “That’s like saying a baby stole candy from you.”

“I was reading my webtoon on the job.”

Jungkook shakes his head in mock-outrage. “I’m putting you on an official watch list.”

Jimin ignores this. “If it’s your baby, then they’re allowed to steal anything they like from me.”

“‘Requires Supervision Around Open Flames.’ You’ve earned the number one spot.”

“I don’t even like candles!”

“What other flammables do you have in your loft? I’ll have to do another sweep soon.”

“None whatsoever,” Jimin says, “except for hair spray maybe and all of my many wine bottles.”

“You’re going on another watch list,” Jungkook says without hesitation.

At that, Jimin breaks, bowed over his steaming pan and laughing cheerfully. He waves away a tendril of smoke, his shoulders trembling.

Jungkook grins in answer. The first laugh is always the best and most flattering — just enough poking and prodding to chip away at Jimin’s initial finger-wagging act. “Eomma.”

“Yes?”

Jungkook holds his arms open, an obvious petition for physical attention.

Jimin angles a look over his shoulder, unmoved by this. Evidently, the finger-wagging act is not yet finished. “Don’t beg. I’m busy.”

“Don’t beg. Don’t nag,” Jungkook recites. “What can I do?”

“You can start by reaching for a compliment before you criticize your pregnant mate.”

“We’re not mated,” Jungkook says, as sullen as a teenager. “... Yet.” 

Shotgun matings aren’t uncommon among newer, younger couples looking to mollify unhappy in-laws, but rushing into something to satisfy custom has never been Jungkook’s style. He’s indifferent to the idea of a traditional union. When he thinks of it — writing a letter of declaration to Sookja’s parents, then entertaining them over tea, pouring and refilling cups while pleasantries erupt around him, drawing Sookja, wispy and platinum blonde, into his arms and asking for her neck in a highly manufactured scenario meant to end with her mother opening the bedroom door and dabbing the blood away, the stained handkerchief treated as physical proof of the bond — his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. 

Jungkook can’t imagine that for himself. His mating fantasies have always been far more feverish, the kind of midnight depravity that keeps him awake, tossing and turning before a rut sets in: a casual movie night turned erotic, a threadbare couch, a tight body held tauter by the muscled weight of his thighs, two feet trying to kick him away after a long, passionate bout of kissing, as if to say, No more! We have to stop! We can’t continue or we won’t be able to take it back later! Then, at odds with this refusal, two small hands guide his dark head down, Jungkook’s face framed between the wide V-shape of the omega’s spread legs, and that’s when the omega blinks at him, pink-cheeked, disheveled as though from a tussle. 

They say, “Not the neck … go lower … when you bite … do it down there …” and Jungkook, temples pounding with lust, bites a bloody mark along the pale inner thigh, right where the smell of sweet, curly-haired arousal is strongest and dampest, triggering an orgasm that rockets through the little body, his teeth marks turning a brilliant crimson. And the body beneath him fusses and squirms and pants, out of their mind with pleasure, such that Jungkook is forced to sit up and assume the role of efficient first responder, clean up all the fluids and bandage them back to safety after disinfecting the wound. Like tattoo aftercare, he’ll nurse that thick, well-muscled thigh back to health where he bit down and broke skin.

This fantasy in particular is a go-to. When Jungkook only has five minutes to spare, a rushed or clinical session with the palm of his own hand, this is usually what he dips into. 

The neck is romantic, he’ll grant the movies and novels that much, but Jungkook is more compelled by the thought of a lewd mark left somewhere low, unseen, a place only he knows has been touched by his canines. And all the nonsense about non-reciprocal mating marks, the notion that accepting an omega’s bite will weaken the alpha, tie them down permanently, back them into a contract they’ll never be able to escape … Jungkook doesn’t buy into that antiquated bullshit either. He wants to be bitten — wherever his omega deems him most suitable.

He doesn’t want to discuss it beforehand, agonizing over placements and logistics. He doesn’t want to write out a legally binding contract for the parents’ perusal, bow over their hands and ask if it’s all right to spill blood in their home. He doesn’t want anyone else handling — or, God forbid, framing — the bloody handkerchief afterwards. He wants it when he least expects it, when he’s out of his mind with hunger and willing to listen to any word his omega feeds him, too high on sex hormones to think rationally about his life choices. He wants to face the consequences after the fact. 

Jungkook doesn’t know how any of that fits into this current version of his life, so he’s been putting off all talk of mating bites. Ever since Sookja peed on that little white stick, really, the discussion has been shelved.

“Someday you will be,” Jimin says, stirring at the bibimbap. “So you should think about what your life will look like, once you two have exchanged bites.”

“Later — I don’t know,” Jungkook mumbles, noncommittal. “I’m busy with other things right now.”

“You’re busy … ? What about the omega growing another human being in her belly?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jungkook says, and has the good grace to look chagrined. “I … I’ve been looking for other jobs on the side. Because of our deal — about quitting. I’m applying places and … there’s an interview I have lined up in two weeks. And — and budgeting in this apartment is not easy.”

Jimin twists at the waist, eyes big. “You have an interview? Where?”

“I'll tell you afterwards, if I feel good about my odds,” Jungkook says. “Please trust me when I say it’s the least dangerous thing you can imagine."

“But I thought … you have so much time before the baby gets here! You don’t need to start looking yet.”

“I want to have options ready. Paternity leave … I only get a little over two weeks. So I’ll need to figure something out pretty quick.”

“And this place, you feel good about it?” Jimin says, with a hopeful uptick towards the end. “I mean … you can picture yourself working there? Feeling fulfilled by it? Maybe … perhaps not like your current job, but … still, will it make you happy?”

“Yes. It’s — I already did a phone interview and an exam. I think … I can see myself there long-term,” Jungkook says, feeling suddenly bashful. “So this next part is the real thing.”

“Ah,” Jimin marvels, gazing at Jungkook with something too heartfelt to name. “To be honest … I really am grateful you grew up to be broke.”

Scratch that. ‘Heartfelt’ is not the right word for whatever is going on in Jimin’s brain. 

“Eomma,” Jungkook says, voice climbing in his disbelief. “What the hell — you can’t just say that.”

“No, really, I mean it,” Jimin says, as sincere as a puppy. “If you had a good relationship with your abeonim and he was spoon-feeding you monthly deposits … you would have turned out a lot less interesting.”

Jungkook doesn’t know whether to be flattered or affronted.

“Like this …” Jimin says, his head tilting very slightly in consideration of Jungkook. “This is how you ought to be.”

“Broke,” Jungkook clarifies.

“Realistic with your money,” Jimin paraphrases. 

“Getting a compliment out of you is like pulling teeth.”

“I hate pulling teeth,” Jimin says, turning back to the stove. His lips twitch around a small, furtive smile. “And I gave you all the compliments you needed growing up.”

“I need them now,” Jungkook says. “When I’m at my most interesting, and best-looking, and smartest. When I’m aging like fine wine, Eomeoni, that’s when you should be singing my praises.”

“I only said one of those things. The others … I don’t know about all that.”

Jungkook groans.

“And why do you pretend you’re starved for attention? Everyone who comes into contact with you kisses the ground you walk on.”

“Because this is the attention I want most,” Jungkook insists, reduced now to honesty. “Because I’m hungry for it and you come in here, burning bibimbap under my roof … and reading your … your smut …”

“It is not smut!” Jimin says, assuming an immediate tone of offense. “It’s a bildungsroman and it’s very poignant!”

“You shouldn’t trust the Romans to build anything. Considering,” Jungkook says. “You know. Historically speaking.”

Jimin stares at him, eyelashes unmoving. His beak is wonderfully plump, and totally immune to Jungkook’s puns. 

“You know that made you want to laugh.”

“Not at all.” Jimin pivots on his foot like a prima ballerina, back to stirring.

“And while we’re at it, those are my slippers you’re wearing.”

“Oh,” Jimin says in a pleasant voice and slips them off one at a time, kicking them over. His toes are small and bare against the kitchen tile. “Of course. My apologies, Your Highness the Alpha.”

Jungkook scoops up a pair of Sookja’s fuzzy slippers and walks them over, humming a victory tune all the while. He doesn’t give Jimin the opportunity to object. He sinks to his haunches, picks up his eomma’s left heel — callused, typical of someone who choreographs as hard as he does — and slides the first slipper on. The fit is snug, more agreeable to Jungkook’s hindbrain than overlarge sandals made of rubber and foam.

“These are warmer,” he says, craning his head back to make clear his endorsement. “And closer to your true size. This way, you won’t trip or get chilly.”

Jimin levels Jungkook with an unreadable look.

“Eomeoni can’t be mad at me for this,” Jungkook says from the floor. Without breaking eye contact, he picks Jimin’s right foot up, holding it in both hands like it’s as fragile as a seashell.

For all Jimin purports to complain, his leg is weightless, clearly amenable to the manhandling.

Jimin glances away, and Jungkook would swear that the nape of his neck looks pinker than it did a moment ago. “Your hands are filthy.”

Jungkook gazes down at his sooty knuckles, wrapped around that small foot. “Ah …” he says and offers Jimin an apologetic smile. “Shall I get the footbath?”

“You shall not,” Jimin says and delicately slips his foot from Jungkook’s large, scarred grip. He slides his toes into the other fuzzy slipper. “What do you have in that bag you brought in?”

Jungkook is already at the sink, scrubbing hard at his palm lines under hot water. “Any other complaints you want to make before I show you?”

“Plenty.”

He laughs, satisfied by the mental image he and Jimin call to mind, back-to-back in his narrow little kitchen, one at the sink and the other at the stove. The image is exactly as it should be (well, actually, Jungkook should be at the stove, given Jimin’s track record, but that’s a discussion for another day). He wishes he had a camera, and a third arm, or someone to film this for him. He dries his hands on a towel and turns to show Jimin the bag of goodies.

“For Sookja,” he informs his eomma, radiating self-satisfaction. “She texted me that she was nauseous, so I ran out for pretzels and ginger tea. I thought — well, I didn’t know Eomma was here already, but I wanted to check and see if she was all right.”

“Message me next time and I’ll go.”

Jungkook wilts on the spot. “Eomma … this … I did good though — !”

Jimin purses his lips, sending Jungkook a little look from beneath his lashes. So fastidious, this creature. Jungkook wants to bend down and gnaw on the nearest shoulder until he feels less crazed. “Can I be honest?”

Jungkook stands there, bug-eyed. Slow, almost hungry with it, he rubs his top row of teeth against the bottom, jaw flexing. Trying not to eye the shoulder or the neck — so vulnerable. Perfectly unguarded. “If you find fault with this …” he says, “... really … I’ll … I’ll do something crazy … I can’t take any more …”

Jimin laughs, smoothing a hand over Jungkook’s collar and immediately — with that single touch — quelling Jungkook’s raving alpha. “Don’t come home in your uniform. Change first. Soot is bad for the baby’s lungs,” he says, in his most tender voice.

“Fine,” Jungkook mutters, watching with betrayal as the tiny, long-nailed hand vanishes from his body.

“When you come home smelling like this, you’re sure to make her nausea worse.”

“What do I smell like?”

“Ash and smoke … wall insulation … and in a tight little shirt, sweating while you run around all day! Give that to me.”

Jungkook blinks. “The shirt?”

“The bag,” Jimin says.

“Why do you have to say it like that …” he mutters.

“Like what?”

“‘Tight little shirt.’” Jungkook pauses, trying not to seem like he’s fishing for compliments. “Objectifying.”

“Aren’t you the one who puts out annual calendars? Showing off your washboard abs … ?”

“Fundraising venture,” Jungkook says in his own defense. “It’s tasteful, I told you. It always has been. You’d know that by now if you let me give you one.”

Jimin raises his eyebrows, calling Jungkook’s bluff. “Are you going to keep the other eleven photos intact?”

“No,” he says, prompt and unashamed. “Why would you need to have eleven naked people hanging from your wall? The only one that matters is September.”

“I don’t need any naked people hanging from my wall,” Jimin says.

“Hm.” Jungkook eyes his eomma, pleased by this response. “That’s true.”

“Listen here,” Jimin says.

“Listening,” Jungkook says.

“White rice is much better for morning sickness and you have that in spades — right in your top cupboard. If Sookja’s stomach won’t settle, make her a bowl. Plain. Clear broth if she hasn’t hydrated recently. Pretzels, those are a bit too salty.”

Jungkook nods to show he understands.

“Now give me the bag.”

“Why?”

“Because —”

Jungkook switches the plastic bag from his left arm to his right, stuffing as much of it as he can under his tricep. Jimin narrows his eyes. Without hesitation, he lunges for it. Jungkook allows this lunge — it’s all according to plan. Jimin has already latched onto Jungkook, one wrist slotted under hard, taut muscle. He’s digging for the pretzels, obviously and in particular. They’re one of his eomma’s favorite salted snacks, after cheese balls. 

“After I just lectured you on sweat.” At last, Jimin locates the bag of pretzels. 

He tries to pull his wrist free with his findings in hand. In response, Jungkook clamps down on that clueless wrist. Jimin is no match for his overpowered triceps. He does too much heavy-lifting in his day-to-day, to say nothing of the gym. He locks Jimin in place.

“Jeon Jungkook,” Jimin says, one-armed and glaring fiercely.

Jungkook gazes down into those angry brown eyes. “Compliment?”

“Like this, I’ll just tickle you.”

“I’ll just like it.”

“... What?” Jimin actually laughs, snaggletooth flashing, his head falling back in a show of unexpected helplessness. When he tips his face back up, his bangs hit his eyes in a way that’s untidy, almost intimate. “Ah … I keep wondering when you’ll stop being such a puppy.”

“Never,” Jungkook vows.

“Let go.”

“Compliment.”

“Compliment? Really, that’s what we’re doing here?”

“Since I’ve come home, you’ve only been ruthless with me.”

Another laugh, smaller this time, very nearly silent. Jimin flicks Jungkook a look. The glossy brown eyes are less angry, more pensive this time around. It almost makes Jungkook’s triceps falter. Almost.

“Have I, really?”

“Yes, you have.”

“Ruthless?”

Jungkook is hamming it up now. “And cold, and cruel, and mercenary.”

“And mercenary?” Jimin repeats, amazed by this.

“Eomma, you’re the scariest person on the planet.”

“Well, I certainly don’t scare you or you would’ve been a lot more mannerly as a teenager,” Jimin says.

“I like to push you to the edge of scary,” Jungkook says, “so you’ll start using words like ‘certainly’ and ‘mannerly.’ You get so stuffy and lawyer-like.”

Jimin’s bottom lip begins to look a little fatter.

“Now you compliment me,” Jungkook tells him.

“That was not a compliment!” Jimin cries.

Jungkook cocks his head. “To me, it was.”

“You make me sound like your abeonim …”

“That’s different.” Jungkook shakes his head. “In my abeonim’s hands, power is abused.”

“And in mine? What?” 

“And in yours, it becomes very enticing,” Jungkook says bluntly.

Jimin’s eyebrows form an adorable little furrow. “The way you talk about me, you'd think I was some kind of cult leader …”

“If you’d like to be.”

“What?”

“If you’d like to be, I’ll allow it,” Jungkook says. “Now you give me a compliment.”

“Fine,” Jimin says.

“Fine,” Jungkook says and tries not to beam.

“You …”

“Yes?”

“Don’t interrupt.”

“Oh,” Jungkook says. “Sorry. Proceed.”

“You have,” Jimin says, choosing his words with utmost care, “more bulk than you know what to do with these days.”

“Is that all? I’m big?”

“Yes, and your shirts are tight and little as a result.”

Jungkook’s mouth twitches. “Eomma, I know this place is only twenty-seven pyeong, but it at least came with a coat closet. I’ll put all my bulk in there.”

“Not even half of it will fit.”

As soon as Jungkook lifts his right arm up, freeing that trapped wrist and the bag of convenience store goods, Jimin reels his own back. Once, twice, he whacks Jungkook with the pretzel bag, plastic crinkling loudly.

“Ow.” In direct contrast to his words, Jungkook leans in for a sniff of Jimin’s throat, unfazed by any lingering threats of bodily harm.

Another whack to warn Jungkook off. Then Jimin simmers down, prim and proper as a swan, his pearl drop earrings slowing to stillness below his earlobes. Apparently he only needed to mete out a bit of retributive violence to settle. Serene now, he opens the bag and rustles about for a pretzel stick. His eyes don’t leave Jungkook for a second. He crunches audibly, then swallows.

“What?” Jungkook says, feeling judged. 

“Does that uniform belong to you?”

Jungkook glances down at his form-fitting long-sleeve. Cotton tends to be the fabric of choice for every firefighter’s first layer. It’s the best at wicking away moisture and in dangerously high temperatures, excessive sweat is — as Jimin correctly pointed out — the norm. Jungkook recalls his fireproof coat, draped over the headrest of his Kia like a neon yellow sticky note. He thought it would be too filthy to bring in with him. 

“Yes?” he says. “But I share a locker room with all the others.”

“And how eventful was work today?”

Jungkook chalks the interrogation up to Jimin’s general distrust of his life choices and the dangers they present. It comes with the territory. Firefighting is a lot more perilous than sitting in a cubicle for eight hours. 

He runs through his day so far: fitness training, equipment maintenance, an illegal bonfire in Pungnap-dong (rascal teenagers), a small grease fire in Itaewon (senile ajussi), a bakery with a malfunctioning convection oven — all taken care of without incident — a suspected gas leak at a residential building down the street (false alarm), and a litter of mewling kittens trapped behind the wall of a seafood restaurant (the mother cat was not too pleased to have been discovered). Jungkook even pulls his phone out to show Jimin a photo of the kittens, black and gray and bleary-eyed, their little ears covered in cobwebs and wood shavings. 

He’s in the middle of describing their individual personalities as he remembers them — “This one twitched his button nose just like you …” — when Jimin seizes a handful of Jungkook’s shirt in his fist and wrenches it up to the button nose in question.

“Ah … Eomma?” Jungkook says, stomach contracting as cool air hits his bare skin.

“I knew it,” Jimin says and tosses his pretzel bag onto the counter. “You’re a week out from your rut.”

Jungkook goes beet red. “No way —”

“Yes,” Jimin says. “You think I don’t know that smell? I was the one who had to wash your soiled underwear when you first hit —”

“God,” Jungkook says, loudly, emphatically, too mortified to entertain this subject for a second longer. “No — no — I was not a sexual being, ever. Not until I turned eighteen. That’s the day I learned what an orgasm was. No sooner. No later. Anything else is a lie. It never happened. It’s slander. You smelled nothing. You — my abeonim sent you away when — you weren’t even there when I was — !”

“He would’ve had to send me away for a century to fully air that apartment out after the fact.”

Jungkook’s mouth drops open.

Jimin presses his lips flat — a feat, considering their size and prominence on his face — in an attempt to stave off his laughter. 

“Don’t say anything else.”

“The smell was on your underwear,” Jimin continues, clearly intent on taking his revenge for all that laundry now. “Your bedsheets, your gym socks, your gym shorts, sometimes that armchair you inherited from your poor halmeoni. You used to keep a mountain of balled-up tissues under your mattress, like we would somehow discipline you if we caught you throwing them in the trash … ? In your mind, the only alternative was hiding them from us forever.”

Jungkook shuts his eyes, burning all over with shame. “No. No ...”

“Have you been checking your app? It must be that you missed a few doses of your suppressants.”

“I don’t miss doses,” Jungkook says, absolutely certain on that front. He opens his eyes to communicate his seriousness on the matter. “Not after … the pregnancy.”

“Then …” Jimin pauses to mull this over. “It has to be Sookja. She’s stirring up all your baby-making chemicals.”

“Please don’t ever use that phrase again,” Jungkook says in grave tones.

Jimin runs the fabric of Jungkook’s long-sleeve between two pink-tipped fingers, eyelashes moving rapidly. He seems to be engrossed in his thoughts.

“Eomma, I’m under a lot of stress right now. That’s all.”

“Stress doesn’t smell like this — although it can affect your cycle,” Jimin says resolutely and tugs at the shirt fabric in demonstration. He sighs. “This is my fault for making you quit your job. I should —”

“You didn’t make me do anything,” Jungkook says, cutting that off before it can grow another head. “I’m an adult. I offered you something I knew would make us both happy in … different ways. I wouldn’t have, if I wasn’t prepared to face the consequences.”

Jimin tugs again, more weakly this time, at the fabric of Jungkook’s shirt. “But what will you do? Afterwards, if the interview doesn’t work out and you’re unemployed for a little while …”

“I’ve been saving,” Jungkook says, and leaves it at that.

Jimin squints up at him. “Is that why you were nagging Sookja for buying herself éclairs?”

“I knew you were lying about paying for those —”

“Jungkook-ah,” Jimin says, and, right on cue, Jungkook falls silent. “You plan to quit your job after this baby is born and — of course it would please me to see you working somewhere safer, but … that’s secondary to what your family needs.”

“You’re my family,” Jungkook whispers. 

“Your immediate family. The one you’re building right now,” Jimin says, with careful emphasis. “If quitting means more stress for you in the long-term, and if you’re doing it in part for me, then … please, I would like you to accept my —”

“No.”

“Just listen a moment.”

Jungkook is shaking his head, a violent back and forth motion. “I don’t want your money. I refuse to accept gifts of that nature from you.”

“Though, technically speaking, it’s your abeonim’s money,” Jimin says and casts Jungkook an incredibly tempting puppy-dog stare. “And, secondly, I’m not related to you by blood, so you owe me no filial piety.”

Jungkook wavers. He really does. He can feel the internal twinge of his wolf, a strong desire to give in. “Hold on,” he says. “‘Secondly?’ Let me stop you right there. There was no ‘firstly.’”

“And thirdly, I wasn’t brought up under Confucian ideals — my eomeoni, as you know, was originally a Buddhist country girl — and because of this, I went to Temple every week. I don’t therefore believe in this nonsense about one-sided charity and age hierarchy as law —”

“Stop talking,” Jungkook says. “Stop using big words on me. Stop — with the heartfelt anecdotes. Stop making your eyes look like that.”

“They always look like this!”

“You’re making them more powerful, widening them so much!”

“And, fourthly, do you know what the Buddha said? He said something like … ‘When you see someone practicing giving, aid him — aid him joyfully — and you shall obtain vast blessings.’ Buddha did not, however, say, ‘Block your eomma from —’”

Jungkook releases a noise of real frustration. This is what he gets for loving someone who once worked with lawyers. “Okay. Listen. How about a compromise? What if I stay at my job? A few more years, maybe, until things have calmed down with the baby?” he says. He says this as a test of his eomma’s sincerity.

Jimin stares up at Jungkook with endless reserves of compassion. “All right,” he says softly. “That’s fine with me.”

“No, never mind. I’m quitting,” Jungkook mutters, his resolve beginning to crumble in the face of so much golden warmth. He can’t in good conscience deny Jimin something that will make him happier. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. We’ll — let’s table it for later.”

“Later,” Jimin says, a bit of whiny satoori starting to slip out, “will you hear me out about the money?”

“No,” Jungkook says and peels the imploring hand from his shirtfront. “Fine. Yes! Maybe … ? No. No! No gifts of charity and … and I am not rutting right now.”

“At least book yourself a short stay at a hotel. A real one, with medically trained staff,” Jimin says, not letting up on the puppy-dog stare one bit. “That’s the safest option for Sookja and the baby.”

“Eomma, I wouldn’t … I would never … you know …”

Jimin slow-blinks, as if to say, Go on.

“Maul anyone,” he says under his breath. “I’ll just … stay in the bedroom.”

“And when Sookja needs something from the bedroom?”

“Last time, we —”

Jimin holds up a hand. “‘Last time’ is how you ended up here. If you could get that girl pregnant a second time, I have no doubt you’d find a way to do it.”

Jungkook hangs his head in disgrace. 

“Big doesn’t equal bad,” Jimin goes on, “but in this case, it doesn’t bode well for Sookja … being left in this small apartment with a large, high-strung alpha.”

“But … Eomma doesn’t really think I would ever hurt her … ?”

“I think ninety-nine out of one hundred omegas would roll over and bark if you told them to do it while you smelled like this,” Jimin says and Jungkook’s ears burn red-hot to hear it said so candidly, “and yet, it’s better for all parties involved if we prevent that from happening in the first place. Don’t you agree?”

“I suppose …”

“Jungkook-ah, you reek. I thought it was … I don’t know, chemicals from work? But up close, it’s just — sweat and pheromones. It’s rolling off of you. It’s no wonder you came in here so grumpy.”

“I came in here grumpy because Sookja is burning through our disposable income for — for junk! And now my own eomeoni is an accomplice to her crimes!”

“If that’s the case, then you two are long overdue for couple’s counseling,” Jimin says, the kind of no-nonsense problem-solving that so mesmerized Jungkook as a teenager. “Or haven’t you learned from my mistakes … ? When you have issues with someone, you broach them like an adult or you hold your tongue. Understand?”

“Of course I understand,” Jungkook mutters. “I try …”

Jimin pads over to the stove, checking on the rice. He lowers the flame. “Try harder.”

Jungkook feels himself starting to pout, soured by this turn of events.

“If you can behave, you’ll be rewarded for it.”

“Eomma, I am a — nearly twenty-nine-year-old man. I don’t need incentives to behave.”

“That’s what Buddha said: vast blessings. So I’ll visit you towards the end of your rut, bringing some extra spicy army stew with me.”

All pretenses of maturity desert Jungkook. He feels his lips part in his eagerness to comply. “Fine, okay. I’ll behave and I’ll check myself into a hotel,” he says without skipping a beat. “And … I’ll research couple’s therapy. And, all right, I won’t name my baby after you.”

Jimin sends him a flinty look. It makes Jungkook want to gnaw on him harder.

He takes a breath, hackles lowering as he’s hit with a new lungful of Jimin straight to the bloodstream. His wolf sits back. They’re in agreement on this, content to let the subject of ruts rest. 

“Now that you have a daughter,” Jungkook begins.

“Daughter-in-law,” Jimin corrects. “And that’s after you mate her.”

Jungkook sulks his way up to the stove, loitering at Jimin’s back like a hanger-on who can’t take a hint. Jungkook can take a hint. He can take one and ignore it like nobody’s business. “You take her side in all things. You take her side, and you defend her more than you defend me.”

“That’s because this is an alpha’s world we’re living in,” Jimin says, “and I’m inclined to root for the underdog.”

“You like her more than you like me.”

“I don’t like you at all,” Jimin says, an exasperated laugh in his voice.  

“See? Lately you only scold me, telling me everything I’m doing wrong. Never compliment,” Jungkook goes on, back to playing up his victim complex.

“As you so kindly pointed out, you like it when I scold you,” Jimin retorts. 

“Hm,” Jungkook says, and nothing else.

“It makes you happy — being controlled by someone who isn’t your abeonim. You rebelled against him so I’d tighten the leash another little bit. You could only accept discipline if I was the one administering it.”

Jungkook drops his forehead to Jimin’s shoulder, calling upon every last shred of dramatic talent left in his body. “Maybe,” he mutters, playing at absent-mindedness.

“Maybe, what … ?”

“Nothing,” Jungkook says. “I’m agreeing with your observation.”

Jimin’s shoulders begin to tremble, vibrating against Jungkook’s skull. The laughter is all air, no sound. Slowly, imperceptibly, Jungkook nudges forward another centimeter, beginning to itch and scratch himself against Jimin’s throat. His — figurative — tail is practically thumping. Slower, more imperceptible than before, he works his way over to Jimin’s scent glands.

“Eomma doesn’t like me.”

“That’s right, I don’t,” Jimin says, vehement.

At the moment, Jimin is too busy warming up bibimbap to accuse Jungkook of subterfuge via scent glands. He’s in the middle of mixing in a liberal amount of Sriracha mayo — which constitutes over half of Sookja’s second trimester cravings. This is the most normal sauce placement Jungkook has seen over the last month. Two days ago, he caught Sookja drizzling hot sauce all over a steamed red bean bun and had to flee the room to avoid offending her with his reaction.

“Do you like my abeonim?” Jungkook asks.

“As a matter of fact, I feel absolutely nothing about your abeonim. A total void. Just white space.”

Smiling inwardly, Jungkook nuzzles Jimin’s throat, a show of subtle approval. He follows the lively pulse of blood across Jimin’s branching carotid arteries — clavicle, throat, jaw, the soft, private patch of skin before his heavy earlobe, an earlobe weighed down by all the ‘thrifted’ jewelry Jungkook is always gifting him. He inhales, gently, shyly, and feels the resulting pulses move through his own body like an echo or feedback loop.

“Eomma, do I really stink?”

Jimin rolls his right shoulder out, trying to dislodge Jungkook. “Yes, you do. Like a meat locker.”

“And do you love Sookja more than me?”

“You’re in the storytelling phase of your pre-rut,” Jimin remarks.

“And am I anything like my abeonim?”

At that, Jimin pauses, stirring at the steaming rice mix without uttering a single word. A moment later, he drops the spoon in the pan and turns at the neck. “Jeon Jungkook,” he says, a note of real and terrifying menace entering his voice, “do you think I could stand to be around you longer than thirty seconds if you were anything even remotely resembling your abeonim?”

Jungkook hums his thanks, aglow with gratitude, and moves to touch his nose to his eomma’s nape, drawing in an appreciative whiff of cleanliness — wind or water, bright blue lines leading everywhere and nowhere. He’s never been able to nail Jimin’s scent down in words, not beyond the sub-primal lure it’s always had on his hindbrain. It must be in some part a deep, childlike nostalgia. The rest Jungkook can’t name beyond rightness. A flood of affection washes over him.  

“And what will you do once my abeonim dies?”

“In my old line of work, this is what we would call a leading question.”

Jungkook chuckles into the blond hair curling at the base of Jimin’s skull, untrimmed, as fragrant as crushed flowers. “Do you love me or like me?”

“Jungkook-ah,” Jimin says.

“Mn?”

Jimin turns more fully at the waist, blinking his way into Jungkook’s black gaze where he’s still hanging around his eomma’s shoulders and throat — stooped over, loose-limbed. Jimin is brown-eyed, but Jungkook has spent most of his life thinking of that gaze as brighter than his own, more alert. Animated and full of life. He watches Jimin’s eyelashes move with the fascination of a child trying to pin down a small bird.

Jimin cups a hand to Jungkook’s cheek. “I’ll make you a separate serving without all the pregnancy garnishes. You must be very hungry.” He gives Jungkook a dismissive pat-pat with the palm of his hand. On cue, Jungkook’s stomach growls. “Poor puppy.”

Jimin says it like it’s nothing more than a sickly-sweet tease, designed to smack of irony.

Jungkook can only stare, thwarted, greedy for more. 

“Go change into clean clothes so you can eat. And see if there are any wipes laying around. Your smell is making my eyes water.”

“But, Eomma —”

“Go.”

Before Jimin can deflect his attempt, Jungkook snags him by the hip and drops a quick peck to his cheek. Then he takes off for the bedroom as a squawk of protest sounds at his back. Jimin is such a little chick, fluttering about and chirruping all over the place. It makes Jungkook smile — with teeth.