Chapter Text
Jung Hoseok was born to move.
He had the type of body that couldn’t be still for too long, nor should it. Hoseok in motion was a thing of beauty, a sight to behold, a wonder in its own right, and those who once saw him moving never forgot.
Hoseok had a soul to match his body, a wandering spirit, nomadic, always on the go, never still, never stationary. He slipped through cities like the wind was carrying him, there for a moment, gone again the next. He left impressions like the kiss of cool air on warm skin.
Nothing had ever made Hoseok want to sit still. Nothing had ever made him want to stop moving.
Nothing, that was, until Jimin.
And then…
Yoongi.
“Nice job today, Jimin!” said Hoseok, beaming.
He was covered in sweat. It had rendered his white shirt nearly transparent. It was, quite frankly, a spectacular look. His entire face was glowing.
Jimin swallowed and returned his smile. “Thanks, hyung!”
“You’re really too advanced for this, you know,” said Hoseok kindly. He wiped his face and neck with a towel. “You should be teaching these workshops, not taking them as a student.”
Jimin pouted. “But hyung,” he whined, stretching his shoulders. “This is only the second time you’ve ever done a workshop in Seoul, and I missed the first one. I have to take it!”
Hoseok smiled brightly at the compliment, a touch of a blush staining his cheeks, increasing his glow. Jimin’s stomach tightened and he swallowed again.
Hope on the Street, Hoseok’s dance workshop, was as nomadic as he was. He’d been travelling for a couple of years at that point, bringing dance to numerous cities across Asia. He was a dance superstar on the Internet, which was how Jimin had found him. He had vowed to attend the workshop if it ever came back to Seoul.
“Well,” began Hoseok, laughing, rubbing at the back of his neck with the towel. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m looking forward to filming this thing, yeah?”
Jimin jumped to his feet from where he had been stretching on the floor. He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! That’s always the best part of your videos.”
At the end of his workshops, Hoseok took his class out to the streets of the city and they danced in public, usually always drawing a raucous crowd. It was what had inspired the name of his workshop. It was what made him a star.
“Well,” said Hoseok again, happy blush still present, clapping one hand over Jimin’s shoulder. “Great job, again. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
“Bye, hyung,” called Jimin, as Hoseok skipped out of the studio, the warmth of his palm bleeding through Jimin’s shirt and into his skin even after Hoseok was gone.
“Shit,” said Jimin, clutching his stomach, the second he heard the outside studio door close behind Hoseok. “No,” he whispered fiercely, staring down at his own stomach, as if he could somehow command his body—his biology—to leave Hoseok well enough alone. “No, no, no. Stop. Not Hoseok. Yoongi. Not Hoseok.”
It never worked.
His stomach buzzed, a swarm of tangled feelings, pulling him like a magnet toward the bright beta.
“Shit,” murmured Jimin again, shoulders slumping. “Shit.”
Jimin stopped by the recording studio after leaving the workshop, armed with coffee and cold juice drinks, to greet Yoongi before heading home.
Yoongi had Namjoon and Jeongguk in the recording room, working on a duet, and Namjoon was actually singing for it. Jimin never would have guessed that Namjoon and Jeongguk could sing together so well. Their voices were astoundingly complementary. But ultimately, Jimin wasn’t surprised. Yoongi knew what he was doing. He knew the voices to put together.
Yoongi’s head tilted in his direction as Jimin walked in, and Jimin sighed in relief at the mere sight of him, at how quickly and easily his stomach settled, the chaotic mess of Hoseok Hoseok Hoseok instantly receding. In its place however, as always, guilt rose up hard and strong. His hands shook the tiniest bit as he set the drinks down.
Yoongi’s eyes, always so discerning even when he was distracted with other things, slid toward him. Jimin’s breath caught, but all Yoongi did was crook a finger, gesturing for Jimin to lower his head enough so that Yoongi could press his lips to Jimin’s forehead.
Jimin’s breath whooshed out of him, and Yoongi blinked curiously, but didn’t say anything. Namjoon and Jeongguk finished singing, so Yoongi tossed them a thumbs up and spoke through the mic into the recording room.
“Good,” he said, voice a little gruff. “I want to run through the second chorus again, but we can take a break first. Jimin brought drinks.”
Jeongguk yelped excitedly and darted out of the recording room, snatching one of the juice drinks and slurping half of it in one go.
“Geez, Gukie,” said Namjoon, laughing, as he also took a juice.
Yoongi snagged a coffee and opened the lid a little, peeking inside before nodding and taking a sip. He looked at Jimin again, and again Jimin found his breath faltering.
“You okay?” asked Yoongi quietly, while Namjoon and Jeongguk were distracted discussing the recording they had just done.
Jimin smiled. “Fine,” he said, a little too quickly. “I’m fine. The dance workshop was just tiring today.”
Yoongi hummed. “You’re still having fun though, right?” he asked, but his eyes were already trailing back to Namjoon and Jeongguk. “Yah! Don’t touch that!” he snapped, and Jeongguk jumped away from the recording equipment with a laugh. Yoongi grumbled, stalking off, and Jimin wilted.
God, it was getting more and more difficult, deflecting Yoongi’s questions. Jimin dreaded each moment that Yoongi looked at him, convinced that it would finally be the moment the alpha saw right through him. He felt sick almost always, these days. Since noticing that he was responding to Hoseok, and since fearing that Yoongi would realize.
Why are you betraying me? he thought, internally questioning the part of him that had begun reacting to Hoseok as an omega.
He hated it. He hated that his biology was doing this to him. That no matter how many times he screamed and cried and begged to know why, why, why, his body never answered him.
He loved Yoongi. He wanted Yoongi. He and Yoongi were true mates, meant to be.
Why couldn’t that be enough?
“Hey,” said Yoongi’s voice, close enough that Jimin startled, jumping, not having seen him approach.
Yoongi eyed him carefully. Jimin wished he knew what those beautiful eyes were seeing.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Jimin smiled again, and wished it wasn’t so hollow.
“Yeah,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed Yoongi quickly, pulling away before Namjoon and Jeongguk could start teasing them. “I’m just tired. I’m going to head home. I’ll see you later?”
He had started asking Yoongi that almost every day, now. So many of Yoongi’s days were spent at the studio.
“Of course,” answered Yoongi. He didn’t seem satisfied with Jimin’s quick kiss. He slid one long-fingered hand up into Jimin’s hair and tilted his head and kissed him more deeply, so that warmth and light overtook the mess happening in Jimin’s stomach. Yoongi’s kisses always made him feel so calm.
He had never known it was possible to be so happy and so terrified at once.
“I’ll see you at home,” said Yoongi, pulling away, and Jimin nodded.
At first, Jimin didn’t realize what was happening.
Registering for Hoseok’s dance workshop was all he could talk about for weeks, until even Jeongguk started making fun of him. Meeting Hoseok was like meeting an idol, and it took a few days before Jimin could even calm down enough to process that Hoseok was a human, and not just a celebrity online.
He was distracted by Hoseok’s smile, which was one thousand times better in person than in his videos, channeled through a screen. In person, Hoseok’s smile almost made Jimin tear up. But he had only one moment to think good lord, what a face, before it was sweat, and music, and dance, and he was caught up in the intensity of the workshop, of doing what he loved.
It continued on that way for a couple of weeks.
And then the butterflies hit his stomach.
He thought it was just because Hoseok was strikingly attractive. He was bonded to Yoongi. But he wasn’t blind. So he laughed the butterflies off, at least for a few days.
But those butterflies were insistent. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. Wouldn’t give up. They pulled and pushed and finally, finally Jimin sat down at the end of class one day, gob smacked, as he fought his body’s suddenly natural urge to move toward Hoseok.
No, he thought. This can’t be happening. I have a mate already.
His body did not seem to care. His stomach twisted and heaved, aching to be nearer to Hoseok, and Jimin fought back tears.
He left class in a daze, sat through dinner without eating, barely heard Yoongi’s and Seokjin’s concerned questions and Namjoon’s patient remarks. He excused himself to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat and stared at his knees through his ripped jeans.
“You are not going to cry, Park Jimin,” he murmured, curling his hands into fists on his thighs. “You are not going to cry. You are strong and brave and you can figure this out. You will figure this out.”
The door opened, and Jimin blinked quickly, wiping his cheeks before anyone could see. It was Yoongi. He had a bad habit of walking into rooms—even the bathroom—without knocking first.
“What’s wrong?” he asked bluntly, though his eyes looked worried.
Jimin tried to smile, but even he could feel that it wasn’t convincing. “I feel sick,” he said truthfully, because there was no point flat-out lying to Yoongi, not with their bond.
Yoongi was in front of him immediately, one hand up on his forehead. He cupped Jimin’s face.
“I’ll tell the others dinner is over,” he said, and left before Jimin could voice his protests.
Yoongi kicked everyone out and somehow got Jimin out of his clothes and into pajamas. Jimin felt dazed, could barely remember moving from one room to another, was only aware of himself again when Yoongi slipped beneath the blankets in their bed, pulling Jimin close against his chest.
“Jimin,” he murmured, lips brushing against the back of his neck.
It was so tender, so loving, that Jimin could no longer hold himself back. He burst into tears, his stomach heaving.
“Jimin,” said Yoongi again, more insistently. “Hey, it’s okay. Calm down. I’ve got you.”
But Jimin couldn’t calm down. He sobbed, hysterical, trying to apologize through gasping, uneven breaths.
“Jimin,” Yoongi repeated, over and over again, hands easy and big and warm on Jimin’s chest and stomach, trying to calm him.
Jimin knew that Yoongi was offering comfort the best way he knew how. But each reiteration of his name on Yoongi’s lips sent Jimin into a fresh spiral of tears. He couldn’t seem to stop. Yoongi finally turned him so that they were face to face, and tucked Jimin’s head under his chin into the hollow at his throat, and eventually Jimin’s breathing evened out, his cries receding, as his heartbeat synced with the beat that he could feel from Yoongi’s pulse point.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” asked Yoongi, and Jimin’s whole body quaked.
“I’m horrible,” he whispered. “Hyung, alpha, I’m an awful person.”
“What?” asked Yoongi, pulling back a little to look at Jimin with big, shocked eyes. “Jimin, no. Stop. That’s not true at all. You’re the best, kindest, most beautiful person in the world.”
The compliments just made Jimin feel like crying all over again. Yoongi gave them so rarely, even if Jimin knew he was thinking them. To hear him say that only intensified Jimin’s guilt.
Perhaps Yoongi could see on his face that reassurances were not working. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” said Yoongi peacefully. His voice was low and soothing, still a little rough around the edges, but nice. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
They didn’t.
Jimin left the remaining beverages in the studio, accepted one more kiss from Yoongi, and left.
He was already halfway home when he suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, swaying. Jimin always knew where Yoongi was. At least, he knew the general direction. Their bond ensured it. There was always a thread pulling part of his heart back toward Yoongi.
But now Jimin looked up, off to his left, toward a busy shopping district, and had a sudden clear thought that Hoseok was in that direction.
Jimin turned, staggering, and headed in the opposite direction. He felt pulled apart, separating into halves. He was connected to two people, but he had never felt more alone.
He pulled out his phone.
To: Kookie
come meet me. i’ll buy you food.
don’t tell anyone.
“What’s going on?” asked Jeongguk, thirty minutes later as he slid into the seat across from him.
Jimin shrugged. He pushed one of the bowls of noodles and meat closer to the younger. Jeongguk picked up a pair of chopsticks but eyed him curiously.
“Hyung,” he finally said. “Something has to be going on. You’ve been so sad recently.”
Jimin blinked, startled. If even Jeongguk was noticing, then it must have been obvious to everyone.
“How’s Seokjin hyung?” Jimin asked instead of answering, wanting to delay just a little longer, and Jeongguk immediately glowered.
“I don’t know,” he said, shoulders slumping moodily. “He isn’t talking to me. Still.” He peeked up at Jimin. “I’ve even been good and left him alone recently.”
Jimin smiled sympathetically. “He’ll come around.”
Jeongguk shifted, eyebrows lowering. “Maybe,” he said. “But hyung, we’re supposed to be talking about you. What’s going on?”
Jimin took a deep breath. He reminded himself that Jeongguk was his friend.
“Recently,” he began slowly, nervously biting at his thumbnail. “Recently, I’ve been feeling pulled toward Hoseok hyung. My dance teacher,” he clarified.
Jeongguk quirked an eyebrow. “Okay? What does that mean?”
Jimin swallowed convulsively. “You know how you have a gut feeling that you and Seokjin belong together? Sort of the same way that Yoongi hyung and I belong together?”
Jeongguk nodded, gesturing.
“Right,” said Jimin. “Well, lately, I’ve been feeling that about Hoseok.”
Jeongguk made a face. “You mean, like, you’ve got a crush? Hyung, I think that’s probably pretty normal. You rave about the guy like he’s the second coming of Jesus Christ.”
Jimin pressed his lips together. “It’s more than that,” he admitted. “I feel pulled toward him, Gukie. The same type of pull that I felt toward Yoongi. A true mates pull.”
Jeongguk leaned back, his eyes going wide, chopsticks falling out of suddenly limp fingers. “Oh,” he breathed. “Hyung, that’s…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish.
Jimin nodded miserably. “Awful. Horrible. The worst. I’m the worst person, Jeonggukie. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this. I don’t know what to do. I feel sick all the time. I’ve been lying to Yoongi. He’s going to find out, and then we’re going to fight, and we’ve been doing so well recently it’ll ruin absolutely everything we’ve gained, and then he’s going to hate me, and I already hate myself, and poor Hoseok didn’t ask for any of this, and—”
Jeongguk lunged across the table and grasped Jimin’s hands firmly in his own, squeezing gently. “Take a breath, hyung,” he instructed, waiting until Jimin had actually done so before continuing. “First of all, Yoongi hyung would never, never hate you. So you just forget that right now. Second, I never want to hear you say you hate yourself again. This isn’t your fault, Park Jimin. You are one of the best, bravest, kindest people I know. You are a gift. Don’t forget that.”
Jimin’s chin wobbled. “You really think that, Gukie?”
“Hyung,” said Jeongguk. “Of course. You are amazing, and this isn’t your fault.”
Jimin sniffed. “Thanks, bunny,” he murmured, glancing down at the table and then back at Jeongguk.
“Yah,” Jeongguk protested, but his cheeks turned pink all the same. “Anyway, hyung, it’s not impossible to have more than one true mate. Rare, maybe, but not impossible. Even I know that. It’s in the textbooks. Didn’t you go over this in school?”
Jimin’s shoulders lifted, hunching. “It’s just really different when it’s actually happening to you.” He looked at Jeongguk through watery eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, I know it’s not what you want to hear,” said Jeongguk slowly, “but you have to tell Yoongi hyung. Wait,” he said, interrupting Jimin’s frantic head shaking. “You have to tell him. It’ll be a tough conversation either way, hyung, but the longer you put it off, the worse it will be. And I know you don’t want that.”
Jimin hugged himself, arms locking around his stomach. “I know,” he whispered. “I know I have to talk to him, but. I’m afraid, Jeongguk.”
Jeongguk looked at him sharply. “Of Yoongi?”
“No!” said Jimin quickly, waving his hands. “No, not of Yoongi. Never of Yoongi. I’m just… afraid of what’s going to happen, between us.”
Jeongguk shook his head. “You two are mates. You’ll always be mates. This isn’t going to change that. But you have to talk to him. Be honest.”
“Okay,” said Jimin, as strong as he could. He squared his shoulders. “Okay.”
The problem, as Jimin saw it, was that Yoongi’s anger wasn’t always predictable.
Sometimes Jimin could see it happening. He could see it in Yoongi’s eyes and read it in his body language. Jimin usually saw it coming when it was about music. Yoongi could get worked up over music, and Jimin was always able to tell when that was happening. That anger simmered for a long time, usually while Yoongi spent late nights at the studio.
Jimin had learned how to diffuse that type of anger pretty quickly.
Yoongi was also fiercely protective of the members of his pack, but sometimes that protective instinct bled into aggression, and Jimin knew that it was hard for Yoongi to control. It had been happening a lot lately with Seokjin, as the elder became more and more reclusive, and picked worse and worse alphas for his heats.
Jimin expected Yoongi’s anger in those moments. So he wasn’t ever really surprised when Yoongi came home in a storm cloud, slamming the front door behind him and muttering harshly under his breath.
There were times, however, when Yoongi went silent as the grave. His face and eyes gave nothing away and even his behavior remained relatively the same. But his voice vanished. Those were the times that terrified Jimin the most. Those days he wanted to curl into a corner and disappear from the world.
Yoongi had never hurt him, and Jimin trusted that Yoongi never would hurt him. But Yoongi’s silence was deafening, and Jimin never knew if it was going to fizzle out and fade away, or if it was going to condense and coalesce and explode outward.
The first time Jimin saw Yoongi go into an alpha rage, they had just bonded.
Jimin was still dazed from days of burning heat sex, the first time that he and Yoongi had been together as an alpha and omega. His mind was clouded with Yoongi, his vision swimming with Yoongi, his senses overwhelmed by Yoongi.
Yoongi was never overtly alpha, not the way some alphas were. He took Jimin on dates like a gentleman, was never hasty, never pushed himself on Jimin, never Ordered. He didn’t need to act like any more of an alpha than he was naturally, and what he was naturally was more than enough.
Yoongi was the type of alpha who could make other alphas weep, if they ever got it into their heads to compare themselves to him. Jimin had seen other omegas nearly fall to their knees just from catching a whiff of him. Yoongi was the alpha who didn’t have to try, who exuded natural confidence, screamed of natural dominance, and could silence rooms simply by walking into them.
Jimin was completely lost the moment he saw Yoongi, the moment he smelled him. He felt the pull immediately after he presented, and then he just knew. Yoongi was his. And he was Yoongi’s.
Yoongi spent Jimin’s first heat with him, after he presented, and then every heat after that.
In the hazy confusion of his heat, in the half-clear space of his mind, Jimin wanted their bond to be permanent. Yoongi wanted it too. They were both experiencing the pull. Jimin had never felt anything like it. It was a full-body sensation; it was a smoldering need to belong to Yoongi, and for Yoongi to belong to him in return. So it was only a matter of time before they completed their bond.
Looking back, Jimin didn’t regret that they underwent the completion ceremony during that first heat. He and Yoongi were meant to be. That had always been and would always be true.
But he wished that he had been more prepared for what it would be like to suddenly be permanently bonded to someone he had only known for a short while. He wished that he could have done things differently, the morning his heat broke. He wanted to take back the moment that, exhausted and weak and overwhelmed from his first heat, he burst into tears upon realizing that he and Yoongi were permanently bonded.
He wanted to explain that it wasn’t Yoongi he was crying about, and that none of it was Yoongi’s fault. Jimin didn’t regret Yoongi.
But then Yoongi’s rage snapped into existence, sharp and sudden and screaming. Jimin had never seen an alpha in a rage before, and he scrambled away from Yoongi, terrified. Yoongi’s eyes glinted eerily, and the voice that came out of him wasn’t Yoongi’s voice, not as Jimin had heart it. Jimin hadn’t even known that people could make sounds like that, until they emerged from Yoongi’s vocal chords, ear-splitting, howling.
Yoongi sprinted into his room and locked the door and stayed there for hours, screaming himself hoarse, ripping everything around him to pieces.
Jimin didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t stay and listen to Yoongi experience such a strong rage. It felt like it was happening to him, too, tearing him apart, too. So he left, ashamed, horrified at the noise and what Yoongi was going through, convinced it was his fault.
Yoongi came and found him later that night, after the rage spent itself.
He tucked himself into one corner of Jimin’s bed and pulled the young omega against him and spent a long time just breathing in his scent. Little by little, Jimin relaxed in his hold, finally going boneless, safe and protected in Yoongi’s arms.
“I’m so sorry,” Yoongi finally whispered into the back of his neck, where his bonding bite was. “Jimin, I’m so sorry.”
“Hyung,” Jimin started, hesitant.
“None of that, and none of this, is your fault,” said Yoongi insistently. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I… I should have been thinking more clearly during your heat. I messed up, Jimin. I never should have sealed the bond. I’m so sorry.”
“Hyung, what?” asked Jimin, suddenly nervous. He turned in Yoongi’s arms, facing him. “No. No. I wanted you to. I know it was all a little cloudy and fast but, hyung, I wanted you to. I want to be bonded to you.”
Yoongi blinked. His face was white, and Jimin’s heart ached at the sight of it. “You do?”
“Yes,” said Jimin firmly. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that I didn’t want that. I was just so tired. And it was my first heat and I was feeling very worn out and… I’m sorry that I cried. But I want to be with you. I do.”
Yoongi stared at him for a long time. “Okay. Okay. I’m… I’m glad. I want to be with you too. But we should talk. Tomorrow. We can clear everything up. We can talk.”
“Okay,” said Jimin. He curled his arms around Yoongi’s waist and tucked his head into Yoongi’s neck. “Tomorrow.”
They did talk. Their bond was brand new, and though those feelings were fizzing and bubbling inside Jimin excitedly, he understood how important it was for them to set boundaries, to discuss the parameters of their new relationship, and to figure out where they wanted to go from there.
They took things slow for a month, and then Jimin moved in to Yoongi’s apartment.
Even after that, they took things slow. They learned a lot about each other, those first few months as a mated pair, and the process of learning and discovering that they had differences, and had their own opinions, and even disagreed on a few things, caused some fights.
But Yoongi didn’t go into a rage again. And Jimin learned to stand his ground.
And they loved each other, despite the difficulties.
But Hoseok.
Hoseok.
Hoseok changed everything.