Archive of Our Own

“Hyung?”

Yoongi lifts his head. The movement alone sends waves of exhaustion through his aching limbs. He knows that voice, maybe knows it better than his own. Certainly, he has listened to it for what feels like a lifetime.

He blinks to clear his vision and when his eyes have regained their focus there’s Namjoon, meeting his eyes, skin aglow with a sheen of sweat and the remnants of adrenaline, from the passenger seat.

It’s funny, thinking back to the time when they were merely teenagers posing as adults, with dreams and hopes for better lives, breaking their backs because they’d rather fail than give up willingly. Back then, Yoongi thought he was the only one filling the empty spaces of his heart with anger after years of making music had seeped through his fingers because he was young and stupid and easy to take advantage of.

And he had been so angry with Namjoon too, that tall and lanky boy from Ilsan. When he met Namjoon, Yoongi gave room to his frustrations of being told that they had the entire world to explore and conquer when, in reality, Yoongi went to bed with an empty stomach which had long stopped growling.

“Hyung? Are you alright?”

Yoongi shakes his head to dispel the old memories. Namjoon begins to frown but quickly, Yoongi nods. He’s okay. A little lost in his thoughts after they completed the first leg of their tour.

Namjoon eyes him a second longer. Whatever he finds in Yoongi’s expression makes him relax, and with a small grunt he turns to lean his head back against the window.

Next to Yoongi Jungkook is asleep and his beta scent blankets the car in a soft silence. He reaches out to push Jungkook’s head against the backrest so the maknae won’t wake up with a crick in his neck. For all his teasing and fake annoyance, Yoongi is still taken off-guard sometimes when he catches Jungkook’s profile out of the corner of his eye. When he dreams of the pack it’s often a much younger Jungkook who appears beside him.

He sighs out a breath as he settles back in his seat. City lights flash by to the steady beat of his heart and Yoongi cranes his neck in an attempt to see the top of the skyscrapers, but they are much too tall. Their car is being followed by an identical one, where Seokjin is checking his games on his phone while Jimin and Taehyung each lean against one of his shoulders, Hoseok in the front seat wiggling his socked feet to expel leftover energy. Of course, Yoongi doesn’t know for sure what they are doing but he does know his packmates.

In the past, he disliked the thought that it wasn’t just him but specifically the omega in Yoongi who longed for the safety of the pack. But his wolf and he are rarely in disagreement anymore. It’s contentment, once new, and now a regular part of his life.

“Hoseok is thinking of going live,” Namjoon speaks into the silence. His phone lights up the lines of his face. Even though his voice is low, each and every corner of Yoongi recognises it as his and theirs. Pack alpha.

A smile plays upon his lips. “Is he going to show Army how he washes his socks in the hotel room sink again?”

Namjoon’s shoulders shake.

“I just want to—”

“—take a shower and sleep, I know.”

“Yah,” Yoongi scolds, not even half-heartedly. A quarter-heartedly, maybe.

“Staff already ordered dinner,” Namjoon says. Please don’t skip it, Yoongi hears. He rolls his eyes in good nature but his chest warms nonetheless. He tucks his chin into his hoodie, settling into Jungkook’s side. The beta snuffles lightly as if recognising Yoongi’s scent, so close to the source, and with a sleepy mumble he buries his nose into Yoongi’s hair.

When he lifts his gaze, Namjoon is already looking at him.

He’s smiling.

//

While they wait for their room cards, Yoongi inspects the lighting fixtures over the entrance to the hotel lobby. The interior of the hotel is kept in a modern design with a warm grey colour palette. It’s a good look, he thinks, expensive yet avoiding the unwelcome character industrial styles often have.

“Yoongi-ssi?”

He turns to the hotelier at his side.

“I must apologise on behalf of the management. There has been an issue with your allocated room which is why we have taken the liberty to move you to another suite.”

Yoongi accepts his room card with polite thanks, assuring that it’s not an issue at all. One of the housekeeping staff leads him to his floor. The others have already left for their rooms.

He fiddles with the different settings in the shower until he finds the one with the highest pressure and lets the water pelt down on his shoulders and back. He goes through his post-concert routine in a haze: Years and years of touring and travelling have contributed to the autopilot which takes over him now. Usually, he likes to take a bath, especially when his room has a large tub and offers an assortment of supplements like Epsom salts but tonight, he’d rather crawl into bed.

He watches the soap suds go down the drain after washing away the sweat and grime from the day. With every minute spent under the stream he had felt another layer of himself come undone.

When Yoongi sits down at the end of the bed, his bare toes barely graze the ground. Moisturiser is still drying on his skin, unscented because Yoongi is sensitive, his skin and his nose. Behind the black-out curtains the city does not sleep. With a palm he draws lazy circles over his belly, staring into space.

The clock strikes well past midnight and Yoongi hasn’t moved.

A series of knocks startles him out of his daze.

His neck complains when he straightens his back. Without realising Yoongi has been hunched over, examining his nails and picking at his cuticles.

Could it be staff? Did he forget something in the lobby—or did he call for room service? Yoongi doesn’t remember. He feels strange, fidgety, as if he can’t quite keep still.

Another knock. “Hyung?”

And, oh, Yoongi knows that voice. He takes off the lock and cracks the door open until his eyes land on Namjoon. The surprise takes Yoongi’s ability to speak so he blinks up at Namoon whose brows are drawn together in concern. Yoongi’s consciousness slams back into his body and he’s the most awake he has been all day.

“No one informed me,” Namjoon says.

Yoongi’s lips part. He stares at him, open-mouthed, and tries to understand.

“Can I come in?”

Yoongi steps back and watches Namjoon cross the threshold. He has a duffel bag in tow.

Namjoon’s eyes wander to the bed and linger. It’s still made, except for the creases in the cover where Yoongi had sat. It doesn’t take a professional to deduce that Namjoon is far from his default setting of everything is going just how it’s supposed to go. Not that he’s a control freak, there are others in their pack who fit the description better. But as the leader of the band and the head of the pack Namjoon takes the control he is given to ensure their well-being and safety.

Compared to him, Yoongi has more of a… a problem. Yeah, he might have a problem. Thinking, I need to fucking quit just about a hundred times a day when he’s making music because music cannot be controlled in the way Yoongi would sometimes prefer it to. Because it would be easy, then. But if it were easy, Yoongi wouldn’t be making music.

“Hyung?”

Anyway. He’s digressing.

“What’s wrong, Namjoon-ah?”

Namjoon looks at him, mouth pulled into a thin line. It shouldn’t be possible, Yoongi thinks, when you have lips as full as Namjoon’s.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says and Yoongi can tell he isn’t lying. But at the same time Namjoon sounds confused, squinting at him, as if he’s trying to parse an English word which has no Korean counterpart. Lost in translation. It reminds Yoongi of rude interviewers asking whom else they could imagine in Namjoon’s position.

His thoughts are all over the place. It’s getting annoying.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Yoongi asks.

“Why am I…” Namjoon frowns. “Because I knew you’d be awake.”

Now Yoongi is the lost one. There’s nothing unusual about this night, is there? So why is Namjoon so upset?

“Hyung, can’t you smell?” A hint of amusement, like the golden amber of a liquor bottle, slips into his voice.

“No,” Yoongi answers before sniffing the air with purpose.

He does a double-take. An embarrassing noise is squeezed from his throat.

It sends Yoongi into motion, blood rushing to his cheeks, his neck, because the burnt sugar in his room is so strong it’s bordering on vile. The windows don’t open on a floor this high so he lunges for the remote which controls the A/C and cranks it up, hoping he can air out the room quickly. How the hell did he manage to stink up the whole ensuite?

He faces Namjoon, a little helplessly, not quite meeting his eyes.

“I didn’t notice,” he grumbles.

“Clearly.” Namjoon motions to the bathroom. “Can I shower here?”

Yoongi vaguely gestures his assent with the wave of a hand and drags his palm over his face when the door to the bathroom clicks shut. On the bedside table his phone is charging in Do Not Disturb mode. Yoongi grabs and unlocks it, met with several unread notifications. He has disabled the alerts for most of his social media and foregoes the weather forecast, promising a day’s worth of rain tomorrow, to open his private chat with Namjoon.

[00:45] KNJ: Hyung, did they change your room number? Where are you?

[00:47] KNJ: And you don’t have your notifs on.

[00:52] KNJ: Staff just told me there was a problem with rooming and they put you on another floor?

[00:53] KNJ: When was this

[00:53] KNJ: Why didn’t you say anything? 

[01:01] KNJ: Staff knows the pack rooms next to each other.

In the past, when the constellations in the pack and Yoongi himself had been more fragile in the way that small disagreements tended to turn into full-blown arguments which needed pack meeting after pack meeting to be settled, Yoongi would have scoffed at the messages and told Namjoon to fuck off.

Today, though, Yoongi takes care of the pack and the pack takes care of him.

It clicks into place. His anxious fretting, the inability to wind down and go the hell to sleep, suddenly making sense. Of course. Yoongi loved touring and yet it gave him a hard time. Even Jimin, the only other omega in the group who loved to be out there so much more than Yoongi, needed his rituals to ground himself. Compared to Yoongi, Jimin liked to nest even in places that weren’t home. Once or twice, Yoongi had joined him upon request. And Taehyung, close to Jimin in a different way, always worked with and around Jimin and his needs once their group activities required them to travel.

Yoongi has long since struggled to establish the same inner connection to the pack when away from home. Away from home, their shared apartment, their den. For years he didn’t realise what an essential role being physically close to his packmates played when it came to his sense of safety. He liked spending time on his own and having space. In the beginning, the pack took this for a general aversion to casual touch, quietly vowing to keep their distance unless Yoongi reached out. It was easy for him to fall into a role, telling himself that this is what he wanted, when he ached for the proximity he had already been kept from before joining his pack.

Yoongi glances at the duffle bag on the floor near the entrance when the sound of the shower stops. Shortly after, Namjoon walks out of the bathroom while roughly rubbing a towel all over his head, clad in a wide shirt and shorts, lines of skin in display. It’s not as if Yoongi isn’t used to the sight; over the years they have seen each other in various states of undress as well as completely naked but Namjoon’s body looks so different from his own, it’s as if he notices Namjoon’s corporeal existence for the first time or in a different light, from a different perspective.

Neither of them asks. There’s a rather plush-looking pull-out couch in the sitting room and Yoongi has half a mind to whack Namjoon over the back of his head when the alpha’s eyes flit between the bed and the couch. A fierce glance cows Namjoon and Yoongi’s belly flips at his ability to turn their pack alpha back into a young puppy with his tail tugged between his legs. Namjoon grabs his toothbrush and disappears.

Yoongi is in the middle of liking Hoseok’s abundance of Instagram stories when Namjoon returns with his, with Yoongi’s, toothbrush in hand with a dollop of sky blue on the bristles. He holds it out unceremoniously for Yoongi to take without even looking at him and Yoongi sticks his toothbrush in his mouth and the mood is so quiet and routinely and normal that Yoongi finds himself finally growing tired, suppressing a yawn.

“Are you wearing that to bed?” Namjoon asks.

Yoongi lifts his head and barely catches himself from drooling toothpaste because his body is already winding down. “Wha’?”

Namjoon points at his own head, then walks back to the bathroom to rinse his mouth.

With a confused noise Yoongi reaches for his hair. His hand comes in contact with something suspiciously fluffy and he remembers then, how he put on a headband while washing up, holding his hair back from getting into his face.

Yoongi rips it off, almost sending the toothbrush in his mouth flying.

His cheeks burn. The headband was a gift from Hoseok and has kitten ears. Because Hoseok knows Yoongi and Yoongi likes cute things. And it is cute. But he could have done without sitting around in it for half an hour while Namjoon roamed about the room.

“You enjoyed that,” Yoongi says when he sidles up to Namjoon at the sink. He must have scrubbed the scent blockers off his neck and wrists because Yoongi only needs to inhale to catch a fresh burst of earth after rain, amusement hidden in the undertones in a way Yoongi can’t quite explain.

He wonders if Namjoon took such care to wash the blockers off because he knew his scent would help Yoongi calm down.

“What do you mean? You make a great cat boy.”

Yoongi bares his minty teeth, canines small and blunt because he’s an omega. Traditionally, alphas took over the responsibility of hunting game for their packs. What kind of bullshit. Namjoon almost faints whenever he sees blood and yet he almost looks like Edward Cullen with those fangs.

Namjoon’s dimples show when he smiles.

Yoongi crawls into bed, on the side he would have naturally slept on. “When do we have to be up tomorrow?”

“Breakfast is between seven and ten.”

Yoongi hums. The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Namjoon with his reading glasses on, a battered paperback the object of his focus. With the smell of petrichor at his side, Yoongi’s thoughts are slow and simple now, lining up in a proper queue, so that he can easily dismiss them until the next day. He turns his back towards Namjoon.

Fingers ghost over his brow, tucking hair behind his ear. But Yoongi thinks he’s just dreaming.

//

“That’s your shirt,” Jimin says with a kind of wonder.

His hair stands out in every and all directions, perpetual pout on his lips. Yoongi wants to pet his head and tell Jimin he’s sorry that he didn’t get his twelve hours of beauty sleep.

Yoongi sips on his coffee. His appetite returned early in the morning hours after secretly having skipped the post-concert takeout because he wasn’t hungry.

“Yes, Jimin-ah. That’s what we do, we wear our clothes,” he explains as if talking to a five-year-old child. To be fair, Jimin does not have much mental capacity when woken up too early. When Yoongi thinks back to their first season of In The Soop, the image of a sleepy Jimin with a spoon in his hand surfaces, making him laugh.

“Wow, really? Hyung, you’re so wise. Please tell me more.“

For a second, Yoongi considers his sarcastic request. He opens his mouth.

Jimin waves his hands. “No! No, it’s too early, please.” He slumps back into the couch, looking quite miserable but undoubtedly pretty.

They settle into a comfortable silence, Yoongi drinking his coffee as Jimin rubs at his eyes, squinting at his phone screen.

“Wait,” Yoongi says. “What did you mean, then?”

Jimin doesn’t even look at him. “You smell of Namjoon hyung. Not like he scented you—you reek. I thought you’re wearing something of his.”

Just then, Taehyung rounds the corner, foregoes the empty seats and casually drapes himself over Jimin’s lap.

“Morning, Jimin-ah. Morning, hyu—” He catches sight of Yoongi and stops, mouth pulled into a confused little o-shape. “Oh. I was not expecting you here.”

“I was thinking the same thing!” Jimin exclaims. “It’s Namjoon—”

Yoongi tunes the ensuing two minutes of conversation between the two out because, to be honest, no one truly understands Jimin and Taehyung once they get started with their mind-to-mind connection. That is, until Taehyung pokes Yoongi’s leg with his foot, his head shoved all up in the crook of Jimin’s neck. Their puppy-like qualities tend to make him smile even on the darkest days, a fundamental part of them so happy the other exists.

“Why weren’t we invited?” Taehyung asks with a pout.

Yoongi tilts his head in question. “What are you talking about?”

Taehyung glowers. He must be thinking about delivering a bratty nip to his arm or shoulder, Yoongi thinks.

“You know I love pack time!” he whines. “And Namjoon hyung never lets me cuddle him for longer than a few minutes. I also want to sleep with him.”

“Who wants to sleep with whom?” Namjoon’s voice cuts in.

Yoongi needs more coffee for this. Treacherously, his cup has just run empty. When he lifts his head, Namjoon is standing next to his seat. Their lounge is secluded from the rest of the breakfast area. Private, and able to host a rowdy pack with members who are always up to no good.

Namjoon has one eyebrow raised as he looks at Jimin and Taehyung. From this angle Yoongi can make out a hint of stubble on his chin. He must not have shaved after Yoongi kicked himself out of bed at the crack of dawn in pursuit of precious hot coffee.

His eyes meet Yoongi’s. With a tiny upcurve to his lips, he points at the cup Yoongi is clutching to his chest in mourning.

More? Namjoon mouths at him and Yoongi sags in gratitude, holding his cup out. But before he walks away, he trails his fingers through Taehyung’s permed locks.

“You know it’s not like that, Taehyung-ah. I don’t mean to but it’s the…”

Taehyung cuts him off. “I know, hyung. I’m just being a brat,” he pouts and Yoongi hides his smile. “Not your fault.” Still, Taehyung pushes his head into Namjoon’s touch and pouts even more when Namjoon takes his leave with a soft sigh.

It happened sometimes, that alphas got territorial with other alphas in the same pack. Entertainment companies take a big risk when forming groups before all dynamics have emerged. A risk, for certain, when their pack turned out to be predominantly made up of alphas. Not only did the public have much to say but moreover, their management and staff grew worried too. Packed idol groups tended to fall apart because of unforeseeable clashes between members, and as heartbreaking as the thought is, it only confirmed how well their own pack was faring. That they were doing something right, that they belonged together, because of their hard work and maybe, a little bit of fate.

The issue between Namjoon and Taehyung, if you could even call it that, did not lie with territory. Raised in an environment where comfort was not spelled out in hugs or other soft caresses, Namjoon needed to grow into the tactility a pack provides from the get-go. He was similar to Yoongi in that aspect.

If asked, Yoongi would say they aren’t a very traditional pack. Sure, they fulfilled some stereotypes, but subverted others. When Taehyung presented as an alpha, his predisposition to physical closeness did not change one bit, always wanting to curl up around one of their warm bodies in his sleep.

While Yoongi valued his own space and still preferred to sleep alone on most nights, he did enjoy Taehyung’s arms securely wrapped around his middle as if he never wanted to let him go.

But Namjoon… he couldn’t.

“It’s not—not an aggressive thing,” Namjoon had quietly confessed to Yoongi after escaping the old dorms in a rush. “It just—it makes me feel so small. In a bad way. Like when you’re standing on a busy street and all you need is space to breathe but when you look up, you can’t even see the sky because buildings are towering over you.”

And instead of saying something clever and worthwhile and full of empathy, Yoongi had brushed his shoulder against Namjoon’s and stood next to him as they tried to make out the stars on another smog-filled night from the rooftop of their dorm. Even if the pollution obscured any flecks of light, the memory filled Yoongi with a skyful of stars.

When Namjoon returns, he takes the seat next to Yoongi. Slowly, the rest of the pack files in, all in various states of alertness. Jungkook chooses the armchair on Yoongi’s other side and shoves his toe-socked feet under Yoongi’s thighs and butt because Jungkook thinks he can get away with everything because he’s cute. But he is cute so Yoongi lets him.

He thinks of waking up this morning with his head tucked under Namjoon’s chin.

Neither of them is a pure-bred cuddler. Yoongi tends to curl up small with his hands tucked between his thighs, and Namjoon just passes out in whatever position and becomes dead and unmoving to the world once asleep. But now he couldn’t possibly recall the first time they had woken up with their limbs entangled. It must have been so awkward considering their embarrassing younger versions and the whole enemies-to-friends arc they had to go through. But whenever they slept in the same space, their bodies gravitated towards each other. And Yoongi, if he thought about it, liked how uncomplicated it was because they never mentioned it, never turned it into a Thing.

If he thought about it, he liked waking up next to Namjoon. Usually, the alpha was draped half on top of him and even though Yoongi complained (he considers it a finely-honed talent), he liked that it was him Namjoon got so close to without apprehension or difficulty. He liked seeing Namjoon happy and relaxed because he was their pack leader—and because Yoongi cared about Namjoon, one of the earliest constants of his adult life, so constant he never considered the idea that one day Namjoon wouldn’t be there.

The coffee tastes bitter on Yoongi’s tongue.

Jungkook wiggles his toes where they’re stuffed under him and when Yoongi looks over, the maknae is considering him with an unspoken question in his eyes. It takes him longer than usual to recognise the slight uncertainty, the worry nonchalantly hidden, the are you okay? of Jungkook’s pursed lips.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. He’s fine.

He leans back in his seat and considers letting his eyes fall shut. Maybe he could sneak in the shortest catnap ever taken while the pack catches up.

Someone next to him shifts and provides a shoulder to lean on.

Yoongi exhales and the weight of the world slips away from him with the ease of raindrops sliding down a car window. That the whole room falls silent escapes his notice until the shoulder Yoongi rests on grows tense and uncomfortable.

He peels his eyes open with a disgruntled noise. His gaze settles on Jimin who is covering his mouth with his small hand, eyes wide and cheeks dusted pink. When Yoongi blinks and checks the other seats, Seokjin wears an expression of barely holding back a screeching laugh which would likely catapult him and his stupidly wide shoulders to the ground.

Yoongi frowns. He’s about to ask if there’s something on his face but his voice—it doesn’t work. Instead, he produces a strange, strange sound. Bewildered, he sits up and coughs, rubs at his sternum only to find that his palm is shaking. But no, it’s not his palm that is trembling—it’s his fucking chest, rumbling vibrating, and Yooni is at a loss. His heart rate picks up.

Searching for purchase, Yoongi grips at the arm next to him and almost gives himself whiplash when he lifts his head and stares right at Namjoon, whose face is the colour of beetroot. Yoongi searches his eyes frantically as if their leader knew the answer to all questions.

Never in his entire life has he done this, this, before.

“Oh my god,” Hoseok says. “Hyung. You’re—you’re purring.”

//

“I wish I had it on video,” Taehyung sighs. “Hyung, do you have some sunscreen?”

Yoongi doesn’t say I told you to use it earlier when we got off the bus. It’s useless. He’s known these guys for a lifetime which means they also know him. At one point Yoongi chose to stop nagging so they wouldn’t complete his sentences, especially in public, anymore.

He searches for the tube of SPF in his bag and hands it over without a word.

“Thank you!” Taehyung chimes. Yoongi pulls the rim of his bucket hat down his face. He doesn’t regret agreeing to accompany the maknaes because he’s not the one moving the paddleboat across the lake right now—that’s them—but he didn’t consider how much sun they’d be getting. Somehow, he thought this particular European country to be more on the rainy side.

Namjoon is accompanying Hoseok to an interview for his solo activities while Seokjin chose to stay in the hotel. Yoongi can picture him well, in his set of PJs with his pink Switch Lite, hopefully keeping his frustrated noises and cheers down so they won’t end up with a noise complaint. Again.

“Same,” Jimin says. “Did you see how red Namjoon hyung got? Wish we’d gotten that on video too.”

“Are you aware that you have been moving in a circle for the past five minutes?” Yoongi drawls.

“Yah! Jeon Jungkook!” A few drops of water hit Yoongi’s face when Jimin dips his hand in the lake and splashes Jungkook. Or tries to. Because the maknae ducks, giggling wildly, so that most of the water just ends up in their duck-shaped paddleboat instead. “I told you to slow down!”

“It’s not my fault you’re so slow! It’s your short legs!”

Jimin growls and moves to lunge at Jungkook and the boat starts to sway dangerously. Yoongi clutches at whatever there is to grab which ends up being the duck’s wing.

“I’ll show you what else my short legs can do!”

Yoongi is so relaxed.

Once everyone has settled back in their seat and Jungkook has agreed to keep his paddling to a normal speed, Yoongi halts. “Taehyung-ah, what are you talking about?”

Taehyung turns around, pointing at his closed mouth. “Uh.”

He shakes his head. “No, no. Earlier. A video of what?”

“Oh!” Taehyung’s expression lights up. His hair has grown long enough that he’s constantly shaking the curls out of his eyes now. Today, a hairband is holding them back. He looks younger like this, Yoongi thinks, the pack’s baby alpha. “A video of you purring!”

Yoongi takes it back. Baby alpha no more. His entire pack is made up of traitors.

 “Excuse me?” he chokes out. His face instantly grows warm. “Jimin purrs all the time, do you have videos of him?”

Jimin locks eyes with him. “Of course he does,” he says, as if Yoongi’s just asking stupid questions. “But this is different.” Yoongi is very aware that it’s different. “You’ve never purred before.”

Yoongi looks away.

“It was very cute,” Jungkook adds and makes Yoongi flush harder.

He sucks in a deep breath. “Well,” he starts, but runs out of steam, all the air rushing out of his lungs. “I don’t think I’ll do it again,” Yoongi says quietly.

He feels the three exchange glances but he doesn’t want to witness the looks in their eyes—he knows them too well and will be able to read every unsaid word off of their faces.

It’s Taehyung who leans into his line of vision, eyebrows pulled together and lips parted in a little o. “Why?” he asks, pure innocence in his words. Jimin nudges him in the side.

They look at him, all expectant. Jungkook and Jimin are just better at hiding it while Taehyung doesn’t know why he should in the first place.

“Because I’ve never done it before,” he says. “I don’t even know why I did it.”

Jimin abandons his pedals and climbs on his seat backwards, sitting back on his heels. He’s facing Yoongi now, lips in a beak-like pout. He’s only missing the hand on his hip. Even though he’s the hyung, Yoongi has the feeling he is about to get scolded.

“What do you mean, hyung?” Jimin puts his hands on Yoongi’s knees, moving them to one side, then the other. Yoongi lets himself be swayed. “You were happy and feeling safe.”

“I feel plenty of safe with the pack.” There was nothing different or unusual about the situation, was there? He remembers being on the brink of sleep, the warmth of the body next to his seeping into his own. He was with his pack, his family, after seeing ARMY from all over the world at the concerts they’re now on a break from.

Taehyung hums. “That is true.”

Jimin snaps his fingers at the group. “I know what it was. Seeing my beautiful face first thing in the morning in the breakfast lounge,” he says, bursting into giggles halfway through the sentence. He leans heavily into Taehyung.

Yoongi watches them in quiet amusement. Except, even though Jimin is only joking, it’s not true. Because that morning Yoongi had woken up to Namjoon.

Jungkook tilts his head with a frown, looking directly at Yoongi. “I thought you knew,” he says quietly. Taehyung and Jimin’s giggles taper off. All eyes settle on Jungkook.

Yoongi blinks. “What?” His heartbeat gives a nervous stutter. Jungkook has always been perceptive, bambi eyes drifting to the side as he went over his observations in his mind. But as a beta especially, he has a better nose than any of them. Yoongi might have a delicate nose when he is stressed but Jungkook’s sensitivity often causes him distress. It only took one incident where Jungkook had a panic attack over being unable to smell Seokjin after the latter used perfume for the whole dorm to switch to unscented products. When Jungkook said he smelled something peculiar or strange, they all believed him without a doubt.

Now, Jungkook doesn’t speak right away. He keeps observing Yoongi for a moment longer and Yoongi, god forbid, starts to sweat.

“You weren’t just feeling safe with your pack. You felt safe because of Namjoon hyung next to you. So you purred.”

Come again?

“Oh. That makes sense.” Taehyung nods sagely to himself.

“Uhm,” Yoongi says. He wants to say that it doesn’t but he’s too stumped. He purred because of Namjoon? Well, he is their pack Alpha. He does suppose that, biologically, it isn’t too far-fetched. But—

“Of course.” Jimin reaches to ruffle through Jungkook’s hair but Jungkook shoves at him with a squawk. Still wrestling each other, Jimin gazes at Yoongi over his shoulder. “That’s so cute, hyung.”

“You’re close.”

Yes, sure, they have known each other for a long time. And they’re—they’re best friends. Yoongi doesn’t feel the urge to spill his guts to Namjoon—he has always preferred to deal with his emotional conflicts on his own—but if he had to, if he needed someone else, then he knows Namjoon wouldn’t judge him. That he’d be there. Namjoon is Yoongi’s first choice.

“I’m close to you all,” he protests, albeit weakly.

“But your omega doesn’t have a crush on us.”

As soon as the words register in his brain, Yoongi goes very, very still. He feels colour explode on his cheeks and in a second he’ll have turned into a literal tomato.

“Oh no. Hyung?” Taehyung waves a hand in front of his eyes. His scent flares on instinct. “Hyung? Did we break you?”

“Wait, I thought you knew.”

Yoongi’s gaze is unfocused, but he fists a shaking hand in Jimin’s shirt just so he has something to hold on to. “Who knows?” he murmurs. This is a joke, right? His omega does not have a crush on Namjoon. Yoongi doesn’t have a crush on anyone. Surely, he would know!

Jungkook notices his mental distress. “I mean, we… we don’t talk about it. But it’s just…”

“Obvious? We know you love all of us but—” Taehyung helplessly looks at the other two. “—but you and Namjoon hyung are different together. It’s always been you and him.”

//

“I didn’t think you could. Do that, I mean,” Namjoon eventually says.

It takes Yoongi a solid minute to understand what Namjoon is referring to. Several days have passed since what he calls the Duck Boat Incident where Yoongi had an existential crisis. Honestly, he had expected that by now he’d have passed the age for existential crises. But then, the circumstances, being a member of one of the most well-known music groups in the world, have always been different for them.

Currently, they are boarding their plane back to Seoul. They will stop for a few days at home and attend to business at the company until their overseas schedule picks up again.

With his passport in hand Yoongi opens his mouth and closes it again. He smacks his lips and scratches at the side of his head but after navigating the sea of flashing lights in the airport lobby he’s a little… not out of it, but overstimulated, maybe. The earbuds he’s wearing aren’t even playing music.

He scrutinises Namjoon and the way he’s completely avoiding looking in his direction. As he contemplates the Alpha, he realises how Namjoon has been distinctively quiet, not that this was a reason for alarm. Out of all of them, Namjoon likely spends the most time wrangling his thoughts and feelings without ever making them anyone else’s problem.

Are the tips of his ears red? Yoongi cannot tell under the artificial lighting. A few feet ahead an attendant of the airline starts checking their boarding passes. Yoongi shuffles along, Namjoon in his shadow by mere inches.

“You’re bringing this up now,” Yoongi both states and asks.

Over their heads a couple of loudspeakers carry an announcement through the vast space of the airport but Yoongi doesn’t bother to decipher the English. He certainly doesn’t take it for granted how Namjoon will inform them if there’s been a change to their flight even though they have accompanying staff specifically for this reason. But he had taken it for granted in the past and sometimes, Yoongi still berates himself.

“Do you think that—” Namjoon starts. He cuts himself off and exhales. “Nevermind.”

Yoongi turns to peer up at Namjoon so quickly that he nearly trips over his feet. “What?”

But Namjoon simply shakes his head and ignores the frown growing on Yoongi’s face. Just when Yoongi wants to needle him for an answer, Namjoon speaks. “Your turn, hyung.”

The entire way to his seat Yoongi keeps thinking over their exchange. He bows to the staff on the plane, mumbling hellos and thank yous, too occupied with his thoughts to pay more attention.

Their seats are little private booths that can turn into actual beds. Yoongi, who rarely sleeps through the night, getting about three to four miserable hours of downtime before his body wakes him up with the need to be doing something, looks forward to a nap with his earbuds in, updated with the newest noise-cancelling technologies.

Take-off goes smoothly. Yoongi kicks off his shoes, ready for the staff to dim the lights, when he catches Namjoon out of the corner of his eye.

He’s inspecting Jungkook’s ankle. He had rolled it at the last concert and not for the first time either. Usually resting his foot for a few days worked wonders—it used to be difficult to get Jungkook to admit when he was hurting because he tended to go above and beyond. But an older Jungkook is also a wiser Jungkook, even if he still acts like a brat sometimes. At least that hasn’t changed.

Yoongi watches Namjoon doting on their youngest member with a budding tightness in his chest. When Yoongi averts his eyes, turning to lie down, it’s with the thought that, even though he had written off the conversation about his omega supposedly having a crush on Namjoon as, excuse him, utter bullshit, Yoongi noticed a shift in his perception of the alpha. Out of nowhere, Yoongi would sneak a glance at the alpha, only to find Namjoon already looking at him. It’s only natural for his omega to be attached to their pack alpha. But Yoongi and his omega aren’t separate entities.

He exhales sharply, finding his face tense. He smooths the wrinkle between his eyebrows out with his fingers and closes his eyes.

//

“Hyung, that’s not what happened at all!”

“Uh-huh, you tell yourself that, Hob-ah.”

Hoseok slaps his thigh in mock-offense. “I’m not that terrible of a drunk,” he insists. It doesn’t help his case that he can’t keep the giggles from bubbling out of him.

Yoongi nods sagely. He clicks around the mixing software opened on his screen before sitting up straight in his chair. “I guess you aren’t. You haven’t kissed me on the forehead and called me jagiya in public yet.”

Beside him, Hoseok kicks his feet, spinning in his seat while throwing his head back. His laughter is bright with joy. “I can do that when I’m sober, hyung.”

“Please do,” Yoongi deadpans but his lips curl up at the corners. “And the next time you plan on getting wasted, pick your designated guardian beforehand. That way we won’t have to argue over who has to carry you home.” The smirk slips onto his face halfway through his sentence—he’s merely teasing, especially because it’s fun to see Hoseok flail his limbs and lean into the giddiness with his whole body. He fills the studio with the scent of his favourite candle, Soft Blanket, except there’s a fresh note of brightness, like ginger, warm and spicy.

Enough anonymous voices on the internet have given their opinion on Hoseok’s scent and how it’s untypical for an alpha—and perhaps it’s why Yoongi adores it so much. In the earlier days when fan letters were still a rare occasion for the group but an even rarer one for Hoseok, the alpha had struggled. With his image, with idol training, with himself. “I don’t know what it is that I contribute to this group,” Hoseok confessed to Yoongi years ago and a few days later Yoongi took a train from his parent’s home back to the dorm and grabbed some chicken on the way to surprise Hoseok who’d been staying in the dorms alone.

Seeing Hoseok so unbothered and free, with his nails painted and an eagerness to remind the pack of his love for each of them, makes Yoongi grow fonder every day. And how, with every passing year, it only becomes more instinctual to protect what they have carefully built as a pack.

“Ah, hyung. You’re being sentimental,” Hoseok says and nudges him with his elbow, expression knowing.

Yoongi jolts out of his thoughts. He wakes up the screen, refocusing. “I’m not,” he says and sounds petulant to his own ears. Pretending to be concentrated and hard at work on the beat in front of them is a lost cause and yet Yoongi is committed to the act.

“Yeah, yeah.” Hoseok props his chin up on his hands, half-leaning on the giant desk adorned by several water bottles and empty cups of coffee. Yoongi has been trying to cut back on his caffeine intake but Hoseok is helpless against it. “I can smell it, you know.” The fondness makes his voice slip into a lower register. “You’re getting old.” Yoongi squawks but Hoseok ignores him. “But it’s okay, I’m getting old as well. In another life where we didn’t become famous, I would be staying home all day, just looking after the pack.”

Yoongi considers Hoseok for a moment. “So you did see ARMY call you a malewife.”

Hoseok’s mouth opens in confusion. “A male wife?”

Oh, so he doesn’t know. Yoongi had almost led with MILF instead.

“Yeah, like…” he struggles. How do you explain to your packmate that fans see him as dependable as well as fuckable? “You’re an alpha but you don’t overtly act like one. There are some posts about making a great, uhm, househusband.” Jesus, it’s getting warm in his studio.

Hoseok’s expression doesn’t change except for the faint blush dusting his cheeks. And it’s not exactly easy to make Hoseok blush. “Oh. Oh wow.” He puts a palm on his chest, right over his heart. “I feel strangely honoured.”

Yoongi chokes on thin air, briskly staring straight ahead. He keeps the sexual undertones of the trope to himself.

“What else are they calling us?”

“You’re the one who has perfected the art of Instagram, you should know.” Yoongi doesn’t use social media often; he doesn’t harbour an innate curiosity regarding the public’s opinion of his persona. At least not anymore. Out of all of them he suspects Namjoon is the most aware of what’s happening online, especially on Twitter, considering he’s the most fluent in English out of all of them.

Which reminds him…

“Hey, have you talked to Namjoon lately?”

Hoseok laughs. “You mean the one we live with? Yes, I happened to exchange a word or two with him recently.” His laughter tapers off. “This morning I told him to please rinse his coffee mugs before putting them in the dishwasher. The coffee stains at the bottom of the mugs never get cleaned otherwise.” Hoseok frowns.

Yoongi nervously eyes the cup he brought with him to Hoseok’s studio. He hopes Hoseok doesn’t notice.

“No, I mean…” He cuts himself off with a grunt and snatches one of the pens from the penholder, twirling it around his thumb. An alternative to Yoongi’s nervous habit of biting his nails.

Hoseok tilts his head.

He’s unsure how to approach this. Ever since they returned to Seoul, Yoongi has been aware of Namjoon in a way he has never been before. “Have you noticed something different about him recently?”

“Different? About his, what, his behaviour?” Hoseok looks to the ceiling, clearly trying to recall recent events. Yoongi patiently waits for an answer because Hoseok might seem deceptively extroverted but he sees more than he lets on. “No, I don’t think so.” But there’s a deliberate cautiousness about his words, one that means he’s holding something back from Yoongi.

“You don’t have to tell me what it is.”

Hoseok shakes his head in confusion. “Hyung, I genuinely don’t know what you mean when you say ‘different’.”

And Yoongi is growing agitated now, like a pup who wants to bite and gnaw on a toy bone or a squishy arm, instead of viewing this conversation rationally.

“He’s just…” Yoongi exhales, annoyed. These past days, whenever Yoongi went about his day, whether it’s at the company gym where he does his shoulder stretches, or he’s all by himself in the apartment, Namjoon’s just… there. Either with a text that pulls Yoongi out of his doomsday thoughts, rarer now that he has left his early twenties behind, but still sneak up on him out of nowhere, or with his actual presence, slipping into the elevator at the HYBE building at the last second, dropping off a bottle of water at Yoongi’s studio or his bedroom, or passing Yoongi on his way to the shower.

He sounds ridiculous. Of course he’d see Namjoon everywhere—they live together, they’re pack. But how has he never noticed this before? That everything in his life, every aspect of it, includes Namjoon in some sense?

“What do you mean he’s there,” Hoseok cuts into his thoughts. Yoongi’s heart gives a dangerous lurch when he realizes he must have said some of that out loud. “He’s always been there.”

Yoongi deflates back into the leathern seat cushioning like a beach ball pricked open by the sharp edge of a shell. He settles his palms over his stomach and uses his socked foot on the edge of his desk to send his chair spinning slowly, from one side to another.

“Do you remember the hotel after the last concert?” Yoongi asks quietly. Hoseok nods. “Namjoon came to my room to… to, fuck, check on me, I guess? They had to relocate me into another room away from you and he anticipated I’d be anxious. You know I don’t travel well when I’m not…”

“With the pack,” Hoseok concludes softly.

Yoongi swallows at the unbidden images flashing in his mind. One of them is a scene from one of his earliest nightmares after becoming who they are now. In the dream, the pack disappears and Yoongi can’t search for them because he’s rendered completely useless by his own frantic fear, unable to make it out of the door because he’s crying too hard.

“Yes. Yeah. So he came over and calmed me down before I even realised I couldn’t settle down.”

Next to him Hoseok hums. Yoongi feels his eyes on him and he’s sure that if he met Hoseok’s stare now, it would burn.

“He does that, hyung. Takes care of the pack,” Hoseok spells out carefully.

“Of course but,” Yoongi plays with his fingers anxiously, “isn’t he doing it… more than usual?” A thought comes to Yoongi. Maybe Namjoon’s been stressed and that’s why he’s been focusing all his attention on the pack so he doesn’t have to deal with what’s on his mind. On his next inhale, Yoongi gets a whiff of his own curdled scent and he winces. He turns to Hoseok then.

Hoseok is already looking at him in a mixture of pity and disbelief. Yoongi cannot fathom what would prompt such a reaction, but he grows unbearably hot with it anyway. If he touched his hands to his cheeks, they’d be undoubtedly scorching.

“What?” he snaps.

“For someone so clever you can actually be pretty dumb, hyung,” Hoseok says drily. “Namjoon isn’t doing anything differently. You’re just finally noticing—"

Before Hoseok can finish speaking, before Yoongi can protest and maybe shove Hoseok off his chair, there’s a knock on the door. Unlike Yoongi, Hoseok doesn’t have a keypad installed.

The door opens. “Hey, ‘seok. You have a minute?”

Namjoon steps into the studio and toes off his sandals. Yoongi can pinpoint the exact moment he notices Hoseok isn’t alone—he’s still bent at the waist when his nostrils flare briefly. When he lifts his head, he’s staring straight at Yoongi. “Oh, hyung.” His eyes flit back and forth between them. “Are you busy? I can come back later.”

Hoseok waves him off. “Nah, we weren’t really getting anywhere. Right, hyung?”

Yoongi frowns. No, they weren’t getting anywhere, especially not after Hoseok’s last comment. So clever but pretty dumb. What the hell? And what was he finally noticing? He hated being left in the dark.

Namjoon joins them at the desk and Yoongi has to crane his neck to look up at him. From this angle, the hint of stubble on Namjoon’s chin is more noticeable. Apparently, he didn’t shave this morning.

Yoongi startles when Hoseok kicks his chair. He tears his gaze away from Namjoon and blinks. “What?”

Hoseok’s smile is drenched in honey. “Sorry, my foot slipped.”

“Wah, I haven’t seen that in years. I thought I lost it.” Namjoon, oblivious to Hoseok’s antics, reaches out and pulls at the drawstrings of Yoongi’s hoodie.

Yoongi follows Namjoon’s line of vision. The hoodie is black and nondescript, aside from a white print trailing up the sleeves. “What do you mean? That’s my hoodie.”

But Namjoon shakes his head. “No, I gave it to you. Don’t you remember? When we filmed Bon Voyage in Finland.”

Yoongi gapes at him. “I… no.”

“Oh my god,” Hoseok cuts in. “I do!” He paws at Yoongi’s arm. “This was when he wouldn’t stop complaining on the bus about being cold and as soon as you gave it to him, he fell asleep. Right?” He laughs and Yoongi feels as if Hoseok’s laughing at him. He pouts and pulls the sleeves over his hands only to cross his arms over his chest.

He’s not blushing. But he’s building up to something similar, as if he’s—he’s blushing from the inside. A warmth spreads through his limbs, all the way from his middle, from the little space right behind his sternum. Yoongi wants to curl in on himself and savour the warmth, as strangely as it sounds. Namjoon and Hoseok are still talking about their time in Scandinavia while Yoongi stews.

“Well,” Yoongi eventually interrupts. “At this point it’s no longer yours.”

Namjoon snorts. “It’s fine. I don’t want it back.”

Good. Yoongi sniffs, playing up his fake offence. Except, his breath catches in his throat. When he clears it, a rumbling noise stutters out of him. At least he doesn’t choke on it like he did in the breakfast lounge at the hotel.

Hoseok’s eyes go as wide as saucers. As if someone pulled the strings on him, he reaches for Yoongi, his hands making grabby motions, as if to verify what’s happening. “Hyung?”

But Namjoon’s response is much more distinctive.

Yoongi purrs and can’t fucking stop and he feels jittery as well as high with it. He turns to Namjoon out of a deeply buried instinct, because Namjoon is Namjoon, because Namjoon is their pack alpha they can fall back on even in the most desolate of situations, and when Yoongi sees the expression on Namjoon’s face a part of him which is always a bit cold, has been cold since he left his parents’ home behind, thaws. Maybe it’s the same cold that subconsciously compelled Yoongi to wear this hoodie.

He thaws because Namjoon isn’t looking at Yoongi as if he’s known him for thirteen years and has been his best friend for a little less than that. He looks at him like Yoongi’s mere existence softens whatever blows Namjoon has had to endure in the past and will endure in the future.

He looks at him with something like love.

//

“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin singsongs.

His voice dips into a melody Yoongi doesn’t recognise, mostly because he woke up from a nap about thirty seconds ago. With a groan, he pulls the blanket he has no recollection of ever fetching over his head and turns so he’s facing the backrest of the couch. If he tries hard enough, maybe he can manifest sinking into the space between the cushions like one of those TikTok cats that hide in sofas.

“Are you pretending you don’t exist? Should I pretend too?”

In a vicious display of strength, Seokjin wrenches the blanket away from him.

Yoongi laments the rush of cold air loudly. “What do you want?” It’s too bright in the living room so he shields his eyes with a hand.

“Excuse me? Is that the way you should be talking to your one and only hyung?”

“I have an older brother. You met him.”

Seokjin plops himself on the couch, conveniently sitting on Yoongi’s legs. Yoongi lets out a small oof. It takes some shoving and quarrelling before Seokjin agrees to release him and by the time they are sitting at each end of the sofa, they are both a little flushed and breathing heavily.

Yoongi huffs. He barely resists the urge to kick Seokjin off the couch, maybe bite him for good measure. Only because he’s too tired to move, and not because he’s a respectable person. “Are you, like, in need of attention? Is Jungkook at the gym?”

Seokjin flips him off. “No. Well, he is. But I wanted to annoy you specifically.”

One and only hyung, my ass, Yoongi thinks.

“And a little birdie came tweeting and told me something very interesting.”

Now that he’s fully awake and in an upright position, Yoongi becomes aware of the silence in the apartment, no thrumming in the background, no recent traces of scents noticeable except for Seokjin’s and his. He had meant to take just a little nap before driving to the studio—how did they all make it past him without Yoongi waking up? How long had he slept?

He eyes the blanket now hanging over the backrest.

Yoongi grunts half-heartedly. “Really.”

“Hoseok mentioned your studio time yesterday.” Seokjin sounds smug. Of course, Hoseok told him. Hoseok cannot keep anything to himself even if he tries. Especially if he tries. It’s like someone dumped truth serum in the milk he was fed as a baby. A smile threatens to appear on Yoongi’s face, lips twitching with it, but he forces it down.

He decides to rip the band-aid off. “Yes, I purred again. What about it?”

“You—wait, what?” Seokjin’s voice rises in pitch. “That’s not what he told me. He just said you’re being an oblivious idiot.”

Yoongi throws his hands into the air. “Are you going to tell me what I’m being oblivious about, then?”

“No, no, let’s get back to the purring.” Seokjin leans forward. “Can you do it now?”

“Why would I purr now?”

“Uh, because I’m one of your beloved pack mates and you feel comfortable and safe with me? What kind of question is that? Also,” Seokjin dramatically lowers his voice, “I’m your alpha.”

“Ew, hyung.” Yoongi sticks his tongue out. “You’re not my alpha.”

It’s true—they don’t belong to each other but they belong with each other. With the pack. Yoongi has never liked the trope of the possessive alpha even though it’s one of the most common plotlines in dramas nowadays. That aside, he knows Seokjin is only joking. However, denying the ownership status feels good. Because he’s not owned. He’s free and available and…

Yoongi’s thoughts screech to a halt.

“Oh wow.” Seokjin scrunches his nose. “Whatever you’re thinking about…”

Yoongi stubbornly stares past him. “Have you considered that maybe I started purring for absolutely no tangible reason?”

Seokjin doesn’t say how that’s bullshit because his expression does the job. And Yoongi has thought about it too, okay? He considered what could have let his omega on the loose. He wasn’t a late bloomer, presented quite early and at the height of puberty (he shudders at the memory with thinly concealed revulsion), and his cycles have been regular since their debut. He also hasn’t entered any new relationship, is unbonded (not that he wants to carry someone’s claim) and comfortable where he is, with his pack. He could consult a doctor but feels silly wasting their time with what isn’t an issue. Maybe he could find an article or something on the topic if he really tried. Though, again, it isn’t an issue.

Seokjin shrugs. “Yeah, no.”

Great. Yoongi is starting to get a little pissed off. “Hyung.”

Seokjin pats his head while Yoongi tries to wiggle out of his way. Short of dropping off the couch there’s no other escape route. His shoulder won’t forgive him if he vaults over the back of the couch like Jungkook does. “There, there, Yoongichi.”

Yoongi won’t hiss. He won’t hiss. He won’t—

“What did Namjoon say?”

He sags. The tension bleeds out of his body. “Nothing. He came to ask Hoseok’s opinion and we tried to continue working.” But him just… purring in the background like an overgrown cat made things a little awkward with how Hoseok and Namjoon kept sending him looks, thinking he wouldn’t notice. He never asked what a purring omega elicits in alphas because he has simply never thought about it before. But guessing from their reactions, Yoongi is slightly distracting when he purrs.

In the end, they called it a day and Yoongi walked back to his studio. Once he was alone, the purring stopped. He had looked at his reflection on his dark phone screen and muttered a traitor at himself, frustrated and slightly ruffled. Like most people, Yoongi needed time to adjust to change and he didn’t like this one. What if he was going to upset the pack dynamics?

He hates the thought that he could be a source of worry for the pack.

Yoongi forgets he isn’t alone until Seokjin speaks up.

With his chin resting on his palm, Seokjin examines him closely, waiting for Yoongi to catch on. But Yoongi’s gaze is focused elsewhere. “Do you remember how you felt when it started?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary happened if that’s what you’re asking.” The memory of yesterday starts replaying in his head.

Interrogating Hoseok about Namjoon, sharing his thoughts about the alpha’s behaviour. He remembers the discomfort, not an insignificant amount of it either, of being so honest about his feelings even though he was metaphorically standing on shaking legs. Yoongi was an emotional person which didn’t mean he liked talking about it. And Hoseok, who took him seriously because he would never undermine any of his packmates, but ultimately retorted to cryptic teasing. All before Namjoon surprised them.

Oh. He is revisited by a ghost relief that overcame him once Namjoon appeared. Yoongi hadn’t noticed it before but now he recalls how the phantom ache reminiscent of the years of walking around with an untreated shoulder diminished, how his jaw unclenched.

His fingers claw into the couch.

It’s him then, isn’t it?

Seokjin doesn’t call after him when he hurries to his room.

//

Late at night and after dinner, Yoongi lies in his bed, half-propped up against the headboard and a mountain of pillows. The display of his phone casts his face in a blue glow. Blindly, he pats the bedside table for his pair of glasses, contacts already discarded, but once he touches them to his face he remembers that he’s still wearing a sheet mask. Yoongi huffs and retorts to squinting at his display until the search results on Naver turn into legible words instead of wobbly lines.

He skips the various encyclopaedia listings. Yoongi knows his basic biology, thank you very much. He doesn’t have high expectations clicking on the link to a popular forum but after scrolling through a few pages, the title of one thread catches his eye.

I (22F!A) grew up in an all-Alpha household. What are things about omegas that would surprise me?

Yoongi lets out a thoughtful sound. He’d grown up without any alphas in his family. His curiosity gets the better of him and he skims the original post.

I know we all get standard education in school but that’s, uh, standard. Lately I’ve been wondering what information I might have missed out on, something WebMD won’t tell me. Are there common misconceptions? Like the purring. Does that really only happen when you’re comforting pups?

Yoongi scrunches his nose. The person who posted this is clearly young and sounds genuine so Yoongi cannot fault her for her lack of knowledge. If that’s the level of education they’re working with, Yoongi cannot picture what else she believes to be true about omegas though.

One person writes, lol no there are a million reasons why omegas purr. also some omegas don’t purr at all… it’s not like it’s a requirement for comforting pups.

A lot of strangers agree. Yoongi’s father was an omega yet he doesn’t have any memories of him purring either.

i feel like a lot of people think omegas purr mostly for others but in my experience they mostly do it for self-soothing purposes. i’ve been making myself fall asleep like that for years

That makes sense. What calms down pups should also calm down a grown wolf. Maybe it could have saved Yoongi quite a few sleepless hours if he could purr at will.

His attention is pulled away by another comment.

Before my partner and I mated, we were best friends for the longest time and I had never seen them in a romantic light. I promise I’m not some sort of biological determinist who thinks we’re only good for popping out pups, but one day I noticed that I pretty much only purred around them and I strongly believe that was my omega alerting me to a compatible mate. My omega was trying to make me catch on.

Yoongi rereads the comment, and then once more for good measure with the phone closer to his face. The blue light stings in his eyes and they start to water.

Sure, many initial attractions are based on pheromones. Yoongi likes to think, maybe a little conceitedly, that he’s above choosing his partners merely on their evolutionary history. Like, what is that even supposed to mean? Alerting me to a compatible mate. Yoongi has never purred until recently so, according to this stranger, none of his partners should have stuck with him?

At the back of his mind Yoongi knows he is getting heated. He’s reading too much into a comment made by someone who probably leads a completely different life than himself. But something about the answer irks him. His last serious relationship ended almost four years ago. Their pack has a lot of unmated alphas. Apart from Seokjin. And Taehyung, even though Jimin and he aren’t mated, but they are attached at the hip. Which leaves Hoseok and Namjoon. Maybe not as many as Yoongi thought. But Hoseok has never expressed any kind of interest in relationships or getting mated so it’s difficult for Yoongi to imagine Hoseok in a situation he doesn’t want to be in.

Namjoon, though. He still recalls the memes floating around after that one interview where Namjoon expressed his wish to be a dad one day. Back then Yoongi didn’t think before answering with a heartfelt you can, because that’s what he believed then and does believe now. ARMY found his reaction ‘precious’ and ‘hilarious’, considering Yoongi usually stuck to the background during English interviews. Namjoon’s outlook on the future has changed since then but Yoongi has no doubts about Namjoon being able to achieve whatever the hell he wants to.

He has also never doubted that Namjoon would make a good mate one day.

The display darkens. Prolonged inactivity. Yoongi almost startles at the sight of his reflection, still wearing the white sheet mask. He slips out from under his covers and pads over to the bathroom. The light in the ensuite is bright, bringing out the shadows under Yoongi’s eyes, and for a minute, just for a minute, Yoongi stands there as he tries to will himself into purring.

Happy thoughts. Calm thoughts, Yoongi thinks. What did the yoga instructor say? Let your thoughts be thoughts? The Yoongi in the mirror eyes him critically. Yeah, same. And now… purr.

He stops breathing from the conscious effort of forcing the rumbling out of his chest. He continues, unmoving, until his face has turned red. With a wheeze, Yoongi sucks in some precious air and fills his lungs with it.

He’s so glad no one saw that.

Back in his bedroom Yoongi grabs one of the pillows he keeps with extra blankets in a storage basket and hugs it to his chest. He might not be Seokjin who treats RJ like his own child, but he does have a few pieces of memorabilia like this pillow that is just a giant stuffed baby Shooky. He does love how round the plushie is more than he loves the fact it is Shooky but at least Yoongi is honest about it.

A knock on his door pulls Yoongi from his thoughts.

“Hyung? I found one of your USB sticks.”

When Yoongi opens it, Namjoon is holding out a small flash drive. “I was doing laundry and found it in one of the pockets. Just in case you were missing it.”

He had already forgotten about the stick after searching for it for days. Yoongi can’t reach out without dropping the plushie in his arms so Namjoon meets him halfway. “Thanks, Joon-ah.” About to turn around and close the door again, Yoongi takes note of the look on Namjoon’s face and comes to a halt.

“Is there anything else?”

“Kind of,” Namjoon says. Yoongi stares as Namjoon rubs the back of his neck. Subtly, Yoongi inhales; the petrichor in Namjoon’s scent is subdued, typical at the end of the day. No indicator of distress. 

He takes a step back into his room in a wordless invitation but Namjoon shakes his head with a weak smile.

“I just… are we okay, hyung?”

Yoongi blinks. It is several moments later that he manages to reply: “Huh?”

 “Maybe it’s just me, then.”

Yoongi glares in a knee-jerk reaction at the disparaging tone in his voice. Namjoon winces and breaks into an explanation.

“Since we’ve been back at the apartment things have just felt different?” His eyes shift to the side. He’s wearing his hair down after what Yoongi suspects was a shower and it nearly reaches his chin now. Yoongi’s fingers twitch. “Like you’re avoiding me. Did I do something?”

Immediately, Yoongi softens. “No,” he replies. “No, Joon, we’re okay. We’re fine.”

Namjoon’s shoulders drop and even though he’s taller than Yoongi, he appears much smaller, a little pup. Yoongi wants to wrap a blanket around his shoulders and wipe the frown off his face.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I promise, Yoongi almost says. But wouldn’t that be a lie? “I’m not avoiding you.” Is that a lie? “I’m not—” he starts and wills himself to bury the flurry of feelings welling up inside of him. “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio. Or alone. I guess I’m just coming down after the concerts… but we are good,” Yoongi tries to emphasise.

Namjoon sighs and Yoongi’s heart gives a squeeze. “Okay. Thank you, hyung. I don’t know what I was thinking but,” his smile grows steadier, “I thought I’d just ask, right?”

Yoongi nods firmly despite the gnawing guilt chewing at his stomach lining. “I’m glad you asked. Your brain is too big for your own good.”

Namjoon laughs. Yoongi relaxes minimally at the sound of it, breathy exhales, and doesn’t smile but the way his cheeks bunch is as close as it gets.

“You’re right. I don’t want to keep you up any longer then. Want to share a car tomorrow morning? To the studio?”

“Sure, Joon-ah.”

And this time he feels it building, feels it bubble, the vibrations bouncing off his ribs Right before it grows into its full expression, Yoongi sees Namjoon’s mouth open in confusion, but he acts quickly. “Good night,” he croaks out and slams his door shut.

The purring holds up past Yoongi settling into his bed.

Fall asleep easily he does not.

//

So, it’s becoming a problem. Yoongi keeps fucking purring around Namjoon and he needs it to stop before he will simply cease existing due to the mortification burning him to the ground.

Earlier this morning he accidentally overheard a conversation between Namjoon and Hoseok. Accidentally, because Yoongi did not mean to step into the hallway, which was arguably the best vantage point for eavesdropping, at the exact moment his packmates were having a private discussion. Yoongi had been ready to take a long shower, maybe even a bath if he felt fancy, because his shoulder was a little achy, a common occurrence on rainy days.

But then he caught Namjoon and Hoseok’s terse voices, and he couldn’t not slow down. He blamed it on his instincts which always urged him into making sure everyone was okay.

“Hobi, he closed the door and I could still hear him.”

Yoongi stilled, hand hovering above the door handle to the bathroom.

“Through the wall?”

“I know.” Namjoon sounded defeated.

“Joon.”

“He lied to me.”

The words hit Yoongi with such a force that his head began to swim.

“I asked him if we were fine and he lied. Maybe he didn’t realise I could smell it in his scent.”

No, Yoongi thought. They were fine. He needed them to be fine.

“You need to talk to him,” Hoseok pressed.

Yoongi’s breath caught in his throat. Luckily, Jungkook chose that exact moment to burst out of his room, crooning a song he had been recording during the last few days. Yoongi startled, Hoseok and Namjoon did too, and the terse atmosphere went out the window. He scrambled into the bathroom.

Yoongi hasn’t managed to properly relax since then. In fact, he has been replaying their conversation in his head for days.

His brain doesn’t have much of an off-switch. On his bedside table, Yoongi keeps a battered black journal whose pages he speeds a ballpoint pen over. Unless they are for songwriting, Yoongi does not need to revisit his scrambled thoughts. If he ever does, he is rarely able to make out his own handwriting.

Now Yoongi wakes up in the middle of the night with his heartbeat all over the place. He’s not a stranger to fear but he never expected himself to land here. And above all, over Namjoon. Over their friendship and what it means to him. He wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to calm his breathing, counts one two one two one two for an hour, lying deathly still until he has tricked his body back into sleep. For days it becomes his nightly routine—fall asleep, wake up with anxious claws hooked into his chest, and force himself back to sleep with techniques he hasn’t needed in years—and all because Yoongi feels like a friendship he has been able to lean on for over a decade is changing.

A sense of doom sends nausea up his throat.

He feels dishonest calling it a friendship. Yoongi recalls the affected tone with which Namjoon had spoken. He lied to me. But what is the truth?

Again and again, his thoughts hit a wall. And if he is honest, if Yoongi is truly honest as he lies in the dark, silence spread over the apartment, and stares at the ceiling, he is scared of tearing this wall down. He is scared that if he lets himself consider, he’ll reach a point of no return.

He can’t sit still anymore. He needs to get out of his room, out of the building, needs to get away from the pack and their affection if only for a minute.

Yoongi goes on a walk.

The sun has already set. His headphones play the finished tracks of his unreleased album because Yoongi is obsessively wondering if it is finished. When the cold air bites at his knuckles, Yoongi stuffs them into the pockets of his hoodie.

His phone vibrates with incoming texts.

[21:27] KTH: friendly reminder 

[21:27] KTH: because someone obviously doesn’t check the calendar i have poured my blood and sweat into

[21:28] KTH: my rut is supposed to come next week

[21:30] Hoba: You mean the calendar staff made for us 😘😘

[21:30] KTH: hyung who do you think pays staff

[21:31] Hoba: Not you 😂💕💕

[21:32] KTH:

[21:33] Hoba: 😂😂😂😂😂

[21:35] Jin hyung: Are you staying home or did your plans change? 

[21:36] KTH: im staying home

[21:37] Jiminie: i’ll still be in Paris for the beginning of it so be nice to him please

[21:37] Hoba: Poor bb alpha of course we’ll take extra good care of him!

[21:36] Jiminie: yes you have to hold his hand or he will cry 

[21:37] Jiminie: and don’t leave him alone for too long 

[21:40] KNJ: Ah, it hasn’t been that long since we last took care of Tae as a pack, Jimin-ah 

[21:41] KNJ: He’ll be fine 

[21:46] Jungkook-ah: ㅋㅋㅋ 

[21:47] Jin hyung: What are you laughing for now?

[21:47] Jungkook-ah: nothing 

[21:48] KTH: just wait till youre home jk-ssi 

[21:50] Jungkook-ah: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ ok bb alpha

Yoongi can’t help it. He laughs.

As he scrolls through the conversation new texts come in.

[22:24] KTH: has anyone seen yoongi hyung?

[22:26] Jungkook-ah: i have 

[22:28] Hoba: You did?

[22:28] Jungkook-ah: he was working on his laptop half an hour ago

[22:28] Jungkook-ah: i took a picture of him

[22:29] Jungkook-ah:

[22:33] You: you used to be funnier before you dated seokjin hyung

[22:33] Hoba: What the heck was that noise?

[22:37] KNJ: Seokjin hyung

[22:39] hyung: FORSAKEN BY MY OWN ETERNAL ROOMMATE

[22:42] KTH: hyung! where are you

[22:43] KTH: can i borrow something from your closet

[22:44] You: go ahead taehyung-ah

[22:49] KNJ: Will you be home soon?

[22:51] You: [Live Location Shared]

Technically, Taehyung doesn’t have to ask to borrow anything from Yoongi’s wardrobe. Out of all the alphas in their pack, he is the only one who’s shown a proclivity to nesting. Yoongi remembers the shame and guilt wafting through the room when they accidentally walked in on Taehyung in his nest—no one understood what was happening, except him. They thought that Taehyung was in Jimin’s nest, which would explain why Jimin had been asking for more nesting material even though he owned more than enough in Yoongi’s humble opinion.

But Jimin wasn’t home. In the end, Yoongi needed one single look at Taehyung’s watering eyes before he shoved the rest of the pack out of the door and closed it shut.

And maybe Taehyung and Yoongi were still in the beginnings of forging their bond back then, awkwardness lingering in the air about them. Yoongi didn’t know what to do with the younger whose behaviour he had a hard time assessing while Taehyung thought Yoongi’s cautious reserve meant the omega couldn’t stand him. But this was far from the truth.

Carefully taking a seat on the bed near a distressed Taehyung, he spoke to him in a low and comforting tone, telling him that it was okay, that it did not matter whether he was alpha, beta or omega, as long as nesting made him feel good and safe. It had been a meaningful step in the right direction.

Yoongi stops and cranes his neck back, face turned towards the cloudy night sky. A weary sigh escapes him and with it, Yoongi notices how heavy his muscles are, how tired his body is. The lack of productive sleep must be catching up to him. Maybe he should hail a cab, call one of their drivers to take him home to the apartment.

But he doesn’t like the thought. He wants to be alone. He wants to exist with no one else around, only for the time Yoongi needs to walk back to the apartment.

Passing through a stream of faceless strangers, Yoongi feels insignificant. He’s not SUGA of BTS, a figure of the public, millions of hearts reaching out to him with a love so boundless he doesn’t always consider himself deserving of. But amidst this sea of strangers clad in dark shades, rushing through the night as they head home from their office jobs, Yoongi is just another one of them.

He finds comfort in the feeling. Wrapped up in it, Yoongi begins to imagine.

His fear makes almost too much sense. He has known Namjoon for most of his conscious life but for a long time they projected their anger and frustrations of being young and living in a world which didn’t want them to succeed at each other. Yoongi never sincerely hated him. They argued and yelled enough to make everyone think that they did, that they were enemies, rivals, but the only rival Yoongi had back then was himself. And his vocal coach, maybe, who thoroughly scolded him when he turned up for his lessons with his voice completely shot.

One rainy night Yoongi picked a stray Namjoon off the streets.

His shoulder still screamed whenever he didn’t dull it with painkillers. The accident on his delivery job had occurred recently enough that he would wake up gasping for breath from reliving the crash in his dreams over and over. But it was late and Namjoon hadn’t returned to the dorm yet and when Yoongi texted him outside of their group chat, Namjoon admitted how he was stuck outside the studio, already locked up for the night. One of the tyres on the bicycle burst and he didn’t have any money on him either. When Yoongi asked what he was planning to do, Namjoon simply said he would wait until the rain let up enough so he could walk back to the dorm.

It's monsoon season, Yoongi had thought. He’ll be waiting for months.

Yoongi called him stupid, took a cab to the studio and brought Namjoon home.

The whole way he wouldn’t say a word, simply stared out of the window with his jaw clenched because he couldn’t not accept Yoongi’s help but at the same time, he hated being treated like a helpless pup. Yoongi thought that if Namjoon didn’t want to be treated like a helpless pup, then he shouldn’t behave like one.

He was aware of Namjoon’s intentions of becoming pack alpha once their group debuted and he could logistically and theoretically understand how it was important to Namjoon to be received as someone self-sufficient, as a person who could think and act for himself. But why become a pack at all if you didn’t let yourself rely on it?

Something wet lands on Yoongi’s face.

He opens his eyes and a drop of rain hits his brow. The air around him changes. The steps of the strangers around him pick up speed, a herd searching for cover. Yoongi should join them. If he had to guess, he has about five seconds left before all hell broke loose.

He starts walking instead.

Yoongi knows the way home like the back of his hand. He imagines it like a compass he wears on the inside of his palm; no need to pull up a map. Even now as the rain starts to weigh his hair down, plastering it to his face and obstructing his vision, Yoongi’s feet continue to carry him.

When has he ever felt this bone-deep certainty about people if not for his family, his pack? Definitely not in his past relationships. And Yoongi has not been in one for the last couple of years. He hadn’t wanted to—hadn’t considered his life to be in lack of. Hooking up, sex, was and is different. Yoongi has one or two arrangements which were comfortable and void of any expectations. The last time he gave them a call, however, must have been almost two years ago.

His thoughts return to Namjoon. When he thinks of life without him, Yoongi feels as if he’s standing on the edge of a cliff without a path leading down to a quiet sea town, to safety. His stomach dropping is a sensation so physical, Yoongi might as well have been sucker-punched. He nearly trips over his own feet.

Fucking hell. Does he…

He has feelings for Namjoon.

Yoongi shivers and freezes as the cold seeps into his limbs.

When Yoongi feeds the door code into the keypad, the outside world is miles away. Gingerly he peels off most of his sodden clothes and leaves them in a pile by the shoes to take care of later.

He vaguely hears one of the boys and hears them come running. When he catches a whiff of peaches, the scent is sweet and fragrant up until the moment Jimin sees the state Yoongi is in.

“Hyung, you’re drenched,” he says, voice small.

Yoongi doesn’t look at Jimin as he passes him.

//

A weight presses Yoongi into a wall.

He’s flushed from the top of his head right down to his toes. Heat emanates from him in sweltering waves and echoes off the body pressed against his and Yoongi breathes it in, gasping, skin slick with sweat. He’s burning.

His hand inches upwards, from a strong shoulder to a lean neck, grazing the fluttering pulse point with his fingertips. Yoongi finds a grip on a shock of hair and pulls tightly to ground himself while the fire in his veins continues to consume him alive.

The action goads a growl from whoever’s pushing against him, aching to have every crook and angle of their bodies touching, and Yoongi throws his head back without due care about the wall behind him.

But the pain never comes. Instead, a hand shields him from the impact and before Yoongi can register this, he’s propelled forward and into an open-mouthed kiss. He moans into it, brazen and unrestricted, as he gets the first taste of who, Yoongi is sure, could twist him around their little finger with a single glance. It’s then that he realizes his eyes have been closed and he would open them if it weren’t for the hunger, for the starvation commanding him to take and take until the gaping hole in his chest might be filled.

Yoongi breaks free of the kiss only when the need for air becomes more important. He struggles to catch his breath and rocks forward, his sweaty brow touching a collarbone. Tempted to get a taste of the salty skin near his mouth Yoongi darts out his tongue when suddenly, he’s hit by a smell.

In a split second, it has invaded his senses. Vetiver, warm earth and wood. Uprooted moss, musky and strong. Yoongi grows dizzy, his world reduced to this single patch of skin he now noses and nips against.

He knows this scent. He’s at home with this scent. But never has it burned through him this fervently and Yoongi’s hips fuck forward without his permission. Immediately he becomes aware of the tension low in his groin which begs him to be tended to. Urgency coaxes a noise out of him he’s never produced before.

The hands at Yoongi’s back dip into the dimples right above his ass before sliding down, gripping the flesh there and parting it. He shivers when the cold air brushes against the heat of his rim but before he can press into the touch, he feels the flushed length of a cock against his hip. Bereft of any shame Yoongi grinds forward until their cocks clumsily align and a spattering of sparks explodes behind his closed eyelids.

He wraps a shaky hand around them and gets a kiss pressed to his temple. A sweet gesture compared to the frenzy of Yoongi’s heartbeat, the sticky wetness gathered at his own cockhead, the precome beading at the slit of the other. His fingers can’t close around both their shafts so he lets go, gives the cock pressed against him an experimental tug and wishes his lips were wrapped around it instead. Maybe later Yoongi could dip his tongue under the foreskin, cleaning it up nicely because he wasn’t able to catch all of alpha’s come.

He thumbs at the sensitive spot right under the ridge of the cockhead. The alpha curses.

Yoongi’s gums begin to itch and the solution seems so simple: He opens his mouth wider and sinks his teeth into the skin he’d been lapping at. Possessiveness surges through him like pebble dropped into a lake, rippling, building, and the thought that this body against his belongs to Yoongi rings as clear as bells through his head.

Mine, he thinks and the wolf inside of him rumbles to life.

Simply teething isn’t enough. Yoongi needs to stake a claim.

He grows taller on his toes, pushing away from the wall and winds his arms around the neck and shoulders before him. However, just as he noses his way up to what he knows will be an unblemished stretch of skin because he knows that’s where he’ll lay his mating bite, his soon-to-be mate stoops low and sweeps Yoongi off his feet.

Grabbed by the backs of his thighs, Yoongi is hoisted into the air and he arches into the touch, arches into where their middles meet, legs coming to wrap around alpha’s waist so he can grind forward where the heat is unbearable, where he can feel wet smear against his pelvis. Their movements are a mess, uncoordinated, rushed yet perfect for what this moment is—rationale abandoned for its depraved sibling named carnal desire and Yoongi never wants to stop.

His breath catches in his throat when one of his cheeks is pulled to the side and fingers touch his rim, tap against his clenching hole in quick succession, forcing little jolts out of Yoongi with each slap. Somewhere at the back of his mind Yoongi feels himself gush out a string of slick and when the first digit breaches him, his eyes fly open.

When Yoongi looks down at Namjoon’s face, all pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

His hair shines jet-black where it’s plastered against his brow with sweat. Their eyes meet and Yoongi’s toes curl, his fingers digging into the skin on Namjoon’s back. Neither of them say a word but their breaths mingle almost violently from the harshness of their panting. Yoongi’s gaze goes to Namjoon’s neck and the red-purple bruises he left on his skin before it strays to Namjoon’s swollen lips.

The finger dipping in and out of his hole is replaced by two, then three, and with every inhale he catches another lungful of Namjoon’s scent. He wants it on him, in him, everywhere, forever. His heart threatens to beat right out of his chest.

Mere seconds before he spills, Namjoon sinks his teeth into him.

The pain is blinding. Yoongi has never felt more complete.

He starts from his sleep with a yell.

His vision is blurry. He gasps for air as his chest heaves and he stares ahead at the wall in his bedroom, the shelves, his desk. His hands are shaky when he grips the covers.

Yoongi places his reeling head in his hands and groans. Now that the shock of waking up has ebbed away, he grows increasingly aware of the temperature in his room, of how hot he is and sweat breaks out all over his body anew. When he shoves his blanket away, he stares at the wet patch at the front of his boxers and curses loudly when he realizes that he came in his sleep like a pubescent teenage boy at the hormonal height of his puphood.

He had a wet dream about his best friend and came right when Namjoon bit him.

Yoongi muffles his scream with a pillow.

“Hyung? Are you alright?” he hears Jungkook’s voice from the hallway.

This is just what he’s been missing. One of the maknaes walking in on him post-orgasm. Except he doesn’t feel as if he’d just come. He’s stressed and embarrassed and so, so over it all.

“I’m fine,” he yells back and starts to peel himself from the sheets. When he glances back over his shoulder, he almost trips at the sight of the giant fucking spot of slick he’s left on them.

In the shower his mind floods with unbidden images, miles and miles of bare skin. He knew he was pale compared to Namjoon but not—not in this context! And, by god, Yoongi’s far from a blushing maiden when it came to sex but now that his own moans echo through his head, his moans at Namjoon touching him, dimpling his flesh under his grip, he flushes.

Yoongi brings his forehead to the cold tiles.

That wasn’t all, though, was it? Yoongi had wanted Namjoon, yes, but he had wanted him as an omega in pursuit of an alpha too. His alpha. Before he can stop it, his omega preens at the idea of such an exceptional mate, strong and clever, but caring and sensitive as well.

The ensuing rush of endorphins weakens his knees.

Weakly, Yoongi ghosts his fingertips over his neck where the phantom pain of the imaginary bite lingers. He closes his eyes as the water pelts down on his upper back. In his dream Namjoon made him lose any inhibitions, uncaring of what he looked or sounded like, caught up in the unmistakable heat of pleasure and willing to do anything for it to reach its peak. Yoongi swears that when he drops his hand from his neck, he relives how Namjoon’s breath had spread over the skin right under his gland where he was already sensitive.

Goosebumps erupt all over his body.

He looks down at his cock, chubbing up quickly, in betrayal. It does not flag when he spreads his cheeks to wash away the stickiness. Humiliation coaxes fresh slick out of him and fed up, Yoongi cranks up the water temperature and scrubs himself red and raw.

//

Winter approaches and with it comes the incessant longing to stay at home and cosy up under mountains of blankets. Contrary to Yoongi’s instincts, it cannot be helped that the nature of his job requires him to attend social events every now and then, such as the private function the pack attends tonight.

Thankfully, HYBE only insists on their presence when their schedules allow it. Yoongi has no problem playing the polite and well-mannered good boy. He aims to get along with every person he comes across. But he has been told that other idols or professionals in the industry have found it hard to approach him because he seems intimidating—and Yoongi is still unsure how to feel about this. At the very least it grants him a reprieve from a plethora of social interactions he would otherwise have to entertain.

 The major shareholders of the company like to go on a sightseeing tour and catch glimpses of their most valuable exports. Among them, the renowned idol group BTS. Without the gracious financial contributions in their early days, pre- and post-debut, they would have never become a global phenomenon. Bless these rich and wealthy men (because they always are men). BTS will be eternally grateful for their support. And so on.

Yoongi is grateful. He’s no longer the cynical boy who just left Daegu and still wanted to kick any dirty capitalist in their balls. His acts of opposition look different now. Yoongi knows functions and stakeholder meetings and galas are important and another aspect of his job.

But, first and foremost, he is grateful to his six members without whom Yoongi would not be standing here today.

It doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want to act his adult age right now; Yoongi would much rather crawl under a blanket in their living room where the lights are never turned on this brightly. Besides the obvious, he has barely started working through his delusion that his affection for Namjoon was strictly friendly.

Newsflash, his affection for Namjoon was very much not friendly. Neither was it normal if normal meant less grave, less meaningful, less… just less. Because once Yoongi examined what he felt for Namjoon he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror anymore without thinking what a fool he made himself out to be. What an idiot, truly, to think that the palpitations of his heart at the thought of not being able to stay beside Namjoon for the rest of his life were anxieties over a dear friend.

His packmates, if told about the mental process had landed him at this conclusion, would offer sympathy but also tease Yoongi until the end of his days.

Let alone the dreams Yoongi keeps having. Not all of them were about sex; he dreams of the mundane too. Of everyday life.

In one alternate reality Yoongi fabricates while asleep, they live on other sides of the world. On the day they were to meet after years of phone calls and texts and pixelated Skype graphics, Yoongi steps off the train and fights, endlessly, past the crowd on the platform until his arms are heavy and his feet are weak. Defeat slumps over him and brings him back to the ground—or tries to because it is then that he spots Namjoon. Finally. Yoongi starts running and doesn’t stop even when he loses his hat. The wind tousles his hair and god, does he feel alive when Namjoon’s arms catch him. He trembles and holds on for dear life. Namjoon’s scarf soaks up two stray tears.

The relief was so immense that Yoongi woke up with his cheeks wet.

Yeah. With his subconsciousness hellbent on speedrunning through years of suppressed feelings, Yoongi has been doing absolutely fantastic.

After the opening speech, the guests are left to explore the pompous location.

High above their heads hang chandeliers which Yoongi eyes curiously. He’s holding a glass of champagne in his hand more so that he can hold onto something than out of an actual desire to drink. His gaze wanders from the ceiling to the window fronts.

“You’re probably the only person who actually reads those Architectural Design magazines and yet I still find you mooning over decoration wherever you go. You just can’t get enough.”

Yoongi doesn’t look at Yijeong. Especially not when he came over just to tease him.

“Not decoration. The windows,” he says. “They’re electrochromic.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to know what that means.”

“No,” Yoongi shakes his head. Of course, he doesn’t expect Yijeong to know the mechanism behind privacy windows. That would be silly. It’s not as if his friend ever listened to any of his side notes about interior design. “It’s very smart. There is a layer of molecules between the glass and once you apply a current to it, the molecules line up, letting light through. When you switch the current off,” he gestures at the windows, “they tint.”

“My god,” Yijeong assents, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and nodding wisely. “When was the last time you got laid?”

Yoongi glares at the grin on Yijeong’s face.

“That long?”

“Why are you being annoying?”

Yijeong laughs, releasing his hold on Yoongi. “Because I love you, my dear friend.”

Yoongi freezes.

Because I love you.

His brain has been contaminated. With the bubonic plague or flesh-eating bacteria, anything that would explain its habit of throwing Yoongi’s recently uncovered feelings in his face. Examples of recent realisations include but are not limited to as follows:

Example #45: Apparently, one did not go around wanting to sleep with their best friend, non-sexually, but also sometimes sexually, because they made you feel safe.

Or, example #100: When Yoongi thinks of kissing Namjoon, he ends up wanting to smother himself with a pillow in a true reversion to his Baby Gay days. Min Yoongi was not a Baby Gay. He was confident in his identity way before he was confident about anything else relating to his person.

Naturally, one Kim Namjoon managed to tear it all down.

After Yijeong finds someone else to be a little shit to, Yoongi takes the longest breath he has taken all day and begs himself to keep it together.

How long have they been here? An hour, two? How many more until Yoongi can make an excuse and escape the premises? When Yoongi spots Seokjin and Jungkook, together, at the buffet, he softens. Relaxes, for one moment, until he finds Namjoon.

Namjoon has company and Yoongi isn’t a jealous person. He is not.

In kindergarten, he used to play in the sandpit with his favourite plastic shovel, its colour a bright strawberry red. He prepared mud cakes and mud soup and planted imaginary vegetables in the sand, dry or wet, as he counted out loud what other things were as red as his shovel. Hearts were red. Crabs. Roses with their prickly thorns. The pair of shoes his older brother wore. Cherries and apples. And even though the shovel was his favourite, he let the other children play with it too because he knew how much fun it was to play with, so he wanted them to have fun with it as well.

Somehow the teachers must have relayed his behaviour to his mother because she still liked to refer to this as the pivotal moment when she knew he’d present as an omega. Secretly, she had wanted him to be an alpha.

Yoongi could share. He grew up with a brother, and then grew up once more with six other boys up close and personal. The rare times he was envious of those who had made it to places where he wanted to be, he could always recognise the source as an underlying conflict he ought to solve with himself.

But now Yoongi is seized by an ugly vicious thing. It stretches its tendrils and engulfs him whole.

He watches an omega stand—stand not close to Namjoon but right up in his space. Yoongi doesn’t know them. They touch his wrist to Namjoon’s shoulder as if it’s an accident but all Yoongi can see and think of is the scent that must now be left there and that it isn’t the scent of the pack or any of their friends, and how much Yoongi wants to physically strip it from Namjoon. He sees it physically sticking to his suit like burs and he imagines himself ripping every single one of them away, breaking the little spines they use to hook themselves into their prey. Better yet, Yoongi wants to replace the offending scent with his own.

There’s a buzzing in the background, a repetitive noise, and the longer he stares at Namjoon, the louder it gets.

“Hyung!”

Yoongi looks at the hand around his wrist. The firm grip belongs to Hoseok, who stands right next to him, frowning.

“You have to snap out of it.”

Hoseok’s hair is swept away from his brow and Yoongi stares at him, blood boiling, until he takes note of Hoseok’s scent. The notes of ginger soothe his agitation.

“Good,” Hoseok murmurs. He’s in front of Yoongi now and to everyone else it must look as if they’re having a conversation, Hoseok cleverly placed between the crowd and Yoongi.

His throat feels sandpaper dry. Yoongi eyes one of the servers nearby with their tray of champagne and their access to harder stuff. The server meets his eye and Yoongi moves to gesture to them but Hoseok half-turns, waving the server off with a charming smile. It disappears when he faces Yoongi again.

“You’re not getting wasted.” His voice is strict and Yoongi, rarely ever admonished, ducks his head. “Not after that.”

Yoongi doesn’t know what ‘that’ means. He doesn’t understand what just happened except that he was overcome by such fury he must have lost himself for a moment there.

Hoseok tries to meet his gaze. This time when he speaks, it’s considerably softer. “Hyung. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what just happened,” Yoongi murmurs, gaze still cast on the ground. He’s trying to wrap his head around the innate jealousy which had locked him up in its fangs, using him like a chew toy.

Hoseok doesn’t respond. The silence has Yoongi’s hackles rising.

“You were throwing daggers across the room,” Hoseok says lowly, cautiously. “At Joonie. I don’t think anyone noticed but I could smell you from over at the entrance. And just now…” he trails off.

Staring at a flicker of dust on his polished shoes, Yoongi’s heart lurches. “What? What did I do?”

“You were starting to growl when I came over to check on you.”

A groan punches its way out of Yoongi’s throat.

Hoseok steadies him by the arms. Yoongi didn’t even notice he was swaying.

“What the fuck, ‘seok?” He’s barely whispering. “First I’m purring, then I’m having…” No, he can’t mention his dreams, not here. Hoseok’s scent spikes in worry, but Yoongi quickly continues. “Then I start growling in public. What am I doing, regressing to being a pup?”

“No,” Hoseok intercepts. “No.” He’s not lying but he also sounds unsure. As if he wants to say more but hasn’t categorized it as a good idea yet.

“Say it please.”

Hoseok sneaks a guilty glance to the side. “I already said this to Namjoon. But from what’s happening I guess he didn’t talk to you.” He takes a deep breath and Yoongi’s entire world narrows down to Hoseok. “I think you need to tell him, hyung.”

“Tell him what?” he asks automatically. As if he’s just following protocol. He’s sweating under his arms, on his upper lip.

Hoseok’s expression grows pained, a clenched half-smile on his lips.

“You know what, hyung.”

Yoongi grows hot, then cold. “You know?”

Hoseok doesn’t speak.

“I didn’t,” Yoongi chokes out. “Until, until recently. I didn’t know,” he stumbles over his words.

Hoseok takes one of his hands, uncurls his blood-drawn knuckles, covers the half-moons Yoongi has carved into the flesh of his palm with his fingernails. He squeezes Yoongi’s hand.

“It’s okay. It will be okay. But you have to tell him, hyung. It’s affecting him and he thinks that he did something wrong.”

One of Yoongi’s worst nightmares coming true.

“I’m not trying to guilt you. Or blame you. But it’s making you miserable and him too. You have to talk to him.”

And Yoongi nods. Because what else can he do? It’s all boiled down to this moment in time, this single decision, hasn’t it?

And then he smells Namjoon, right before he sees him. Their eyes meet and Namjoon’s are stern. Yoongi would shrink back if he could but there’s a wall behind hi. Hoseok nervously glances between them as Namjoon strides towards them, comes to a stop.

“Hyung,” Namjoon says. “Do you have a minute?”

//

Namjoon drags him to an empty staff room. Not literally dragging. He simply starts walking and Yoongi follows.

Namjoon doesn’t glance back to make sure that Yoongi is still there. It shouldn’t hurt but Yoongi also shouldn’t have fallen in love with his unassuming best friend.

They pass waiters and staff and none of them pay them any mind except polite bows in their direction. No one stares, no one stops them. When they’ve put a considerable distance behind them, Namjoon stops and opens the next-best door, sticking his head through the gap. He looks back at Yoongi and opens his arms wide. After you. Or, you’re not getting out of this. Perhaps Namjoon is thinking both at the same time.

It turns out to be an empty meeting room, chairs stacked at the back of it, curtains drawn. The lights flicker to life, casting it in an unnatural yellow glow.

Namjoon closes the door behind them.

Yoongi’s shoulders hunch up to his ears. The silence stretches. Just when it becomes unbearable, Namjoon speaks.

“What did I do, hyung?”

“Nothing,” Yoongi replies. “Nothing, Joon-ah.”

It doesn’t soothe Namjoon at all. Instead, his frown deepens, his scent heavy, unhappy. He clenches his jaw. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Namjoon is angry with him. But at the same time, Namjoon looks guarded, unable to hold eye contact without breaking it off now and then, like he can’t stand being here with him, hates that he’s been put in this position in the first place. And Yoongi is the one at fault.

“Nothing.”

“It’s true,” Yoongi says.

Namjoon huffs a humourless laugh, rolling his tongue in his mouth.

“Explain this then. First you avoid me like the plague. Then you lie to me when I ask you if we’re fine. And now you—if looks could kill, hyung, I wouldn’t be standing here.”

No, he wasn’t looking at Namjoon. At the omega whose traces Yoongi can still—

Yoongi shakes his head.

Namjoon shoves a hand through his hair in frustration, upsetting the hours of styling they all went through. “Did we time-travel back to 2013? If you have a problem with me, then let’s talk about it!”

“I don’t have a problem with you,” Yoongi says. Even to his own ears his voice sounds weird. Devoid of emotions. Carefully neutral and unfeeling.

Namjoon takes a deep breath and for a second, Yoongi expects him to yell at him. He certainly deserves it with how he’s been treating Namjoon instead of pulling on his big boy pants and solving the shit in his life through open communication, even if it lays him bare and makes him vulnerable. Isn’t Namjoon more important to him than the discomfort a rejection could put him through? But it’s not just the rejection. Yoongi doesn’t know where he’ll end up if the rejection also means the end of their relationship, their connection, and confines him to the space of I knew him once and It’s better this way. Even with his big boy pants on, Yoongi does not think he’ll come through on the other side.

But Namjoon doesn’t yell. Instead, his shoulders deflate when he exhales and Yoongi pinpoints the exact moment that his anger dissipates.

“Why won’t you just talk to me?” Namjoon asks. He sounds tired.

Yoongi opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He can tell that Namjoon is seconds away from schooling his expression into a blank slate, one that has always deeply unsettled Yoongi. He’s done it before, when interviews have gone wrong or he received news that hit hard and left him compartmentalising until he was ready to process them. Namjoon isn’t the type to stuff difficult matters into a mental box and label it Do Not Open. That’s Yoongi. These past weeks Yoongi has been truly amassing storage rooms worth of boxes with different iterations of NO plastered across them, and almost all of them are filled with thoughts about Namjoon.

It's terribly unhealthy and Yoongi’s mind is bursting at its seams, either about to shut up for the next eternity or explode into an ugly mess.

He doesn’t know what his face is doing but it’s doing something. He feels his muscles twitch, beyond the spasm of his eyelid that has annoyed him these past days. Yoongi’s stomach is lurching and maybe he’s going to throw up. Maybe that will get him out of here and away from Namjoon’s pleading eyes.

He is. Pleading, that is. Without words, yes, but Namjoon is looking at Yoongi as if he could coax the truth out of him with enough patience, enough kindness, gentle fingers prying him apart. Yoongi puts a hand over his mouth and averts his eyes because he can feel it working.

“Hyung, haven’t we gone through literal hell to get here? What could be so bad that you can’t tell me?” Namjoon’s voice wavers. Shocked, Yoongi lifts his head and almost gives himself whiplash. He can’t see Namjoon cry. If Namjoon starts crying, then it will be over for him.

He needs to just say it. Whatever consequences this will have, he’ll carry them on his own. Yoongi got hit by a fucking car and survived that too. It will take time, but he’ll gather the pieces left in the wake of losing what he and Namjoon had up again.

“Fuck.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.

He watches Namjoon’s expression shutter. “Okay. I get it. Fine.”

Yoongi shakes his head. His chest squeezes painfully. No, he doesn’t get it. “Namjoon.”

“What, Yoongi?” he bites out.

Yoongi takes half a step back at the force with which Namjoon spits his name, no title, nothing. But he hasn’t even said it yet. At least let Namjoon walk out on him knowing the whole story.

“I like you,” Yoongi says.

A second passes, and then another. The world continues to turn.

He stares at Namjoon’s chin because he can’t meet his eyes so the only reaction he sees is Namjoon’s back going ramrod straight.

But the weight remains heavy on his shoulders and Yoongi doesn’t want to bear it anymore. “Actually,” he begins. “Actually, that’s not true either. I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting but I recently discovered that at some point during the past years I fell in love with you. So,” Yoongi shrugs. “I feel very stupid for not realizing it sooner. But I’m handling it. I’ll handle it. You don’t have to worry. I just need a little time and then I’ll stop acting weird.”

Namjoon makes a wounded noise.

“That’s all.” His hands are shaking. “I love you. I’m going to leave you alone now.” His legs are barely holding him up. But Yoongi is proud of how he turns around and walks out of the room despite it. His steps ring through the hallway until noise crowds in on him, a plethora of guests trading names and stories, and when he steps into the reception room, the light blinds his eyes. Yoongi blinks a few times until he’s sure that the next time he steps one foot in front of the other, his gait will be stable and steady. He spots Jimin’s mullet form behind and approaches him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Hyung! Where have you been?” Jimin turns around, champagne flute like a bouquet in his hand. Yoongi hopes Jimin has had enough glasses not to recognise something’s wrong. His smile is bright and usually Yoongi would take a moment to be eternally grateful Jimin didn’t get his front tooth fixed because he the sight delights him so, but now he just leans in close to be heard over the rest of the noise.

“Jimin-ah,” he says.

Jimin nods.

“Hyung isn’t feeling well. A headache. I’ll have the driver take me home.”

Jimin’s face falls, lips pushing out in a pout. Worried. “Don’t go alone. I’ll come with you.”

Yoongi shakes his head. He even musters a smile. “No, Jimin-ah. Stay.” And then, because he really needs to get out of here and go home, “Namjoon knows. I just need an ice pack and lie down.”

Jimin eyes him for a second longer before he nods. It’s clear, however, that he’s not satisfied. “Okay. Text when you’re home. Call if it gets worse.” And because a tipsy Jimin is an affectionate Jimin, he dips close and presses a peck to Yoongi’s cheek.

Yoongi sticks close to the walls as he navigates his way out of the hall. He alone doesn’t rouse attention—it’s when the whole pack is assembled that heads keep turning and old acquaintances appear at their side. He supposes it’s also because of Namjoon whose presence towers over others, not just literally because of his height, but because he emanates a gentle intensity, a full moon’s glow illuminating an otherwise dark night sky. He cannot fault anyone for gravitating towards Kim Namjoon.

He grabs his coat at the cloakroom and waits for the car in the cold by a couple of smokers on a veranda hidden behind lush greenery.

The driver doesn’t speak to him beyond pleasantries, clearly sensing Yoongi’s solemn mood. His fingers itch, urging him into action, but he suppresses his instincts and does not touch his phone. He doesn’t want to see if he has any messages from Namjoon.

When the door to their apartment closes behind Yoongi, he waits for the click of the automatic lock and once it comes, he slumps back against the door.

His hands tremble. Not because he’s afraid or nervous. It’s more an exhaustion, as if Yoongi had been carrying heavy bags in them, the plastic straps cutting into the meat of his palms, and recently set them down.

Now his hands are free but useless. Yoongi spills water over the counter when he grabs the carafe from the fridge to wash down the bittersweet taste on his tongue. He stands at the kitchen and watches the surface tension of the drops, the curve of the half-globes. He thinks about how easy it is to destroy this miniature perfection.

Yoongi washes up on autopilot. His own hair has gotten long and he hears his mother say how it suits him. The person in the mirror looks at him and Yoongi cannot make out the meaning of their expression.

In his bedroom he gives in to what he has been needing since the moment he turned his back on Namjoon. He leaves the lights off and grabs a pair of sweats, a shirt, throws on a sweater over as well. He only notices that none of the clothes were originally his once he’s clad from head to toe, a pair of soft socks covering his feet. When Yoongi nests, he likes for every patch of his skin to be covered, even his face, leaving just enough room for himself to breathe and blink bleary eyes at his surroundings.

He takes the pillow he sleeps on and his duvet and drags them to the closet. The complex covers an entire wall of his bedroom and while the first one is stuffed with the clothes he wears daily, the latter has a hiding spot where Yoongi, on rare occasions, goes to nest in.

Yoongi slides the door open. The space smells like his pack and he crouches down, pulling its contents to the left and right until he is satisfied. Only then does Yoongi drop to his knees and make his way in, getting around only by touch and smell and the little light his blinds do not obstruct, and then he curls up small and covers himself. He shivers, not because he’s cold, but because his omega doesn’t want to be alone and this is how it shows this to Yoongi. Yoongi shakes his head, at whom exactly he doesn’t know, and then he winds his arms around himself, closes his eyes, and spends his last conscious thoughts hoping that when tomorrow comes, he wakes up in a universe where, serendipitously, everything is okay.

//

When Yoongi wakes up, the sun has yet to rise but he doesn’t know that yet. He tries to go back to sleep in his nest, burrows deeper into the blankets he warmed up with his own body heat. But once he starts moving, he grows restless, so much so that he gets sweaty with all the rearranging he’s doing.

Finally, he folds back the covers with more force than necessary and huffs, annoyed. He won’t fall asleep like this again.

Yoongi crawls out of the closet on his hands and knees in a less-than-dignified manner. He’s just thinking that he’s glad no one has to see him and then, blinks in surprise when he spots the time on the LED clock on his nightstand.

That’s why the apartment must be so quiet. Still on his knees, Yoongi sits back on his heels and thinks of what to do. It’s the day after an event so their schedule has been cleared which means he’d go to the studio, maybe the gym, catch up on one of his language courses. But it’s not just any normal day either.

Memories of last night make Yoongi’s skin prickle with heat. He bows down until his forehead touches the ground and groans. He’ll let himself bask in the awkward reminder for just a moment and then he’s got to move on. It’s not as if he could solve any of it at the snap of his fingers anyway, so Yoongi’s got to get it together.

He brushes his teeth and tip-toes into the kitchen to grab a banana. Not because he’s hungry but because he didn’t have dinner and his stomach will be upset with him otherwise. Yoongi hasn’t had much of an appetite these days.

He leans on the counter and looks at the windows. A sliver of warm hues hides in the waning dark blue, announcing the impending sunrise. The sight convinces Yoongi to grab his puffer coat and without a plan of what to do once he gets there, he steals away to the rooftop.

The higher the sun rises, the lighter the sky grows. But Seoul is overcast and instead of brightness, it’s grey clouds that greet him as time passes. Yoongi sniffles.

He doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching.

“I should have known I’d find you here.”

Yoongi startles, and then he startles once more when he recognizes Namjoon. He curses loudly, clutching at his heart. “Fuck. Warn a guy?”

“Sorry,” Namjoon says. Yoongi peers at him and then forces his stare back out at the grey smog and the sun hiding behind it. Namjoon doesn’t sound like he’s sorry.

Up here, the wind is harsh. Namjoon isn’t wearing anything to protect his ears. His hair is swept around according to the caprice of nature.

“Here.”

Namjoon holds out a hand warmer and Yoongi frowns.

His breath comes out in white puffs. “I’m not cold.”

“Just take it, hyung.”

He does. As the heat pack warms them up, his hands begin to ache from having gone numb. Yoongi frowns.

They share a silence.

Yoongi wills himself to relax, to manually release the tension from his expression, between his brows, from his jaw. If Namjoon is alright with pretending like Yoongi’s feelings don’t exist, then—then this could work out, right? Look at them now. He’ll be fine.

They will be fine.                                                                      

He closes his eyes. Namjoon shifts next to him, the rustling of his puffy down jacket amplified by the absence of other noise.

“You know, hyung… can I ask you a question?”

He can’t help it—he grimaces. Because he’s sure that the question will only humiliate him further. But it’s only fair, isn’t it? After springing his feelings on Namjoon, as if they’re his responsibility.

“Yeah,” he exhales shakily. He glances up at Namjoon from the corner of his eye but Namjoon faces frontwards, the open sky.

Namjoon takes his time before speaking. It’s one of the characteristics others have found infuriating about the alpha and Yoongi did too, in the beginning. Now he knows that it’s just Namjoon taking his time to choose his words carefully, as precisely as he can—and Yoongi cherishes it about him. Among other things.

“Why did you run off like that?”

Yoongi opens his mouth but Namjoon makes a soft noise, not finished yet.

“I think I know why but I would like to hear it from you.”

There’s a stain on Yoongi’s right shoe. Mud, probably. Every time he puts them on, he thinks about wiping it away but he always forgets.

He takes a deep breath. “Because,” he starts and promptly deflates. He remembers apologising to Namjoon. For blindsiding him, for putting more onto the alpha than he already had to chew. “Because I was selfish. Dumping it on you like that, it was selfish, Namjoon-ah.”

“Selfish,” Namjoon repeats, hollow-voiced.

“Yes. Because…”

And Yoongi pauses because he has to mull it over in his head himself even though he is afraid of getting caught up in a tangle of thoughts and say something he doesn’t actually mean. “I should have stayed and listened to you say your piece. That’s what you deserved when I sprang my feelings on you like that.”

Even though he’ll throw them away once they run their short-lived course, the handwarmers do bring him comfort. Namjoon knows him like that.

“When you sprang…” Namjoon shuffles his feet, then cranes his neck back to huff at the grey sky. “Hyung, you’re saying this as if you’ve committed some kind of crime.”

Yoongi scrunches his nose. He smells his scent, how it curdles, pungent and strong. His cheeks heat up. Guilty.

Namjoon softens. “I didn’t mean it like that, hyung.”

Yoongi stays quiet.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. You used to be much worse about it. Seeing yourself as an inconvenience whenever you weren’t literally doing things for us. Because, usually, you’re not the one to shy away from talking about hard things, hyung. It’s part of the reason why I was so upset that you wouldn’t come to me about whatever was bothering you. I thought, what could possibly be so bad that you couldn’t talk to me about it? And when you did tell me and immediately left after, I was upset too.”

The apology lies on the tip of Yoongi’s tongue. But he swallows it down to where the rest of his shame lies heavy in the pit of his stomach.

Namjoon’s arm brushes against his. Yoongi looks to Namjoon. Not at him because that’s—that’s just too much, but in his direction, to where they’re touching.

“I was angry because I still thought it was me. That you had struggled so much with telling me because it was something about myself. But when I mulled it over I realised that all this time you couldn’t come out with it because you were trying not to…” Yoongi doesn’t need to see his expression to know Namjoon’s scowling. “Inconvenience me.”

Yoongi hears his pulse in his ears.

“What did you do after you left? Your bed was empty.” Namjoon sighs. “I was worried.”

Yoongi wants to speak but finds his voice heavy with—with he doesn’t know what. He clears his throat. “I was home.”

This stumps Namjoon. He knits his eyebrows together, mouth pulled into an unhappy line.

“But where? Did you sleep with one of the maknaes?”

I don’t want to sleep in the same bed with anyone but you, Yoongi thinks.

He scratches at his throat. “I was—hm. I was nesting.” Aside from Jimin, no one really knows about his hiding spot. Yoongi feels Namjoon’s eyes on him, boring into the side of his head. “In my closet.”

Namjoon makes a strangled noise. “In your—”

“I’ve already heard all the jokes from Jimin.”

“No, I mean—yes, it’s funny in a way, but,” Namjoon struggles to get the words out and Yoongi almost gets the impression that this is just any normal day, that nothing has transpired between them. “I guess it makes sense.”

Yoongi frowns. “What do you mean?”

Namjoon gestures with his hands. “You don’t nest a lot to begin with, especially not in open spaces. Remember when we moved into the apartment and Jimin made a nest in the living room? You were encouraging Jimin and kept saying that it was a great nest but the minute you got into it, you just…” He snickers and Yoongi whips his head around. The audacity.

“I’ve never seen you less relaxed in my life.”

“Yah,” Yoongi chides him but it’s weakened by the smile on his lips.

“But a closet… it’s small and narrow and you can literally close it off.” Namjoon grows quiet. “It’s safe.”

Yoongi doesn’t have anything to add. He can’t. Namjoon has seen through it all and put into words what Yoongi hasn’t before.

“I wish there had been a way to avoid any of this,” Namjoon says.

Yoongi’s smile falls.

Namjoon turns to face him. “I wish you wouldn’t have left like that.”

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, gnaws on it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I am.”

“For what? For not hearing me out or for having feelings for me in the first place?”

Yoongi’s silence is telling. They’re standing close, feet mere inches apart from each other. Even if he wanted to, Yoongi couldn’t run away now.

When Namjoon tugs at one of Yoongi’s arms, Yoongi lifts his head to look up at him.

 “What are you doing?”

But Namjoon doesn’t answer him. He tugs until Yoongi stops resisting, and then he pulls one of Yoongi’s hands free from his pocket. Gingerly, he plucks the handwarmer from Yoongi’s palm and stashes it in his jacket. Yoongi is about to complain at the icy cold when Namjoon wraps his own palms around his cooling fingers. And maybe Yoongi’s hand is bigger, sure, but Namjoon certainly covers it with two.

He's making him nervous. “Joon-ah?”

 “Hyung, did you know that you were the first person I’ve loved?”

Yoongi goes completely and utterly still. He’s still breathing but the up and down of his chest is a miniscule movement, a barely-there thing. For a split second his mind empties, every of his complicated and burdensome thoughts disappearing into thin air.

It’s so quiet.

But then reality slams back in and Yoongi nearly dislodges himself from Namjoon’s grip because—surely he didn’t—he must have misheard because—

“What?” he croaks. “You—what?”

Namjoon expression is doing something strange. It’s as if he wants to smile but the tension around his eyes won’t allow him. He presses his lips into a tight line instead and the air around them grows heavy with the ozone, sweet and pungent, of an oncoming summer storm.

But the sky is grey and mellow. Not heavy.

It’s Namjoon’s scent.

“There’s no way you did not know I had a crush on you that first year in Seoul.”

He’d just gotten a hold of his fierce flush when Namjoon says this. His cheeks heat anew.

Yoongi had known. Or at least suspected. Unlike Namjoon, Yoongi had arrived in Seoul confident in what and who he liked. He’d never hidden it; quite the contrary, he had worn his identity as armour, daring anyone to cross him. Part of it was due to his omega status and being used to fight harder on a principle. But above all, Yoongi had lived a lifetime of hiding already and he knew that he would not survive a second one with his soul intact.

 But Namjoon? Namjoon was different. Thrust into adulthood with an idea of who he was supposed to be but not knowing how to get there… In hindsight, Yoongi recognised why Namjoon would have been pissed off about someone as proud as Yoongi who was at least twice as brash about it. Especially when Namjoon was still figuring out himself.

And if Namjoon looked at Yoongi in the way Yoongi had looked at other boys in school, then he stored the knowledge away. At one point Namjoon introduced them to his first boyfriend which had only confirmed his suspicions. But by then, Yoongi and Namjoon had long grown out of their embarrassing rivalry.

So, a crush? Yes, Yoongi can see it in the past.

“But what about… you dated…”

Namjoon interrupts him and shakes his head. “That wasn’t love, hyung. I’m not saying that those relationships didn’t mean anything to me because at the time, I was convinced I was in love. I would have said so if anyone asked. But, I figured, that if I loved them like I should, then I wouldn’t be thinking about how much rather I would have been with you.”

The smell of ozone gives way to pure rain and simultaneously, Namjoon’s resolve hardens. He’s serious, and Yoongi is terrified.

“Not even in the sense of a relationship because I didn’t understand then. I wouldn’t even have needed to talk to you—I just wanted to be close to you, share the same space as you. To me,” Namjoon says, “you simply made everything better.”

And because Kim Namjoon cannot let any grand declaration stand without a final devastating blow:

“You still do.”

The ground under Yoongi’s feet opens up. Deep cracks and fissures painted along the concrete and Yoongi stumbles, losing his grip on Namjoon, and then he’s falling and falling and—

In reality, nothing of the sort happens. But it might as well have. Where Namjoon was carefully holding Yoongi’s hand between his palms, Yoongi now returns the gesture, tightens his grip, digging into Namjoon’s hands in what must surely be a painful manner. But there’s no way he’ll stay upright, won’t float away, if he doesn’t hold onto a pillar, onto someone, onto Namjoon.

Namjoon doesn’t lie to him. But Yoongi also didn’t lie to Namjoon until the time that he did.

“Namjoon,” he says, looking up at Namjoon, for once meeting his eyes. Searching, wanting to trust. “Joon-ah,” he whispers. “Did you—” Love me? Yoongi grows breathless, restless. “Do… Joon, do you mean it?”

A sudden gust of wind drives through Yoongi’s hair. He has to shake his head to dispel them from his vision, sends them flying. He sees Namjoon nodding.

“Do you mean it still?”

Namjoon smiles.

Yoongi looks at him. Truly looks at Namjoon, his best friend of over a decade, even though he projected so much of his anger and self-loathing at Namjoon when they met. He really looks at this man who was once just a boy next to Yoongi in thrift store clothes, wanting to make it because the alternative would have been so much worse, so desolate, so lonesome, so void of everything good and loving that the world had to offer.

He is treading on his feet like a newborn foal, unmoored, and deeply disoriented. He might not know how they’ll go from here after a lifetime of loving without knowing the extent of his love. But he’s nothing if not a quick learner.

Yoongi feels as if at any second now his head might explode. “So.”

“So,” Namjoon says, cheeks just as red as Yoongi’s. “Hyung, are you okay?”

How could he not be okay? Next to one Kim Namjoon?

Yoongi stares at his hands in Namjoon’s, the skin of them dry and his knuckles purple from the cold. His cheeks are throbbing because he’s blushing that much. Frozen in place, heart rabbit-thumping against his ribcage, Yoongi takes a deep breath and tells himself to be brave.

“Namjoon-ah.”

The tip of Namjoon’s nose is bright pink. Against the overcast and foggy skies strikes his silhouette.

“Can I…” Yoongi swallows. His lips are horribly dry. Somehow, he thinks Namjoon won’t mind. “Can I kiss you?”

Namjoon doesn’t need to answer. The resounding burst of petrichor drenches the air in nervous excitement. Still, he nods. “Yes.”

Yoongi closes the distance between them and, before he has the chance to chicken out, he cups Namjoon’s face with a shaky hand. He leans in.

Strange. It doesn’t feel real. Namjoon’s lips are a little chapped just like Yoongi’s and Yoongi holds his breath, pressing in. When it’s over, Yoongi shies away before he opens his eyes.

Namjoon’s gaze is on him and this is why he doesn’t like eye contact; one look at him and you’d know Yoongi’s every thought. But he holds out, meeting Namjoon’s eyes even though everything in him screams to protect and hide.

“What?” Yoongi asks. They’re still close, feet touching. Namjoon isn’t saying anything. Maybe he should back off. Maybe they should go inside. Yoongi would really like to pull a blanket over his head.

“That wasn’t a real kiss.”

Yoongi splutters. His hand had been lingering on Namjoon’s jacket but he rips it away, puffing up. “Not a real—” he chokes out, furious. The height was already making him dizzy before Namjoon joined him up on the roof, not to mention the shakiness in his limbs from putting himself in new terrain, free-falling. Then he sees Namjoon quirk an eyebrow at him and he nearly loses it.

“You’re an asshole,” Yoongi hisses.

“An asshole you love.”

Yoongi shuts up. He continues to shut up when Namjoon breaks into a brilliant, dazzling smile, one that shows off his dimples and absentmindedly Yoongi wonders how Namjoon could have ever hated that part of himself and that at least Yoongi loves them enough to make up for all the time Namjoon had rather hidden them, and then Namjoon leans down and captures his lips.

This time it feels very real.

Namjoon cradles the back of his neck softly, gently. As if he’s just reminding Yoongi that he’s here each time they part with a soft noise before meeting again. Warmth erupts over his skin so that a blizzard could rage about them and still Yoongi wouldn’t freeze. His toes curl in his shoes and he shivers the next time he feels Namjoon’s warm breath fan over his lips.

“No, come back here,” Namjoon mutters when Yoongi leans away. He barely gets to catch his breath before Namjoon’s mouth is on him again, on his cupid’s bow, one corner of his mouth, then the other. It gives Yoongi the courage to lick at the seam of Namjoon’s lips and then they’re kissing open-mouthed, only the constant buzz of Seoul in the background and over that their heavy breaths and the slick noises of their mouths. It’s unhurried and slow and Yoongi can’t tell how much time passes except that he starts to feel a little raw, wonders if the skin on his lips is going to crack and bleed if they keep this up for much longer.

Just as he thinks this, Namjoon straightens and his eyes open at the loss of contact.

He stares at Namjoon’s swollen mouth for a long second because he did that, he put that cherry-redness on Namjoon’s face. Yoongi swallows and shakes his head to dispel the dreamy haze from his head. Remnants of it stick to his thoughts like molten candy and usually he only feels like this on the rare days when he doesn’t worry about tomorrow.

“Hyung,” Namjoon says. His voice is rough.

Yoongi blinks at him. Namjoon takes one of his hands and stuffs their intertwined fingers into the pocket of his coat. It’s a little awkward because of their height difference but remedied by Yoongi staying close to Namjoon’s side.

“I love you.”

Yoongi takes a deep breath.

//

Well past midnight, Yoongi opens his bedroom door and peeks through the crack. If he concentrates, he'll make out six heartbeats alongside his own.

Back in Nonhyeon-dong, he would often lie awake and listen to their breathing. Bonded to six hearts which had so much to give that Yoongi felt lacking next to them. Now he knows better.

On naked feet he pads through the hallway. He passes one door, then another. His shadow is twice his size where it stretches out on the wall, cast into existence by the immortal light pollution of the city.

Standing in front of Namjoon’s door, he doesn’t knock.

Yoongi moves from memory alone until his knees hit the mattress and then he crawls forward on his hands and knees. The closer he gets to the headboard, the more the scent of earth and rain invades his nose. When Yoongi feels the purr building behind his sternum, he doesn't startle and doesn't fight. Instead, he leans into it.

It’s still feels a little strange. A little raw, a little new. But since that first kiss they shared, Yoongi woke up almost every night thinking of Namjoon standing over the threshold with his duffle bag in that stupid hotel room like it was second nature for him to be there. He thinks how easily he fell asleep with Namjoon leafing through his battered paperback at his side, as if he needn’t worry about tomorrow. How has he managed to deny himself of that comfort for so long?

Truthfully, not much about their relationship has changed. They will spend hours sitting next to each other, starring at the multi-coloured tracks of a beat until their eyes grow damp because they’re so damn dry and Namjoon has to go and steal eye drops from the drawers in Hoseok’s studio since Yoongi refuses to. Only when his concentration lapses, like when Namjoon leaves the room or Yoongi needs a refill of coffee, does he become aware of this, and them, and what it means that he loves Namjoon and Namjoon loves him back.

He doubts it, of course. Grows self-conscious and annoyingly contemplative. He’s making his way towards his thirties, yet Yoongi finds himself insecure about the small and the big, the unimportant and the significant. Perhaps because this time the relationship, more than ever, matters.

As if roused by a siren’s call, Namjoon shifts. His chest is bare and Yoongi's omega perks at the view, urging Yoongi to pull his clothes off, too. Skin to skin, without any barrier left. Rubbing their scents on each other to their very pores until alpha and omega melted into one. But Yoongi hesitates and keeps his large shirt on because—because this type of intimacy is new, too. Even though Yoongi knows that Namjoon is it for him, he still tends to shy away from open affection. Yoongi wants to touch Namjoon and wants Namjoon to touch him but—

He keeps his shirt on.

Under the blanket he moves until he can press against Namjoon's back and fuck, this is nice. Yoongi should work on bottling that scent up so he can keep it with him wherever he goes. He doesn't remember ever getting his thoughts to stop circling this easily.

He grows lax against Namjoon's body, tucking his knees under Namjoon's and curling up along the natural curvature of his spine. Not a single inch separates them. Only then does Yoongi wind his arm around Namjoon's middle and allows himself to cling.

This is what he has now. His alpha. Yoongi's purring grows louder. He's on the verge of falling asleep when Namjoon rouses.

“Y'ng’?” he mumbles.

Yoongi pretends to be asleep. But his fingers twitch where they rest on Namjoon’s skin and Namjoon begins to turn around in his hold. Yoongi keeps his eyes stubbornly shut.

Namjoon nuzzles his cheek with his nose and Yoongi squirms when his breath tickles his ear. “You’re purring.”

Even in the dark, Yoongi can see his smile.

“You were purring for me all this time.”

Oh. Yes, he—he supposes. There's no sense in denying it now. Still, he ducks his head as his scent blossoms over the petrichor saturating Namjoon's room. But he doesn't stop purring. He couldn’t.

“Don’t get a big head,” Yoongi says. It comes out weak. “Bigger. You already have one.”

Namjoon snickers.

“Can’t sleep?”

Yoongi shakes his head. Yes, but that's not all. “I didn't want to sleep alone anymore,” he whispers. The I don't have to, right? goes unsaid.

Namjoon pushes Yoongi's hair away from his brow. They’ve barely kissed since that first time on the rooftop but Namjoon will press his lips to his temples or the crown of his head and each time Yoongi struggles to respond. He just puts his foot in his mouth, figuratively. Tries not to react and fails, splutters, and turns into an embarrassed, awkward mess. Again, he has had relationships before. He’s not a virgin, not that there’s anything wrong with that. They all were, at one point, and Yoongi was literally there for some of his packmate’s first heats and ruts.

But all his experience goes down the drain when it comes to Namjoon. He delivers an example of his behaviour the very next time he opens his mouth.

“I dreamed about us having sex,” Yoongi blurts.

Namjoon’s eyes bulge and he starts coughing. “You—what?”

To Yoongi’s utter mortification, Namjoon lifts himself on one elbow and reaches for the lamp on the bedside table. The light is orange and warm but it doesn’t matter—Yoongi covers his face before Namjoon has turned back around.

“Repeat yourself, please?”

Yoongi groans. “I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know why I said that. I swear, I’m usually so much better at this.”

The pause after Yoongi’s babbling is less than reassuring but then his hands are being tugged away gently. Yoongi doesn’t even put up a fight.

“Better at what?”

Yoongi gestures a hand between their chests.

“Oh,” Namjoon says. His expression is thoughtful. “Now that you say it, I don’t remember you being so flustered with others you were seeing.”

He nods. Of course, Namjoon would get it. Yoongi cannot decide whether this makes things better or worse.

“I like that, though. Knowing there’s something that can shake the great Min Yoongi.” Namjoon taps a finger against Yoongi’s brow. “And knowing that that something is me.” His grin is shit-eating. “I don’t mind at all.”

Yoongi glares but not for long.

“So, you dreamed about us having sex.”

With a sigh, he rolls onto his back. “Do you have to say it like that?”

“I just repeated what you said.”

Yoongi sticks out his tongue at him but Namjoon remains unmoved.

“Was it good?”

Maybe he should smother Namjoon with a pillow. Surely, it’s not the worst way to go. But now that Namjoon has asked, Yoongi can’t help but think about it, or about his sad boners he didn’t do anything about because living in an apartment with six other wolves meant that at least one other person always knew what you had been up to. Yoongi’s horny guilt would have gone through the roof knowing he jerked off about Namjoon when Namjoon could smell it on him.

What does Namjoon want to hear?

It was great. Let’s fuck even though I’m not sure how I’ll react to seeing your dick.

“Uhm,” Yoongi says.

“Hyung.”

“What?”

Namjoon lifts and sits up between Yoongi’s legs. He tilts his head. His dark eyes are obsidian, gleaming in the low light. “What happened in your dream?”

Yoongi spreads his legs to make more space for him. He’s well aware that Namjoon is bigger than him. GIFs are floating around the internet where he is openly declaring that Namjoon’s bicep is the size of his thigh. And even though Namjoon is objectively just sitting there, Yoongi feels trapped. Maybe it’s being in a bed that’s drenched in Namjoon’s scent. Maybe he’s just gay. It’s all a little confusing right now.

Not wanting to admit how affected he is, Yoongi does his best to meet Namjoon’s eyes. He ends up staring at his chin instead.

“Do you really want to know?”

Namjoon brings his hands to Yoongi’s knees. He jerks at the touch, caught off-guard or just sensitive, but tries to relax when fingers trail up his skin. They settle at his waist, barely over his shirt that has ridden up.

“Why do you think I asked? To tease you?” His smile turns him so boyishly handsome with his dimples and the mole under his lower lip that Yoongi wants to curse. Namjoon shakes his head. “Tell me.”

Namjoon’s body is like a furnace, giving off heat. Yoongi is growing warmer so fast. Does he have the heating on too? “The first time I didn’t realize that it was you right away because I had my eyes closed in the dream.” He swallows. “But I could smell you.”

Namjoon’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “What did we do?”

Yoongi opens and closes his mouth a couple of times without speaking. “We—against a wall.”

Namjoon hums low in his throat. It’s not far from a growl. “Did I fuck you?” He sneaks his fingers under Yoongi’s shirt, carefully keeping watch of his reaction. Yoongi is starting to sweat. He needs his shirt off like, yesterday. But at the same time he can’t move, paralysed.

He barely dares to breathe when Namjoon’s touch ghosts over his belly.

“Or did you fuck me perhaps? Did you pin me against the wall all on your own?”

He’s teasing but Yoongi thinks of his dream and how Namjoon had carried his weight like it was nothing. “We didn’t get to… that,” he chokes out.

Namjoon lifts an eyebrow, curious. “No?” He leans forward and with it, pushes Yoongi’s shirt up. Yoongi could stop him, would only need to say one word or use his hands. Instead, Yoongi splays his arms out until the fabric is bunched under his armpits. It’s then that Namjoon tears his gaze away from his face for the first time and looks down to where he’s touching him.

“What then?” he asks hoarsely. “Or did you not get to come?”

Yoongi shivers. Whether it’s the cold air against the nipples or Namjoon’s stare, his body breaks into goosebumps. He blames this and his brain short-circuiting for what he says next:

“I did. After I woke up.”

Namjoon stops. His palms are searing where they rest on his chest and Yoongi, hearing himself, starts to panic.

“You—jerked off over it?”

“No. No,” Yoongi is quick to explain, cheeks flushing, “I woke up and had already come. Like, in my sleep.”

A second passes and he realizes what he just said.

Goddammit, Yoongi.

“Goddammit, Yoongi,” Namjoon says. Yoongi starts to wonder why he sounds so pained and then Namjoon kisses him.

There’s nothing soft and unhurried about it. Namjoon kisses him like he wants to devour him, using his thumb to push down on Yoongi’s chin and opening his mouth. He makes a surprised noise but Namjoon swallows it expertly, licking into him. Yoongi clenches his eyes shut under the onslaught and loses himself to Namjoon’s confident lead.

Just when he strains to keep up with him, Namjoon parts from Yoongi with a smack of their lips and bows down, resting his forehead on Yoongi’s. They’re both breathing harshly.

“Joon,” Yoongi rasps, lips tingling. It’s an accusation, a question, and a plea all at once.

“You can’t say you had a wet dream about us and not expect me to do something about it.”

At least he also sounds wrecked, Yoongi thinks. His lungs fill with a potent, urgent mix of their scents and it dares him to act.

“Is that all you got?”

Namjoon’s eyes fly open.

Even though Yoongi’s mouth is closed, he tastes the sharpening of Namjoon’s earthen petrichor, as if a fire ravaged the wetlands. He salivates.

“Oh?” Namjoon cups the side of Yoongi’s face, brushes a digit over Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi barely resists darting out his tongue to catch a hint of clean and slightly salty skin and instead meets Namjoon’s narrowed gaze head-on. “Be a good pup now, Yoongi.”

A small whimper bullies its way up his throat at the endearment. No one’s called him a pup in years, not even his parents. He thought he’d scoff if anyone ever tried to, especially in bed and above him too, but then he also wasn’t meant to whimper at it like a… like a pup.

Yoongi brings his palms to Namjoon’s chest which turns out to be a big mistake. Because once he’s touched the swell of his pecs, Yoongi’s mind immediately zeroes in on them. He stares. First at his hands and how his skin contrasts against Namjoon’s, and then on the sheer size of his tits, firm but with a give, so that Yoongi squeezes them. Maybe he’s always thought about this, somewhere—how Namjoon has been bulking up and Yoongi, who’s definitely not tiny, but looks it next to him.

“Hyung,” Namjoon says.

Yoongi freezes. Without taking his hands away, he slowly lifts his gaze up.

With how he’s looking down at Yoongi, his hair frames his face like a curtain. His shoulders are shaking and if it wasn’t Namjoon, Yoongi would fear being squashed just about any second now. But it’s not his strength that he’s losing—Namjoon is concealing his laughter. At him.

“You’re not beating any cat allegations right now.”

Yoongi flushes but refuses to admit to it. “Listen. What else are you so big for? Am I just supposed to ignore them when you’re shoving them right in my face?”

Namjoon’s not hiding it anymore. He laughs. “If it makes you happy, please continue.”

Yoongi scowls. “Maybe I will.”

“These are very cute, though.” He shivers when Namjoon circles one of his nipples. He traces the dusky-pink skin around the bud. “Small.” Yoongi has little pudge around his chest. Most of it resides where his stomach is soft. Yet Namjoon squeezes at his pecs as if he was a woman, and Yoongi’s cheeks burn when he pushes them together.

He exhales sharply.

“Sensitive?” Namjoon mumbles. He doesn’t wait for an answer, simply leans down and lightly sucks at his other nipple.

Not—not usually, or never this early, at least. He likes playing with his nipples but usually with mean flicks or twists when he’s already close. But Namjoon’s mouth is wet and hot and he doesn’t use his teeth, just the pert tip of his tongue and lips and Yoongi squeezes his legs together. Or tries to, since Namjoon is still between them.

Namjoon lets the bud pop out of his mouth and blows air on the heated and slick skin. He gasps when he feels teeth on his skin. “Joon.”

Yoongi’s hands shake when he lifts them, but then Namjoon drags his lips from his chest to his neck. As soon as Namjoon bares his teeth close to his scent gland, Yoongi sinks his fingers in his dark curls and pulls. He feels more than he hears Namjoon groan from the vibrations against his skin and thinking he’s hurt him, Yoongi lets go. But Namjoon intercepts; he quickly guides Yoongi’s hands back to his hair, encouraging him.

“’S good,” he speaks without parting from his mouth. “Hyung. Hyung, can I—”

“Yes,” Yoongi says.

Namjoon halts his assault on Yoongi’s gland. He huffs. “You don’t even know what I was asking.”

“Just, yes, less talking, more…” Yoongi trails off. He’s quickly learning that he would let Namjoon do anything to him. His fingers twitch, tangled in his hair.

Namjoon kisses the underside of his chin and sits back up. “But I want you to talk to me. I want to know what you like. I want to hear you.” He shifts so he’s straddling Yoongi and the sudden pressure on his dick makes him squeak. But so does the obscene display of Namjoon’s bulge. He doesn’t think that Namjoon’s completely hard yet, maybe not even half-hard. But he’s filling his briefs out well and Yoongi can see the outline of his cock already and he starts drooling. He wants to have it so badly that he momentarily forgets that Namjoon’s here and he’s not staring at a picture.

“My eyes are up here.”

Yoongi blinks. He lifts his head before he lifts his gaze from Namjoon’s crotch.

“I’m not used to you being so quiet.” Namjoon shifts backwards and takes the pressure of Yoongi’s crotch. “I wanted to ask if I can leave marks on you but maybe I should ask if I can fuck you instead. Or do you want to top?”

He blames it on all the blood having left his brain. Otherwise, he would have schooled his features. At least he’s pretty sure he would have.

“What?” Namjoon laughs.

“I could top you,” Yoongi mumbles.

His half-hearted answer only makes Namjoon laugh harder. “Sure you could.”

He looks to the side, embarrassed.

Namjoon ducks down and steals a kiss from him. In the same movement, he cups Yoongi’s chubbed-up cock. “It’s okay if you want to be taken care of, hyung. I’ll fuck you good.” He sounds incredibly fond and Yoongi struggles what to do with it.

Namjoon hooks his thumbs under the waistband of Yoongi’s briefs. He waits for him to nod.

Yoongi lifts his hips to make it easier for Namjoon to pull them off. Namjoon scans his face and only when his briefs are gone does he lower his gaze. Yoongi crosses his ankles, hands going down to cover himself. A knee-jerk reaction.

“Hyung,” Namjoon admonishes. “I’ve seen your dick before.”

Yoongi blanches. He doesn’t want to think about Namjoon seeing his soft cock all vulnerable and small between his legs about a million times when they showered. “Yes but.” This is different. He’s going to have sex with his best friend and fuck, he wants it, but it’s different. “Aren’t you nervous?”

Namjoon tilts his head. “About what?” He’s genuinely asking, as if he truly cannot fathom what’s there to be nervous about. “I think I made it clear that I love you and that I want to fuck you. Do you think seeing your dick will change that?”

Sometimes Namjoon is so honest that it hurts a little. Yoongi closes his eyes. “I don’t know. Yes. No.” He feels Namjoon shift on the mattress. “Maybe. What if this—what if this is a bad idea?” One that they couldn’t return from?

“Hyung. Look at me.”

Yoongi’s eyelashes flutter open. He finds that looking at Namjoon is better than the darkness behind his closed lids.

“Even if the sex is bad, that won’t change anything about how I feel for you. We’ll talk and try again. It’s not a once-and-all thing. Unless you would rather stop now, I’d really like to see your cock now.”

He breathes in, breathes out. Slowly, Yoongi removes his hands. Not wanting to see Namjoon’s reaction, he feasts on the endless planes of Namjoon’s honeyed skin, going lower, lower, decisively ignoring the trail of slick running down the cleft of his ass at the sight of a happy trail…

Shit, when did Namjoon get naked?

…and then he’s staring right at his best friend’s cock.

Yoongi barely manages not to moan like a whore. Namjoon is thick and Yoongi wants to feel the weight of it in his hand as he strokes him to full hardness, as he squeezes the first drop of bitter precome from his wet head and tastes it on his tongue. God, he’s pretty sure that Namjoon is so big that his dick wouldn’t even stand up fully. He might be going insane.

He licks his lips. 

“See? Knew you’d be pretty, hyung.”

While Yoongi has been openly ogling, Namjoon certainly does the same. The words register belatedly in his mind. Pretty. He’s pretty? He doesn’t think he’s been called that before. Yes, he’s an omega, and omegas are always supposed to be cute and pretty, but Yoongi has never really thought of himself as these particular things. His shoulders are broad while his legs are thin and there are some sharp angles about him that don’t fit with the roundness of his cheeks. He’s—

“Very, very…” Namjoon trails a finger along Yoongi’s cock. “Pretty.”

It’s as if Namjoon has been reading his mind. He kind of wants to object, be contrary and stubborn, but then Namjoon takes him into his palm.

“A perfect handful.”

 “God, can you just shut up?” Yoongi snaps, burning and burning, writhing under Namjoon’s touch. “You’re talking way too much, Joon. Do you hear me waxing poetry about your dick?”

Namjoon grins. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Yoongi haphazardly pushes at Namjoon’s chest, immediately taking hold of his arms and pulling him in again. “It’s stupidly big,” he hisses.

“Compared to you.”

“Shut—”

Namjoon toys with his cockhead, the slick skin of the tip. The space between their bodies diminishes by the second. Yoongi’s mouth falls open on a soundless gasp, knees clamping down on Namjoon’s waist.

“Have I told you how good you smell?” Namjoon speaks next to his ear.

He takes his hand away from Yoongi’s cock and Yoongi protests with a noise that turns strangled once Namjoon grinds his hips down. Yoongi moves his arms up until he can wind them around Namjoon’s shoulders because, fuck, he feels like if he won’t hold onto something he’s going to float away.

They’ve barely done anything, too. Yoongi thinks of hook-ups where he couldn’t get wet and they needed lube. Now he’s in Namjoon’s bed leaking shamelessly onto his sheets.

He hopes they won’t stain. But at the same time, he wants Namjoon to drown in his scent.

“Tell me,” Yoongi begs.

Never has Namjoon remarked on it before.

“Joon, tell me, please.”

“Like citrus under the sun. It makes my mouth water. The sweetest winter fruits.”

With Namjoon so close, Yoongi is bound to bury his nose against his gland. He doesn’t get scent-drunk, lacks the inclination. He has never wanted to go under in the haze of someone’s pheromones. But here, feeling the heat of Namjoon’s skin against his lips, lungs full of heavy rain, Yoongi allows himself to fall.

“The sweetest hyung,” Namjoon mutters. “And all mine.”

Yoongi nods. His eyes grow misty.

Namjoon opens him up with care. He won’t stop leaking slick so that Namjoon’s fingers fuck into Yoongi’s swollen hole with ease, the squelching loud enough to make him wince.

When Namjoon reaches for the bedside table, Yoongi sits up in a rush, almost toppling into Namjoon.

“Joon-ah,” he croaks. “Are you clean?”

Namjoon stills, mouth dropping open. He’s quiet for long enough that Yoongi wants to retract the question, but then Namjoon lunges forward, pressing him back into the mattress. The look in his eyes is wild.

“Yes,” he growls. “I am. I promise.”

Yoongi cups Namjoon’s cheeks. “Me too. Can we—without a condom?”

Namjoon’s nostrils flare. His hips involuntarily fuck forward, gliding along the slick crevice where Yoongi’s thigh and groin meet. Yoongi is sweating all over—the smear of precome Namjoon’s cock leaves is lost to him but not his omega who is begging to be marked.

 “You want me to come in you?”

The words make Yoongi clench and he whimpers when he finds himself still empty. He’s going to lose his mind. Namjoon is staring at him as if he’s about to go feral, breathing harshly, while Yoongi is suffering. Instead of answering, he blindly reaches for Namjoon’s cock and pulls him forward until his cockhead finally, finally kisses Yoongi’s rim.

There, he thinks. All Alpha needs to do is sink into him.

Yoongi has never let anyone fuck him without a condom, nor has he fucked anyone bare. And he doesn’t regret waiting when Namjoon drags him into an open-mouthed kiss by his nape, more teeth than anything else, and slides home.

He knows how to do this. He bears down and pushes out because Namjoon is big and fuck, he’s saying something, isn’t he? He’s babbling, lips wet with spit, because he feels so full and stretched to the very hilt.

Still, it’s a lot.

Namjoon waits for him, sweat running down his temples. His arms are shaking where he’s holding himself up and holding back, but even when Yoongi tells him to move he keeps clamping up sporadically, unable to let go.

“Hyung.” His voice is wrecked. “We can stop.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “No.” Keeps shaking it because if they stop now, he’s definitely going to cry. “I just can’t relax like this.”

Namjoon must hear the fragility in his tone because he ducks down to press a soft kiss to his lips. “What if you turn over? On your stomach.”

And that—that’s a good idea. Namjoon braces him for when he pulls out but Yoongi still feels it like a loss. On shaky limbs he rolls onto his front, grabbing a pillow to clutch and rest his head on. He can’t see Namjoon part his cheeks but when he doesn’t move, Yoongi looks back over his shoulder.

Namjoon is staring at his hole.

“Pretty, like I said,” he whispers, almost as if to himself. He digs a thumb into Yoongi and stretches his rim to one side. Yoongi moans. His body wants to suck Namjoon in.

“No, hyung. Let it gape.”

Yoongi buries his face into the pillow, a weak attempt at stifling his noises.

Namjoon fucks into him in one smooth glide and Yoongi’s toes curl.

“Better?”

Yoongi nods frantically. “Move. Please.”

They both moan at Namjoon’s first thrust. The change in position also means that Namjoon covers his body in its entirety. For Yoongi who builds his nests in tiny closed-off spaces it’s the opposite of suffocating. He is safe.

He comes barely a minute later, the friction of the sheets against his leaking cock sending him over the edge. When Namjoon lets up on his rhythm, Yoongi desperately begs him to continue, to keep fucking him. He wants to be marked inside and out. He wants Alpha to come in him and he will work hard not to let a single drop of it spill.

Somewhere, he hears Namjoon call him a good omega and Yoongi keens.

He doesn’t have to angle his thrusts to hit Yoongi’s prostate. The position and Namjoon’s girth allows for a constant pleasurable buzz, threatening to milk him before he’s fully hard again. Namjoon pants into his ear, intertwining their fingers for leverage but also because—“I love you,” Namjoon says, “I love you.”—and Yoongi wishes to stay in this moment forever.

He doesn’t waste a second thinking of their packmates and how they must hear them with how loud they are. Skin slapping against skin and Yoongi who, after Namjoon chides him for muffling his sounds, moans right out in the open.

Yoongi says it back. He says it back until he can’t form syllables any longer because Namjoon wraps an arm around his middle and hoists Yoongi up against his chest. If possible, Namjoon sinks deeper. Yoongi can only tell by his knot starting to form. Once he realizes it, Yoongi makes Namjoon swear that he’ll give it to him, that he’ll push his swollen knot into and keep it there, even when it goes down.

“I’ll keep you knotted,” Namjoon rasps. His fingers touch Yoongi’s belly as if in promise.

Namjoon’s hand dips lower. He brushes his palm over Yoongi’s cockhead, gives him something nice and warm to rut into. Tears slip from his eyes when the world around him turns a blinding, dazzling white.

“As much as you want. Keep you full and sated. I’m yours, omega.”

It’s another I love you, Yoongi knows.