Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Cover Art by @mochi_bunny_ on Twitter

Author's Note : PLEASE READ

Before the story begins, I want to clarify a few worldbuilding choices. Because this fic combines post-apocalyptic survival with omegaverse dynamics, some biological and thematic elements may differ from other interpretations of the genre. I can confirm that these decisions are intentional and remain consistent throughout the story. I don’t want to surprise or confuse anyone, so hopefully that can be avoided by outlining them here.

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A/B/O Anatomy & Dynamics:

For this fic, I chose to structure the omegaverse biology in a way that is internally consistent within this world.

Alphas: Regardless of gender or assigned sex, all alphas have penises. Alpha women still have breasts and are socially considered women, often retaining feminine traits; their reproductive anatomy simply aligns with alpha designation. In cases where their omega partner cannot or struggles to breastfeed, alpha women are capable of doing so.

Omegas: Regardless of gender or assigned sex, all omegas have vaginas. Omega women have breasts as expected. Omega men can develop breast tissue during pregnancy. Omega men are still socially men and may retain typically masculine traits.

Betas: Betas retain the genitals they were born with (male: penis, female: vagina, etc.) and are considered the baseline human designation in this universe. They do not experience heat or rut cycles, though they can still participate in relationships and intimacy.

Blood, Gore & Violence:

This is a post-apocalyptic zombie (in a sense—more like infected) fic. Blood, violence, and body horror are present. Most of the violence involves the infected, though there are instances of violence between characters as well. While the story is not written for shock value, some scenes are graphic. Warnings will be placed at the beginning of relevant chapters, and I encourage readers to pay attention to those notes. Body horror is tagged due to infection-related transformation.

The infected in this story are categorized in stages: Sours, Ragers, and Howlers. These are not separate species, but progressive stages of the same infection. Sours represent the early stage, where the infected individual remains conscious but increasingly irritable, unstable, and aggressive. Ragers are the second stage and are the primary transmitters of infection through saliva and bites. They may move in and out of awareness and are capable of limited speech, often mimicking communication. Howlers represent the final stage. They are heavily mutated and significantly more violent.

All stages involve body horror elements to varying degrees.

This fic does not shy away from darker themes. They are handled with care, but reader discretion is encouraged.

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Acknowledgements

I want to give a heartfelt thank you to my friend and beta reader, Bai. Being that this is my first long form fic, I truly would not have made it through this without her. She read every draft with care, challenged me when I needed it, and helped shape this story into something stronger than I could have managed alone. I’m so endlessly grateful for her time, her patience through my terribly long yapping sessions, and her belief in it. She’s also an incredibly talented writer in her own right, and I cannot recommend her work enough. You can find her on Twitter/X at  @Jiminssiquacks—please go support her and give her stories the love they deserve.

I also want to extend my deepest thanks to Dolcca, Mochibun, Meli,and Ryvv for hearing me out and working with me on such beautiful pieces for this fic. Watching something that lived in my head for so long take shape through their art has been such a special experience. It’s been a genuine  privilege to collaborate with artists of their talent, and I’m so grateful for the care, time, skill, and intention they brought to every piece. This likely will not be the last time I come annoyingly knocking at their doors with another idea.

If you enjoy the visuals for this project, please consider supporting their work and following their Twitter pages—they deserve every bit of recognition for the talent they bring to our beloved Jikook community.

And thank you all for reading and simply giving this story a chance. I truly appreciate the time and care readers bring to stories that live in a difficult spaces with heavy themes—survival, instinct, violence, and closeness. Everything in this fic exists for a reason, and I hope you’ll trust the process as it unfolds.

Chapter Text

Chapter One : The Run

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The warmth always tricked Jimin first. It came in the form of lamplight pooling across a small wooden table, steam curling from a bowl of seaweed soup, and Choi Minji’s soft, worn hands fussing with the collar of his shirt like she always had—gentle, steady, and impossibly familiar. The little café smelled like broth and rice and the lavender she kept tucked in her pockets. For just one suspended moment, he breathed it all in, and let himself pretend that everything was fine.

“Eat,” she said, tapping the spoon against the bowl in a soft, scolding way she used when he tried to rush off too fast. “You get too thin when your mind runs ahead of your body.”

He almost smiled. 

“You’ve always carried too much,” she continued, smoothing his hair back. “Keep carrying everything the way you do, and something in you will snap.”

He wanted to answer her, to tell her he didn’t know how, but the warmth shifted. The lights flickered, and the steam from the soup thickened, curdling into a sour, metallic scent that made Jimin recoil in disgust and confusion. Minji’s hand slipped off his shoulder.

 A scream suddenly tore through the room, sharp enough to split the memory at its seams.

“Minji?” he gasped.

The café fell away.

The kitchen door began to stretch and warp—and in a blink it wasn’t the café at all anymore, but instead the bathhouse shed back at the farm, walls sweating with humidity, lanterns buzzing weakly overhead. Shadows clung to every corner, and the boards under his feet groaned like something restless lay beneath him. A drop fell, then another. He knew that sound—hated that he knew it. When he turned, she was there.

Where there should’ve been a pile of dirty laundry and towels, instead lay a convulsing Kang Nabi. 

She’d been nineteen. Bright, kind, and always humming while she braided the pups’ hair. Always saving the sweetest fruit for the pups, and always smiling like she still believed the world could be kind again. Blood pooled fast beneath her in a widening, glistening, halo-shaped stain.

“Jimin…” she gasped, reaching for him with fingers already slipping. 

He fell to his knees, palms pressing hard against the wound, but the blood just kept coming. It was warm and sticky, seeping between his fingers, relentlessly, as if determined to escape him again.

His grip faltered. The floor beneath his knees had gone slick, and when he shifted his weight to press harder, his hand slid—smearing red across the floor, stealing his balance. He nearly toppled forward, catching himself on an elbow already soaked through.

“No, no—Nabi, look at me. Stay with me,” he begged, voice cracking with all the things he hadn’t said the night she died.

Nabi’s form flickered, and then the bathhouse. The memory blurred with the nightmare, overlapping until he wasn’t sure which one he was in.

“Please,” she whispered, eyes glassing. “Don’t let it happen again.”

Footsteps sounded behind him.

Jimin turned, shaking.

Minji stood in the doorway—or where the doorway should have been, but she looked different. Her smile was gone, and her eyes looked tired in a way he’d never seen when she was alive, weighed down by a grief she’d never gotten to witness, but somehow carried anyway.

“Why couldn’t you save her?” she asked quietly.

His breath hitched. “This—this isn’t real, I—”

But her gaze held him in place.

“She trusted you,” she whispered.

A sound swelled behind her—a wet rattling growl scraping out of a throat that wasn’t shaped for a human anymore. A shape gathered in the dark, hunched and shuddering, limbs jerking too fast, and far too wrong.

Minji didn’t look back, just like before.

“Don’t let another one die, Jimin-ah.”

The shadow lunged.

He reached for her, and the world snapped.

Jimin woke with a violent, shuddering inhale, half-rising before he even understood he was awake. His palms tingled as if the blood were still there, warm and slick between his fingers. Sweat cooled against his ribs, his shirt clinging damp to his chest. For a fleeting second, he swore he caught the faintest trace of lavender in the air—or maybe it lived only in his memory. Pale light filtered through the gaps in the barn slats, thin and gray with early morning.

He dragged a hand down his face, grounding himself in the rough scrape of calluses. His pulse took longer than usual to slow, knocking against his ribs like it didn’t quite trust the quiet wrapped around the farm. Minji’s voice lingered in his skull. Nabi’s blood lingered too, just as stubborn. It always did.

But Minji was gone. Nabi was gone. And  beyond the walls of the farm, the world kept taking and taking. 

Morning gathered outside in familiar layers—birds chirping and picking half-heartedly at the dirt, someone’s footsteps moving across the yard, the soft groan of the farmhouse waking with its people. It was all routine, and safely familiar. A life he kept stitching together day after day, whether or not sleep helped him face it. Jimin exhaled once, closing his eyes as he tried to steady himself. There was no time to linger on the dead when the living needed him awake.

Woodsmoke clung to everything now that electricity was a memory, settled deep into beams and floorboards, woven into blankets and laundry lines, pressed into skin. Usually he didn’t notice it. It was simply part of survival. But the August air hung heavy and damp, thick enough to feel like another layer over his shoulders, and even the comfort of smoke felt trapped beneath it.

What pulled him fully back wasn’t the heat—it was the wind.

More precisely—what rode on it.

A thin ribbon of sour-sweet rot drifted in from the eastern edge of the property, cutting sharply through the calm warmth of the morning. It was faint at first, the same way a bruise begins to  form beneath the skin, but unmistakable once it settled in his lungs. Jimin’s hand stilled on the rifle strap crossing his chest, his entire posture tightening with the instinctive readiness of someone who had survived too much to ignore a warning like that.

Shit.

Someone else caught it too, because behind him, the porch boards creaked. Hoseok stepped outside with his boots still hanging from two fingers and his hair damp with sweat even though the sun had barely crested the horizon. He paused halfway down the steps, nostrils flaring in the same moment Jimin turned towards him.

“Where?”

Hoseok tipped his chin toward the eastern fence. “By the corn line. The damned thing is close.”

Jimin’s gaze sharpened. Hoseok wasn’t prone to panic or exaggeration, so if he smelled it, it was there.

A chair scraped from somewhere behind. Taehyung joined them then with his shoulders squared. Sleep was still clinging to his eyes, but discipline quickly overrode it the moment he caught a whiff. His rifle was already strapped across his back, and even while half-awake, he moved like a soldier. The usual playfulness in his expression had vanished.

“Rattle at dawn,” he muttered, rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Guess breakfast’ll have to wait.”

From the yard, a smaller voice spoke up. 

“I-I’ll come too.” 

Hyejin stood near the feed barrels, clutching her shotgun so tightly her knuckles were white. She was only twenty—barely grown, still soft around the edges. Her wide eyes were determined, though—fear and stubborn pride mixing in equal measure. She’d only just passed her first guard rotation last week. Usually, she was out foraging with Hana—a task that’d stuck with her since Jimin had assigned it 4 years ago. He could understand her longing for a ‘change of scenery’.

Jimin studied the omega long enough that she swallowed hard and straightened her spine. Then he jerked his chin in a short nod. “Fine. Stay behind me and listen.”

They moved out as a unit—boots crunching on gravel-dirt mix, the farmhouse slowly coming to life behind them. The cicadas droned loud from the trees like static. The cornfield whispered with every breeze, stalks brushing in long sighs. The fence came into view. It was ten feet tall, and made of chain-link patched in whatever scrap metal they’d scavenged over the years—rusted road signs, corrugated steel, even the remnants of a billboard that still advertised skincare. Barbed wire spiraled along the top, and glass shards glinted from cement posts where Mr. Park had embedded them years ago. Anything they could find to keep claws and teeth from reaching over. In the summer heat, the metal radiated warmth, storing sunlight from the day before.

The sour smell strengthened as they neared it. Jimin adjusted the strap of his rifle, the leather biting into his shoulder as he squared himself in front of the fence. His dark hair, grown long and uneven since the collapse, stuck to his temples in the morning damp. A few blonde streaks caught the light—Hyejin’s doing, from the time she’d found an old box of dye and insisted he let her play salon stylist for her “birthday gift”. Taehyung had laughed himself sick. Jimin had left it in anyway.

The compression shirt clung to his frame, sweat-dark at the collar. Years of training and survival had carved his body lean and sharp. His thighs were thick with muscle, arms wiry but coiled with strength. The moon phases tattooed down his spine weren’t visible under the shirt, but he felt it stretch as he adjusted the rifle, settling into the familiar weight.

His jaw locked, gaze flat, rifle steady.

Then they saw it.

A figure hunched against the chain-link—half-crouched, half-slumped in a terrible mimicry of a resting human. Sweat clung to its sallow skin, hair matted into dark ropes that stuck to its temples. Its fingers were no longer fingers, not really—but rather nails elongated and darkened, curling like claws. Every breath it took came out as a rasp, hot and wet. When it lifted its head, its eyes were wild, darting between the three of them with a frantic intelligence that made the air feel suddenly, suffocatingly close. A rager, likely in its first few days of stage two, considering it still knew how to speak.

It rocked on its heels and then slammed into the fence, metal whining under the force.

“Please,” it sobbed in a cracked voice. “Don’t—please. I just need a place to stay. I’m not sick—” It smiled too wide, too wet, its lips severely flaked like a cracked porcelain doll.

Hyejin swallowed audibly. Her hands shook on the shotgun butt.

“Don’t let it talk,” Jimin said, his tone so hard it snapped Hyejin’s eyes up from the trembling shotgun in her hands. “That’s how you slip up. Keep your focus.”

The thing’s head snapped toward him, and something like recognition twisted its expression, though its eyes were far too gone for anything human to be behind them.

“You—please. You look strong. Help me. I can… I can lead you to food! I can tell you where the leftover supplies are. Don’t shoot. Please—” It reached a hand through the wire and scraped a bloody line across its palm. 

“I’m still me,” it pleaded, “I’m still—”

The words broke off into a guttural snarl as its neck jerked to the side, muscles spasming beneath ruined skin. It lunged again, harder than before, teeth slamming against metal with a hollow, jarring clack. A spray of spittle—stringy and sour—shot through the gaps and splattered across Taehyung’s boot, where it hissed faintly on contact with old leather.

“Don’t—wait, just—” it pleaded again, voice tearing into an ugly snarl mid-word. “I’ll be good! I swear I’ll—” and then it tried to shove a finger between two bars, as if fingers could find a weakness in metal.

Hoseok muttered a curse under his breath.

“God,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief, “it’s playing with us.”

“Stay on it,” Jimin ordered, and he could feel the old drill voice settling over him like armor. Hyejin’s shoulders hunched as she lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, jaw working.

“Take the shot,” Taehyung added, but not with the edge Jimin had. He sounded like he hated the moment as much as she did.

She raised the shotgun, but her hands shook violently. The rager’s eyes locked on Hyejin as if he’d chosen her as an audience.

“Please…” it whispered, and the softness made Jimin’s teeth ache. “I’m cold. I’m so cold. Let me in. I won’t bite you. I won’t—” It flashed a frantic grin, then pulled back to strike the wire with a fist. Nails scraped through metal.

Hyejin’s finger twitched on the trigger. Her eyes went huge as she lowered the gun, hands trembling now with a new kind of horror.

“Do it,” Jimin said. Not an order, but an imperative.

He kept his tone flat, clipped, but his stomach was a knot. He’d seen this before—wide eyes, finger trembling on the trigger, the split second where fear made people human again instead of soldiers. He remembered the first time, too; an army recruit younger than Hyejin, frozen in place in the middle of their barracks, and the claws of a howler that ripped his throat open before Jimin could even shout. That moment still burned behind his eyelids. He couldn’t afford to see it twice. Not here, not with her, and not with his pack’s fence at her back.

“Hyejin,” Jimin warned, his tone harder. “Shoot it.”

She didn’t. She rocked on her heels and whispered, “I can hear him. He’s crying.”

And in the split second where fear overwhelmed the three weeks of training Jimin had spent with her, the creature surged forward again with a wet, animalistic growl, pressing its face against the mesh as if it could force its way through sheer will. It laughed, yellow teeth flashing.

“I’ll rip your fucking throats open. Let me in! Let me—”

Hyejin’s shotgun wavered in her hands, and Jimin knew that was it for her.

“Take the shot,” Hoseok gritted out.

“Goddammit, Hyejin—do it,” Jimin added, sharp.

The thing slammed forward again, more spittle spraying through the gaps. “I’m fine! I swear I’m fucking fine! I’m not sick—” 

She couldn’t do it. Instead she flinched, stepping back.

“For fuck’s sake—”

Jimin cut in with a sharp, frustrated exhale, grabbing Hyejin by the collar and yanking her back. In one smooth motion, he drew his pistol out of his back pocket and fired before the creature even began to lunge forward again.

The shot cracked through the air, startling birds from the cornfield. The rager’s skull snapped back, dark blood splattering against the fence in a thick arc and the grass behind it. Its body sagged immediately, collapsing like a puppet without strings, legs folding unnaturally beneath it.

Once, his own hands had shaken like that. His first kill had been messy, desperate, fueled more by fear and rage than precision. Now it was just muscle memory. A pull of the trigger, a body down, nothing more. The corpse dripped thick blood over the wire, but it was Hyejin’s crumpled expression as she lowered her gun that lingered in Jimin’s mind.

Silence returned, broken only by cicadas screaming overhead and Hyejin’s shaky breaths. For a second nobody moved. The echo of the shot hung in the air, smoke curling from the barrel. Then Jimin spit onto the dirt and holstered the pistol with a controlled exhale, his expression unreadable as he turned on his heel.

“Taehyung, Hoseok—organize a crew. Burn the body before sundown today.”

They both nodded, Taehyung spinning on his heel and moving like clockwork. When Jimin turned to Hyejin, her shotgun had lowered to her knees. Tears streaked her face, her jaw trembling as she tried—and failed miserably—to steady her breathing. He stepped into her line of sight, voice level and unrelenting.

“You don’t hesitate,” he said. “Not out here, not ever. You freeze like that again and I guarantee that you will die. Or one of us will, and I’m not losing anyone because you got lost in a voice pretending to be human. Do you understand me?”

Her chin trembled, but she nodded quickly, wiping her face with her sleeve. Jimin didn’t soften his tone or posture, but something gentler slipped beneath the words.

“Look—it stopped being a person a long time ago,” he said calmly. “A clean shot is the only mercy left. Next time, don't even wait for my word. Just kill the damned thing.”

He left her standing there as he checked for any fence damage. Hoseok’s hand remained awkwardly on her shoulder, the air still heavy with smoke and sour rot.

The body still hung in the wire by the time they turned back toward the farmhouse, its dead weight sagging against the chain-link like a grotesque banner of the morning’s reality. Taehyung and Hoseok peeled away first, already calling to a small cluster of adults who had paused mid-task at the sound of the gun. No sense wasting the daylight; the sooner the corpse burned, the fewer chances its scent would carry and tempt something else closer. No one wanted to risk a howler smelling the overwhelming fresh blood on the wind.

Jimin walked Hyejin back in a silence that settled heavily between them. She held her shotgun to her chest as though it were something fragile rather than deadly, her fingers twisted so tight in the strap that her knuckles blanched chalk-white. Her face was still pale, eyes rimmed red, and her lips pressed together like she was trying not to let them wobble. She wasn’t ready for guard rotation—not yet, at least—but she would be. He’d make damn sure of it.

The yard unfolded around them with its usual morning orchestra, though everything still felt a little off-kilter in the aftermath of the kill. Smoke from the burn pit curled lazily upward, carrying the acrid bite of scorched flesh that clung to the back of Jimin’s throat. Chickens clucked anxiously in the coop, unsettled by the gunshot, hopping from one foot to the other like the ground itself couldn’t be trusted. But the steady hum of daily life continued to press in around the edges; buckets clattering, someone hammering in the distance, wind rattling through drying laundry. The farm didn’t stop for death anymore. It couldn’t afford to.

On the porch steps, Mrs. Han sat with her shawl wrapped loose around her shoulders, a basket of herbs in her lap. She plucked stems with gnarled fingers, muttering under her breath as she sorted them into little bundles. When Hyejin passed her, stiff and hollow-eyed, Mrs. Han reached out without pause and caught her wrist. She pressed a sprig of chamomile into her palm as though she’d been waiting for her.

“Chamomile tonight,” she said firmly, looking up over the rims of her glasses. “And breathe, pup. Fear rots you faster than a flesh wound if you let it sit.”

Hyejin choked out a ‘thank you’ before slipping inside.

The farmhouse door swung open in the same breath, and Seokjin barreled out, apron askew and a ladle clutched like a weapon.

“Minji! Don’t you dare run out with those!” he shouted as the six-year-old bolted past him with jam smeared across her cheeks and both hands overflowing with stolen dried fruit. 

Seokjin followed a moment later with a ladle in one hand and his apron twisted around his waist, muttering a string of curses that only half-sounded like scolding. Hoseok leaned against Taehyung, laughing so hard he nearly dropped the bucket of water he was carrying. Near the barn, Sooyeon stood with her arms folded, her voice carrying over the low murmur of morning chores. She had salvaged an old chalkboard last spring and now used it to teach the pups, kneeling in the dirt beside Jihoon and another kid as they scrawled letters in messy loops.

“What’s this say?” she asked, tapping at a clumsy drawing of a winged blob. Jihoon grinned wide, puffing up with pride.

“Bee!” he declared, right as Old Man Cho’s hissing curses drifted from the nearby beehives, punctuated by the furious buzzing of bees who sounded just as done with the world as he was.

Jimin passed the goat pen next, slowing instinctively at the quiet rhythm of Areum’s work. The omega sat on a low stool with a battered tin pail between her knees, her hair falling softly around her face as she coaxed milk from the goat with practiced ease. Even while working, she nudged her shotgun strap back into place with a deft shoulder bump, protective and precise all at once. When she caught Jimin’s eye, she gave him a tired but genuine smile before returning to her task.

The sound of metal striking wood echoed sharply near the coop. Yoongi crouched low in the dirt, hammer in hand, black hair sticking to his temples with sweat. His movements were steady, stubbornly efficient—every swing purposeful, every exhale controlled. Minseok stood beside him, bracing a warped board with both hands and muttering critiques under his breath, the morning sun bringing the deep lines of his frown into relief.

“That thing is crooked,” Minseok complained—not for the first time.

Yoongi didn’t look up. “It’s straight enough to keep the hens in and the foxes out. Unless you’ve got another plank stuffed up your ass that you’re willing to lend me?”

Minseok rolled his eyes, muttering something else under his breath, but kept the board steady. The next blow rattled the frame, sending the hens flapping and squawking like feathers on fire. Taehyung strode past with a sack of wood chips slung over his shoulder, pausing long enough to toss Yoongi a grin. “At this rate, that coop is gonna fall over before autumn even kicks in.”

“Come hold the damn board, then,” Yoongi snapped, though the corner of his mouth twitched.

Taehyung dropped the bag of woodchips with a thud, leaned in close enough to brush a kiss against Yoongi’s temple, then flashed a boxy grin. “Sorry, my love. Gotta go burn a rager.”

Yoongi swatted at him with the hammer, missing on purpose. “I thought Hoseok said it was a sour?”

“Beginning stages of a rager—maybe its fourth day of being infected?” Hoseok slid in beside Taehyung, shrugging like it was nothing, the sunlight catching on the rifle slung over his back.

“Yah, the so-called pro military scenter here is gonna lead us straight into a pack of howlers one of these days,” Yoongi muttered, voice sharp but threaded with fondness.

Hoseok rolled his eyes dramatically, tugging his scarf looser against his throat. “Yeah, yeah, hyung. Just keep hammering your tiny little thumbs into the posts and leave the hard work to us.”

Yoongi lifted the hammer and gave a mock-threatening swing. A low growl rumbled out of him as the corner of his lip curled just enough to bare a flash of a canine.

‘Leadership’, Jimin thought. ‘It looked a lot like bickering until the moment they had to fight.’ And maybe that was why the pack trusted them so easily. Taehyung and Yoongi could bicker like old, married fools and still keep the walls standing. Jimin envied that sometimes—the ease, the steady ground under their feet. He didn’t remember the last time anything had felt easy for him.

Near the barns, Mr. Park crouched by battered jerry cans, his broad back curved like a mountain. Sleeves rolled, hands slick with fuel, he poured slow streams of dark diesel through a cloth funnel into cleaner containers. The acrid stench cut through the air. “Slow,” he barked at the young alpha kneeling beside him. “You’ll gum the valves if you rush.” The boy—Kyungho’s ears went red, but he steadied his hands. Mr. Park grunted in approval, the sound carrying like an old engine ticking over.

A sharp curse erupted from the far end of the yard—Old Man Cho again—followed by the delighted shriek of pups scattering from the beehives. Life continued in circles, small and fragile and stubborn.

The farm felt… full. Alive. Held together by habit and grit. Twenty-one people moving in their own rhythms, weathering another day with whatever strength was left to give.

And Jimin—gunpowder still clinging to his fingers—stood in the center of it, listening to the quiet bustle of a world that shouldn’t exist and yet did, stitched together by ritual and the stubborn refusal to die.

Inside the farmhouse, Namjoon sat hunched over the kitchen table, surrounded by a battlefield of notes and diagrams. The pencil he gripped was worn to a nub, and he absently pushed his glasses up his nose as he scribbled something into the margins. A few feet away, Jiwon sterilized scalpels in a rolling boil of water, the converted pantry-turned-lab-storage smelling sharply of alcohol and crushed herbs.

“We’re down to half a barrel again,” Namjoon murmured without looking up, pushing a hand over his buzzed hair. “Mr. Park and I can refine what we have, but the filters are degrading. If I don’t run the diesel through twice, the generator starts coughing.”

Jiwon didn’t break stride. “And if the generator coughs, my tools stop. Which means if anyone needs surgery, it’ll become a guessing game.”

Jimin leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. “Then we siphon more.”

Namjoon met his eyes finally. “We can’t siphon our way out of this forever. If you see anything on your next run—old chemistry texts, field guides, anything—bring them back. The more we understand the infection, the closer we get to an answer.”

Jimin shrugged, though something pinched beneath his ribs. “A cure doesn’t put food on the table.”

The words came out flat, but guilt pricked at him as soon as Namjoon’s mouth flattened, dimples appearing only in frustration. He wasn’t wrong, it’s was that Jimin couldn’t afford to think about something as impossible as a “cure” when the pack still needed to worry about things like eating through winter.

By dusk, the surviving daylight had thinned into a muted amber glow, softening over the land until everything around it felt dipped in the last breath of summer. The chores wound down one by one—hoes leaning against the shed, patched buckets overturned beside the pump, the last of the clothesline taken in before the night damp settled over the fabric. From the far edge of the property, a curl of dark smoke rose from the burn pit where Taehyung and Hoseok’s crew tended the corpse, the scent of scorched flesh dragging its claws across the back of the wind.

Animals made their last restless noises as the yard quieted; chickens rustled feathers into themselves, goats bleated long and sleepy from the pen, the horses snorted and stamped once before settling. Everything calmed the way living things do when they’ve learned peace is temporary.

Inside, the farmhouse felt smaller than usual. Not because it was cramped—though it was—but because twenty-one bodies pressed into the main room brought all their heat and fear with them. Firelight from the hearth breathed a molten glow across the walls, making shadows stretch long and waver like pups that wouldn’t settle. A map lay splayed across the table, taped from scraps, its surface a battlefield of pencil lines; rager sightings scrawled in jagged strokes, howler dens marked with double X’s, rival tracks traced in darker graphite where the threats felt more real.

Namjoon leaned over it with the tension of someone who had already weighed every bad option and still had to choose one. His pencil tapped the blank stretch east of their territory, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as though gravity was working harder on him today. “We need fuel,” he said, calm but worn. “Half a barrel left. The last two stations we cleared are bone dry, so we’ll have to go farther out.”

Yoongi exhaled from where he slouched in a chair, smelling faintly of coop dust, sweat, and the stubbornness that followed him everywhere. “Fantastic,” he muttered. “Love depending on sludge to keep the lights on.”

“Diesel doesn’t last forever,” Namjoon shot back, quick but not unkind. “We’re lucky Mr. Park keeps the rigs working, but we’re running out of time. I need manuals and technical references. Something to stretch it, maybe even substitute. If you pass a school or library, don’t ignore it.”

From the back, Hoseok smirked, arms folded, a streak of soot still across his cheek. “Books, guns, food, and fuel. Anything else, Professor?”

Namjoon didn’t look up. “Yes. Coffee filters.”

“You want a Kanu and some dark roast with that?”

A ripple of chuckles broke across the room, though the weight never lifted fully. Everyone knew that their fuel was life.

Taehyung straightened, brushing ash from his hands. His voice cut through with the calm certainty that had once made him a commander. “We don’t risk both trucks. One will be enough to get us there. We take only the most diligent—myself, Jimin, and Yoongi. Less fuel, less noise, and fewer bodies to drag back if things go bad.”

Murmurs rippled, but no one challenged him. He went on. 

“Hoseok, you’ll stay here. Patrol the perimeter on horseback with Kyungho. Daehyun and Byungho will ride too. Between the four of you, the gates will be covered.”

Hoseok’s smirk faded into something steadier. He gave a sharp nod. “Got it. We’ll keep the home standing.”

Taehyung nodded once, then gestured at the map. “The police station is still unmarked, and it might have ammo, or maybe fuel nearby. It’s closer than trying to find a depot.”

“Or bodies and empty drawers,” Yoongi said, but there was no bite in it.

“It’s a risk,” Taehyung replied, “but less of one than driving blind into the wasteland.”

Jimin pushed off the wall and stepped closer to the table, rifle strap crossing his chest like another rib. His voice was low but final. “Either way, we leave at first light.”

Silence followed, agreement heavy and absolute.

Outside, a howl split the night. Thin at first, mournful and ragged, rising over the fence line like something dragged from its own grave. The fire in the hearth cracked sharply, as though recoiling. Every breath in the room caught. A howler, prowling too close. Perhaps they were not quick enough with burning that rager earlier, and a howler nearby managed to catch the scent of blood. They don’t normally go after their own, but if a howler is starving enough, anything is dinner. Jimin felt the fine hairs along his arms stand. The sour tang of rot threaded through the floorboards, subtle yet unmistakable—close enough for its hunger to stain the air. The second howl sounded closer.

Taehyung was already moving, rifle in hand, eyes meeting Jimin’s with unspoken urgency. “With me.”

Jimin slung the rifle into position and followed. Hoseok snapped on his suppressor and jogged after them, steps light and sure. They slipped through the gate, boots sinking into humid soil still warm from the day. Crickets fell silent around them, and even the trees seemed to hold their breath. The night was stagnant, every inhale heavy with the sour-sweet rot of a howler whose body was decaying faster than its rage.

Hoseok’s nose wrinkled. “That’s no omega, and certainly not a fucking beta with that stench.” He kept his voice low. “Rot’s too heavy. Alpha howler fore sure.”

Jimin caught it too—the bitter, coppery bite under the sweetness, the smell of blood that had been smeared through dirt and heat. Instinct tightened his stomach. Taehyung raised a fist. Halt.

They dropped into a low crouch, rifles angled up, bodies aligned like they had done this a thousand times. Their hands flicked through familiar signals: advance, shift left, hold the line.

The creature moved between the trees, its silhouette lurching out of the underbrush with the wrongness of something that had forgotten it once had bones aligned in a human shape. Shoulders hunched but impossibly wide, muscles spasming beneath skin stretched too thin. Coarse patches of hair clung to stretched flesh, tufts of fur sticking out like mottled weeds. The neck jerked in sharp, unnatural angles. Its jaw hung slack for a beat, dripping spit in thick, ropey strings before snapping shut with a sound like splintering wood.

The claws rasped across a pine trunk, carving deep grooves that made the bark shudder against the strain. Every movement was erratic, guided not by instinct but by a mind splintered beyond recognition. Its stench rolled over them—a choking mix of iron, rot, and something sickly sweet, like fruit left too long in the sun. Taehyung exhaled, steadying his shot. He fired—muffled through the suppressor, clean and crisp.

But the howler’s head snapped sharply at the sound. The bullet tore across the edge of its ear, spraying blackened blood. It reared back, throat swelling, chest shaking with the beginnings of a piercing call. Jimin’s gut clenched. If it howled—

His mind flashed to the farmhouse—twenty-one lives sleeping within thin walls. One calling howl, especially from an alpha,  could undo it all.

Hoseok fired before Jimin could even finish the thought. His shot followed Taehyung’s like a shadow, a clean streak straight into the creature’s jugular. The black blood gushed in a steaming spray, hissing against the cooled earth. The howler staggered once, gargled a wet sound, and collapsed in a heap of convulsing limbs.

Silence pooled around them.

“Jugular hit,” Hoseok said, lowering his rifle with the smallest curl of a smile. “That’s twenty-four.”

“Twenty-three,” Jimin corrected flatly as his eyes scanned the treeline, shoulders coiled for any sign of movement. The scent was already thinning. No others were close.

Taehyung exhaled, shaking his head once. “Should’ve had it, Alpha or not.” His mouth ticked in something almost like a smile. “Guess I’m sharing the next round of shots, if I can ever find whiskey again.”

“Make it two rounds,” Hoseok said, smug. “That’s three ahead now.”

“Two,” Jimin shot back without looking, moving already. “You know we don’t count sours.”

“Oh come on, they still bite,” Hoseok said, voice light but edged.

Taehyung let out a low chuckle as he checked their flank. “God. You two sound like recruits again, arguing over paper targets.”

“The difference is,” Hoseok said, tugging his scarf back over his mouth, “these targets actually bleed out.”

They left the corpse cooling in the dirt, black rot already leaking into the soil. Howler rot didn’t travel far, not like a fresh kill, and the wind had died. They’d burn it come morning.

By the time they slipped through the gate, the farmhouse welcomed them again with soft amber light through the windows and chimney smoke curling upward. Jimin caught the scent of woodsmoke again, warm and grounding, and pulled the rifle strap tighter across his shoulder. Another day, another kill, and another reminder they were still alive.

Mira rested against the porch post, gun balanced across her knees, eyes half-lidded but razor-sharp beneath the relaxed pose. Minseok lingered beside the alpha, leaning on the fence with the perpetual annoyance of a man who’d seen one too many scares for his age.

“Quiet nights ’til you three decide to stir the pot,” he muttered, not unkindly.

“Alpha howler,” Taehyung said as he passed. “We put it down, of course. Hana and Areum will relieve you at two. Keep sharp until then, yeah?”

Mira smirked. “Always.”

Hoseok pointed at Minseok as he followed them inside. “Try not to snore too loud, hyung. We almost mistook you for a dying howler last week.”

Minseok made a sound of pure, offended elder energy. “I don’t snore.”

“Sure,” Hoseok called, already halfway through the door.

·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The bathhouse shed sat a few hundred feet beyond the barns—nothing elegant, just a squat spine of weathered wood boards patched with tin the pack had scavenged from a collapsed tool shop last spring. On humid nights like this one, the walls sweated more than the people did, and the air inside was filled with steam that clung to skin like a second layer. Six deep tubs lined the walls, each filled with water hauled from the well and heated over the outdoor fire pit until it steamed gently, carrying the faint tang of soap and old metal.

Yoongi was already stepping out of the tub when the door creaked open, a towel slung around his shoulders. His skin glowed faintly pink from the heat, rivulets of water cutting paths through the steam as they slid from his hair. The scar that cut from brow to cheek caught the lantern light—one of the older ones, from a fight in some back alley in Daegu before Day Zero, when survival meant using fists, not guns. When there had been money, not rations. When there’d been rules to break instead of a world that had already collapsed around them.

His eyes flicked up as the door creaked. Dark and sharp, they tracked the room with the same practiced focus he’d once used to watch the Daegu rooftops past midnight. “Don’t empty the whole tub,” he muttered, voice roughened by heat and exhaustion, but not unkind.

“Mm,” Taehyung hummed, his grin wide as he stripped without hesitation. Under the lanterns, the scars across his torso glowed pale against warm skin—thin knife lines, a few claw tears, one old bullet graze circled in a puckered halo. He dropped the shirt onto a peg and stretched, joints cracking loosely. “That howler better’ve been worth the sweat I’m still leaking,” he said, grinning wide as he stepped toward the tubs.

Jimin followed more slowly, his movements deliberate, almost ritualistic. He set his rifle only an arm's reach away, close enough to touch if he needed it. His shirt clung damp to the plane of his back before he peeled it off, steam catching the ink down his spine. The moon phases—five crescents and a single full moon—had once been crisp and black, done in a Seoul studio before the world had carved itself open. Now the lines were softened, a little blurred, but still striking against his skin. His muscles carried less bulk than Taehyung’s, but years of drills, marches, hand-to-hand fights, and long labor days had carved him lean and precise. His thighs were thick with survival, not vanity. His shoulders moved with the restrained power of someone always bracing for impact.

They lowered into the water together, knees bumping under the surface. Jimin hissed as the heat bit into tired muscle, then relaxed as it loosened the tightness in his spine. Taehyung sank lower until only his neck and up peeked out. Yoongi toweled his hair slowly, watching with the fond deadpan he reserved for the two people he trusted most.

Steam curled around Jimin’s face, softening the hardness of his jaw and blurring the sharp lines of muscle and scar. He looked almost gentle like this, almost ethereal, the hard soldier softened at the edges. But then he leaned back, eyes narrowing, and the impression shattered as quickly as it formed.

Yoongi stepped behind Taehyung and leaned down, nose brushing against the side of his mate’s throat. He followed the old mating mark with his lips, scenting slow and steady. Taehyung let out a soft hum, lashes lowering, his boxy smile blooming for only a second—boyish in a way Jimin rarely saw anymore.

Yoongi’s hand slid to Jimin’s shoulder next. Their scents—smoke, earth, something dark and grounding—unfurled across Jimin’s skin. Taehyung followed, reaching for Jimin’s wrists under the water, rubbing slow circles with his thumbs. They’d done this a thousand times. Scenting wasn’t some exclusive intimacy between mates. It was their way of maintenance, the same way sharpening blades or checking gate hinges was maintenance. Reinforce their bonds. Keep the pack steady. Remind their nervous systems they were safe, even when the world outside gnawed at the fence line.

The knot in Jimin’s chest loosened despite himself. He exhaled, slow and shaky, letting their familiar scents sit over him like a blanket. For half a heartbeat, he let himself imagine what it would be like to stay here—to give in, to let himself be claimed the way his body sometimes ached for when nights stretched too long. Maybe even find a mate, someone steady enough to shoulder the weight with him.

The thought twisted as fast as it came. A mate meant weakness. Dependence. Something else to lose. He had a pack to hold together, gates to guard, and lives balanced on his back. The luxury of softness wasn’t his. Not anymore.

“Your heats have been spacing again,” Yoongi said as he sat back on the bench, tone deceptively casual. His eyes gave him away. Yoongi didn’t miss things.

Jimin’s jaw tightened. “Stress,” he muttered. “Shit happens, you know.”

Taehyung leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His grin had vanished. “No. We worked too damn hard to get yours regular again. Don’t just shrug it off like it's nothing.”

He wasn’t wrong. The first year, when they’d had nothing but scraps of scavenged suppressants and stress eating them hollow, Jimin’s cycle had all but disappeared. It had taken months of careful food rationing, Seokjin’s teas, and—on the worst nights—Taehyung or Yoongi pressing him through the fever of a heat so it didn’t leave him vulnerable. Survival wasn’t clean, and they had to learn that very quickly. They all carried the proof of that in their scars.

“If it hits rough,” Yoongi said quietly, “we’ll help. You know that.” His tone carried no judgment—only the blunt fact of what they’d done before.

He and Taehyung had been mated for four years now; they were steady and unshaken. When Jimin’s heats had been ragged and brutal, they’d been the ones to anchor him through it. On rare occasions, when a rut hit one of them too hard, Jimin had steadied them in return. The survival and unwavering pack bond stripped any leftover room for romance, anyway. To find any would be a damn miracle.

But that was then. This—six years in—was different.

Jimin kept his gaze fixed on the rippling water, voice flat. “Not this time. I’m not getting between you two. You’re mates, you don’t need me stuck in the middle of that.”

Sometimes he wished he could want it. He wished he could let himself have even a fraction of what Yoongi and Taehyung carried so easily between them—warmth, certainty, someone’s hand to anchor him when the dark pressed too close. But wanting things like that got people killed. Better to stay sharp, and better to keep his hands busy and his mind fixed on tomorrow’s run.

For a beat, the only sound was the water lapping at the rim.

Then Taehyung chuckled, low and rough, shaking his head before tipping it back against the rim. “Idiot. You’ve never been ‘between’ us. You’ve been with us.” 

He nudged Jimin’s knee under the water gently. Another truth. Taehyung and Jimin have known each other since they were pups—there was little to none that either of them had lived through alone.

Yoongi’s expression softened, the scar along his cheek lifting as he gave a faint, tired smile. “And you still are, whether you like it or not.”

Jimin swallowed, throat working. He didn’t argue, but his shoulders stayed stiff, caught between pride and something else he couldn’t name.

Taehyung grins. “Besides, who else would boss my ass around when Yoongi’s too tired?”

Yoongi snorted, tossing the towel into Taehyung’s chest. “Shut up, mm? Both of you talk too much.”

Yoongi leaned into Taehyung again, mouth dragging over the mark at his throat, teeth grazing hard enough to make the alpha hum low in his chest. The sound curled into the air, warm and heady. Taehyung’s hand cupped the back of Yoongi’s neck, tugging him closer for a kiss that didn’t relent until they broke for breath, then deepened again, slower, wetter. Jimin kept his gaze on the water, but his ears caught everything—the shift of bodies, the groan Yoongi swallowed into Taehyung’s mouth. His face heated, the bath only partly responsible.

When Taehyung finally broke away, lips flushed and curved, his gaze slid sideways. “You’re awfully quiet, pup.” 

He reached under the water, fingers brushing along Jimin’s thigh, a simple graze. Familiar enough that it didn’t shock—this wasn’t like their first time—but deliberate enough that it tightened Jimin’s breath. 

“We could take the edge off,” he murmured. “Like before.”

Yoongi’s eyes followed, sharp and steady even in the steam. “Easier to sleep before a run if your head’s not tied in knots.”

“Well, technically it would—”

”Taehyung.”

The touch lingered, comforting in its own way. Jimin let it sit there, thigh taut beneath Taehyung’s hand, the weight of Yoongi’s gaze pressing against his shoulder. For a moment, he almost gave in, almost let himself lean back into what had once been so simple: bodies pressed close, breath shared, the survival-bond that had carried them through too many nights.

But his mind snapped back, sharp as a rifle shot. The map sprawled on the table, Namjoon’s words about fuel, the smell of rot in the wind. The police station. The gas station. The fact that tomorrow could kill them if they weren’t prepared.

Jimin pulled in a long breath, pushing Taehyung’s hand gently away. His voice came out low, clipped. 

“Not tonight. We need to be clear-headed.”

Taehyung let out a rough chuckle that carried no offense in it, only the easy arrogance of an alpha who always got back up no matter how many times he was shoved. “Always the disciplined one.”

Yoongi smirked faintly, towel dragging over his hair. “And yet somehow we still end up in the same tub.”

“Because you’re annoying bastards,” Jimin muttered, though his mouth twitched before he sank lower in the water.

Steam hissed around them. Laughter threaded through it, soft, stitched with years of blood and bone-deep trust. Jimin sank a little lower in the water, eyelids heavy. Their scents lingered around him—Yoongi’s grounding weight, and Taehyung’s warm spice pressing against his own like a shield.

Outside, the night settled over the farm like a blanket pulled tight, the wind rustling through the fields in a low sigh.

Tomorrow they would drive east, chasing fuel and safety and answers in a world that rarely offered any.

·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Everyone woke before dawn, moving in the quiet rhythm of twenty-one people rising to another day. Humid air pressed through the open windows, heavy with the smells of damp earth, livestock, and drying laundry still faintly warm from yesterday’s sun. Cicadas and crickets droned their last songs in the hedgerows as the sky shifted from indigo to thin streaks of orange and pink.

The kitchen was already alive. Woodsmoke curled from the stove, mixing with the bitter tang of roasted chicory. Seokjin stirred a pot of thin cornmeal porridge, his brow furrowed in concentration. He dipped the spoon, tasted, and grimaced.

“It’s bland…again.”

Namjoon sat at the table with a scrap of paper under his hand, pencil stub scratching numbers and notes. “If we grind the last of the beans into flour, it’ll stretch the cornmeal, and add a little protein.”

“It’s porridge, not a science experiment,” Seokjin scolded, swatting the air with his spoon—though the tips of his ears flushed pink when Namjoon looked up, dimples threatening at the corners of his mouth. From the counter, Hoseok grinned wide, leaning close enough to be in Seokjin’s space without crowding it. “For the record, it’s the best porridge in the apocalypse, hyung. Michelin star, easy.”

Seokjin attempted a glare, but Hoseok bumped his shoulder, and a laugh slipped past anyway.

Jimin and Taehyung came through the doorway with rifles already strapped across their backs. They didn’t linger, only exchanging a look as they passed—the kind that said they’d seen this sad little dance before. Taehyung rolled his eyes dramatically. Jimin’s mouth twitched once before flattening again.

Outside, the yard buzzed with the quiet hum of departure. The chickens clucked and flapped as Old Man Cho shuffled past them with his bee smoker already under one arm. Mrs. Han stood by the porch steps, shawl loose around her shoulders, pressing a small cloth bundle into Jimin’s hand.

“Dried persimmons,” she said firmly. “For the road, my fierce pup.”

“You keep them,” Jimin tried, but her sharp look stopped him cold.

“Eat,” she said. “I’ll dry more.”

He tucked the bundle into his vest without another word.

By the barns, horses stamped and snorted as patrol riders mounted up. Daehyun swung easily into the saddle despite his age, Byungho checking the straps on his brother’s saddle. Kyungho adjusted his reins with brash confidence, while Hoseok hauled himself up last, settling with his usual easy grin.

“We’ll ride perimeter ‘til dusk,” Daehyun reported, scanning the fenceline as if it might answer back.

Mira and Hana leaned on the gate with rifles across their shoulders. Mira’s sharp eyes flicked between the riders and the horizon. “If you hear gunfire, don’t wait up,” she said, voice dry but serious.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Taehyung called back, flashing his boxy grin as he climbed into the truck’s driver seat.

Jimin settled into the truck bed, knees bent against the side panel, rifle across his thighs. He preferred it that way—he could see everything. The old diesel engine coughed, rumbled, and then caught with a growl that rattled the glass. The gate groaned open, chains clattering. Behind them, the farmhouse stood framed in the dawn glow, chimney smoke spiraling thin into the brightening sky. Ahead, the cracked road unfurled into the teeth of the city.

Another run, another risk.

The truck rumbled forward, coughing black smoke before smoothing into a steady vibration beneath his boots. Every mile they drove burned fuel they couldn’t spare, and the reminder sat like a weight in his chest.

Taehyung handled the wheel with one hand loose on the rim, eyes never straying from the road. Yoongi sat in the passenger seat with the map folded in his lap, tired eyes narrowed against the morning light. The farmhouse shrank more and more behind them. For a while no one spoke. Tires crunched over broken asphalt, fields blurred into overgrown fences, and the skeletons of tractors rusted quietly in the grass. The farther they went, the heavier the air grew. The wind carried no birdsong now—only silence.

“Feels too quiet,” Jimin called forward, adjusting the strap across his chest.

Yoongi didn’t look back. “Quiet means less trouble.”

“Or it means something cleared the trouble already,” Jimin muttered.

Taehyung snorted, a humorless sound. “Ever the optimist.”

The truck jostled over a pothole. Jimin braced one hand against the side panel, scanning the horizon. The smell of diesel clung sharp in his nose, but underneath it… something else. Faint rot carried thin on the breeze. Old, but enough to raise the hair on his arms.

He wasn’t the only one who caught it. Taehyung’s nostrils flared, though he didn’t comment.

Yoongi broke the silence again. “Hoseok said he spotted signs of another group south of the depot last week. Four, maybe five people.”

“Scavengers?” Taehyung asked, eyes still steady on the road.

Yoongi tapped the folded map in his lap. “Said the tracks cut deep. Heavy packs, but no wheels. Could’ve been a small pack shifting territory. Could’ve been wanderers.”

Jimin’s mouth tightened. “Or raiders.”

“Doesn’t matter what they are,” Yoongi said, voice flat. “Hungry people are still dangerous people.”

Taehyung’s grip flexed around the wheel. “Let’s hope they left something behind. And let’s hope we don’t run into them.”

“Do you think they’d risk a fight?” Jimin lifted his rifle slightly, checking the chamber by habit. “I mean, look at us.”

“Over diesel? Over bullets?” Yoongi didn’t hesitate. “I’d be shocked if they didn’t.”

The words felt heavy, settling between them thicker than the scent of rot tugging faintly at the air.

The road bent, pulling them deeper into a quiet that felt wrong. Fields gave way to concrete lots choked with weeds. Abandoned cars lined the shoulders—some with doors flung open, others burned to black husks, windows melted into warped gloss. A child’s car seat lay tipped on the pavement, sun-bleached and empty. The truck rattled into the outskirts of the city, the frame shuddering with every jolt. Jimin kept his rifle braced across his knees, eyes flicking between alley mouths and windows clogged with dust. The air continued to thicken with mildew and smoke, rot curling in thin, sickening threads through the heat.

Then he saw it.

At the corner of a narrow street slouched a café, its awning collapsed and the windows jagged with broken glass. The paint on the signboard had peeled until only fragments of the name clung, letters warped with mildew, but Jimin knew it instantly.

Choi Minji’s place.

His breath caught, held sharp in his chest like a blade pressed flat beneath his ribs. The truck rumbled on, but the sight pulled him backward through the years as cleanly as if he’d stepped off the bed and through the café door again.

He remembered the smell first—coffee beans grinding, sugar crusting the tops of buns, honey dripping into tea. The kind of scent that clung to your clothes and followed you home, marking you as someone who belonged. He belonged there. He remembered her voice next, sharp and carrying, always hovering somewhere between a scold and a laugh.

“Park Jimin, you’re wasting away. Sit. Eat.”

Before he could protest, she’d shove a plate of pastries or rice cakes under his nose, arms folded until he took a bite. She’d kept him round-cheeked through high school no matter how hard he pouted. Taehyung had teased him relentlessly; Minji only clicked her tongue and piled another sweet on his plate. “You’ll thank me when you’re grown. Strong, not hollow.”

When his mother died—lungs drowned by an illness they couldn’t afford to treat—and he’d been handed off to an estranged uncle too tired or perhaps just unwilling to care, the café had been the only place that felt like home. Choi Minji called when he didn’t show up to study, she checked his homework, reminded him to eat vegetables, and told him to sleep. She never said I love you, not directly, but she never needed to.

By eighteen, she’d given him a job behind the counter. By twenty, she’d cried when he and Taehyung came to her, uniforms crisp, telling her they were enlisting—and not just for the required eighteen months. “Why would you give more of yourselves to a country that’s already taken so much?” she’d demanded, cheeks wet, voice trembling in a way Jimin had never heard before. It was the first time he’d seen someone grieve for them—the first time anyone outside of Taehyung had made him feel like a son worth mourning.

Still, she’d seen them off with arms tight around their necks, pushing food into their hands, slipping prayers into their pockets she would never admit aloud. Every leave, every holiday, they came back to her. They brought her trinkets from places they couldn’t talk about and stories from deployments they softened with laughter. She fed them until they were full, scolded them for being reckless, and beamed at them like they were hers. In every way that mattered, she was family.

And then Day Zero struck.

Jimin still felt the burn in his legs, the ache in his lungs, from sprinting across a collapsing city six days after their team had been torn apart. He, Taehyung, and Hoseok had run for her café, raw with grief and terror, desperate to find her alive. They found signs of her instead.

Upstairs, incense had burned to ash beside a photo of the three of them in the cafe’s kitchen—Minji’s arms thrown around their shoulders, Jimin’s cheeks round with smeared  powdered sugar, and Taehyung grinning wide. A note in her sharp handwriting told them to take what they needed and go. She prayed for their safety, and wrote that she loved them like the sons she never had. She would watch them from above.

Downstairs, they found her.

Her body had moved like a puppet, stumbling in half-circles, eyes glassy, lips cracked with the sickness. A rager, close to stage three—too weak to attack but too far gone to be saved. Jimin had dropped to his knees, chest so heavy with a pain he hadn’t felt since his mother’s passing. Taehyung’s face crumpled before he turned away from the scene, shoulders shaking. It was Hoseok who had murmured a prayer, voice as thin as a reed.

“Forgive her body, keep her spirit.” 

Then he raised his rifle and granted her mercy.

They hadn’t left her on the café floor. Instead, they’d carried her upstairs, laid her in her bed, and pulled the quilt she loved up to her chin. Taehyung placed flowers scavenged from the street potted plants on her chest, and Jimin had smoothed her hair back one last time. She looked small—smaller than she ever had in life. Only then had they taken what she’d wanted them to take. Jars of sugar, tins of tea, sealed biscuits, and the non-perishable foods she’d gathered for them on the dining table. They carried it out along with other items like first aid and knives in silence, hearts scraped raw, and their hands trembling with grief.

Now, six years later, Jimin couldn’t look at the ruin without feeling the echo of her hand in his hair, her scolding voice, the warm certainty of being watched over.

A lump formed in his throat as he forced his gaze away. Behind him, Taehyung’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He didn’t speak, but when Jimin glanced at his face through the rearview mirror, he caught his profile—eyes fixed straight ahead, jaw locked hard enough to ache. For a moment, neither of them needed words. The weight of Minji’s absence sat heavy between them, a grief that belonged to both of them now and forever.

The truck rattled past, carrying them deeper into the city. Jimin kept his eyes moving, grip tightening on the rifle whenever the truck rolled past a darkened window. His ears strained for the scrape of claws on metal, the breathy moan of a rager too close. Nothing yet. The silence pressed tight around them. Taehyung slowed as they reached the outer blocks. He shifted down, guiding the truck past an overturned bus, its ribs sticking out like bones. The smell of mildew and ash thickened, coating Jimin’s tongue.

“Here,” Yoongi said, nodding toward a squat brick building farther ahead. Above the entrance, faded paint still clung to the wall: POLICE.

The police station loomed at the end of the block, brick walls scorched black where fire had once crawled up its sides. The windows on the second floor gaped hollow, jagged glass teeth catching the morning light. Taehyung pulled to the curb and killed the engine. The sudden quiet rang in Jimin’s ears.

He hopped down from the bed, boots crunching on broken glass, rifle raised. The street was still—too still. No wind, no birds, nothing but the dead weight of the city watching them. The front steps were littered with brass casings and old blood, dried to a brown smear across cracked tile. Someone had tried to hold the line here once. Filing cabinets, desks, and sandbags still lay in heaps around the doorway, but the barricade had been torn apart, scattered across the steps like the aftermath of a storm.

Yoongi crouched near the steps, rifle loose in his hands, broad shoulders compact and steady. His gaze swept the rooftops with the precision of someone who had survived too many ambushes to underestimate silence.

“Go quick,” he muttered. “This place stinks of ghosts.”

Taehyung nodded sharply, then flicked two fingers at Jimin. “Standard sweep.”

Jimin slid into position without hesitation. The rhythm of their training came back like breathing. Taehyung moved right, Jimin left, rifles raised, boots crunching across tile and glass. Their signals were small and practiced—chin tilts, flicked fingers, shifts of weight. A language built in barracks and battlefields.

Inside, the air hung heavily with mildew and something that had once been blood. Papers curled in damp drifts across the floor. Above the reception desk, the words ‘PROTECT AND SERVE’ clung stubbornly in peeling blue paint. They didn’t start searching for scraps right away, instinct keeping  them in motion first. Taehyung angled his rifle toward the stairwell. Jimin nodded, falling in step beside him.

The staircase groaned beneath their weight. Dust sifted from the cracked ceiling, and the air grew staler as they climbed. The smell thickened too—rot cut with something sweeter, newer. At the landing, Taehyung raised a fist. Jimin froze, rifle trained forward. The hallway stretched long and dim, doors hanging open on either side. They cleared them methodically. Offices gutted, drawers ripped out, desks overturned. A stale nest where someone had once slept, the blankets gnawed through by rats. Empty. Empty. Empty.

Then they reached the last room.

Jimin stepped inside first. The smell hit immediately—rot not yet deep enough to hollow the gut, but close. A man sat slumped in the corner of the room, back against the wall and pistol slack in his lap. The spray behind him still stained the plaster in gut-wrenching drips.

Even after six years, Jimin had seen enough to know the signs. Waxy skin, sweat dried in patches across his shirt, black veins. He was in the early stages of infection—a sour. He must’ve felt it coming—the hunger, the sour-sweet stench leaking from his own pores. He’d chosen a more merciful end instead.

Taehyung exhaled through his nose, steady but grim. They’ve smelled far too much death to really be affected anymore. “Two days. Maybe three.”

Jimin crouched, nudging the pistol aside before checking the pockets. They found half a pack of cigarettes, a folding knife, two dented cans of beans. Small things, but certainly worth taking.

“We’ll lay him down,” Jimin said quietly. 

He didn’t let himself think too long about the man’s choice. Survival didn’t leave room for mourning strangers. 

Together they shifted the body, dragging him into an empty cell at the end of the hall. Taehyung pulled a moth-eaten blanket from a bunk and spread it over the corpse, tucking it around the slack shoulders like a shroud. It wasn’t much, but it was more than most got. Mercy was scarce; they gave what little they could.

“Rest easy,” Taehyung murmured under his breath, so low Jimin almost missed it. Then they left the cell closed, the air heavy behind them.

Once the upper floor was cleared, they moved back down to start the search properly.

The weapons locker yawned open to their left, the steel door twisted off its hinges and black with rust. Jimin swept the corners before stepping inside. Shelves stood stripped bare, but scavengers were rarely thorough. A half-collapsed drawer caught his eye. He rifled through it until his fingers closed around cold metal—another pistol, half-seized with rust but still functional. He shoved it into his bag.

Taehyung crouched in the corner, sifting through debris. He came up with a half-box of bullets and lifted it with a faint, grimly triumphant smile. “Okay, there’s eight rounds. That’s better than nothing.”

“Not much better,” Jimin muttered, clearing the rest of the room.

They moved on. The evidence room door squealed when Jimin pushed it open, the sound scraping down his spine. Inside, the shelves were gutted, cardboard collapsed into gray mush from years of leaks. Still, he bent to sift through a toppled bin, fingers brushing past warped plastic until they caught on something solid—a hunting knife. The blade had dulled, but its weight was right in his palm. He spun it once before strapping it at his hip.

“Better in your hands than any raiders’,” Taehyung said from the doorway, voice low.

They moved deeper into the station. At the back, a swollen wooden door resisted until Jimin braced his shoulder and forced it open with a splintering crack. More damp, sour air spilled out, carrying the stale weight of years. Shelves still clung to the walls here, dust thick enough to soften every edge.

A forgotten case sat near the bottom shelf. Jimin pried it open. Dust rose in a soft cloud, making him cough. Inside lay two handheld radios nestled in a foam cutout, plastic dulled but intact. Underneath, a cracked tub of batteries—most corroded, a few still usable. Leaning against the wall was the prize—a solar battery charger, scratched and dulled, but catching a faint sliver of light from the cracked window.

Taehyung let out a low whistle. “Namjoon hyung is gonna piss himself.”

Jimin packed the haul into his duffel. The added weight dragged at his shoulder—solid, reassuring, worth every risk they’d taken so far.

Something caught his eye then, half-hidden in the shadows of the corner. A locker, its door buckled inward but not fully forced. He wedged the butt of his rifle under the edge and pried it open. Inside hung the remnants of riot gear—dust-caked but intact. Two helmets with scratched visors, a ballistic shield with spider-webbed cracks across the upper left, and a vest stiff with age.

He ran a hand down the shield. It was scarred, gouged deep by claw marks, but still sturdy. He set it aside for Taehyung to carry. “Looks like the first line went down pretty hard. What a total shitshow that must've been—poor guys.”

Taehyung’s face tightened. “It sucks, but it doesn’t matter. It’s ours now.”

They turned to leave, but Jimin’s gaze snagged on the holding cells at the far end of the hall. The bars were raked with claw marks—raw, sharp-edged, not rusted. The marks had to be recent. His stomach tightened. “Ragers—or something must've been here recently.”

"That would mean survivors are still roaming around our parts."

"Well no shit, you saw that rager this morning—couldn't have been more than a week or so old."

"Yeah, shit. I just hope it was that bastard that made this mess. Don't need any more wandering onto our farm."

Taehyung’s jaw flexed once, but he only adjusted his grip on the rifle. They didn’t linger. The daylight outside felt raw, almost violent after the station’s shadows. Yoongi crouched near the steps now, eyes cutting across the street. When he spotted the duffel bulging with salvage—the radios, charger, ammo—and the shield clutched in Taehyung’s hand, one brow lifted.

“God has not forsaken us entirely,” Jimin said dryly, tossing the duffel into the truck bed.

Yoongi’s mouth pulled tight in something like approval. “Worth the drive then.”

Taehyung started the engine. The truck rumbled too loud in the empty street, the noise bouncing off hollow buildings like an alarm. They rolled forward, easing deeper into the city’s quiet throat. Jimin swung into the bed again, rifle across his knees, boot braced against the duffel. Every shadow looked like it might lurch. Every pane of shattered glass felt like an eye.

The truck rounded the bend. A gas station squatted on the corner like a broken tooth—awning half-collapsed, pumps rusted nearly to skeletons. The sign above sagged on a single hinge, its paint flaking but still legible: GAS. Graffiti slashed across the cinderblock walls in jagged scrawls. ‘STAY OUT. BURNED INSIDE.’

Taehyung slowed to a crawl, truck grumbling low. His eyes tracked the lot, muscles in his forearm taut around the wheel. “One station,” he muttered. “Doesn’t look like it’ll give us much.”

Yoongi leaned forward, squinting through the dirty windshield. “Hm. And it's old style. Diesel tanks will be underground if they’re intact. The question is whether we’ve got enough cans to haul anything worth the effort.”

Jimin twisted from the bed, boots braced against the side panel as he checked the load behind him. “Six jerry cans. Five sealed, one tapped.” He thumped the nearest. Metal rang back, hollow. “Hopefully enough if we’re lucky.”

“Lucky isn’t a word I’d use out here.” Yoongi’s voice was flat as his gaze swept the lot.

“So assuming it hasn’t all turned to complete sludge…” Taehyung guided the truck deeper into the lot, eyes cutting from pump to pump. “We check the reserve. Pumps might be dead, but if we can drop the hose—”

“We siphon.” Yoongi reached back and tapped the siphon coil behind the cab. “If there’s anything left, Mr. Park can filter it—sludge or not.”

The lot was dead-still when Taehyung killed the engine again. Weeds cracked through the asphalt. A plastic bag fluttered limp against a pump.

Jimin shifted his grip on the rifle. “And if there’s nothing?”

“Could check inside,” Taehyung said after a beat, his voice low. “Might be dry goods. Even stale chips beat yet another week of boiled potatoes.”

Yoongi shot him a sharp look. “Convenience store’s a tomb. We go in there, it’s a choke point.”

“We don’t ignore supplies,” Jimin cut in, eyes never leaving the sagging roofline and dark windows. “But we don’t split focus either. Fuel first.”

Yoongi’s mouth flattened, but he didn’t argue.

“Look,” he said instead, nodding across the street. “There's a bookstore about half a block ahead.”

A faded sign clung above a row of smashed windows. The shelves inside leaned like broken teeth. Namjoon’s voice echoed in Jimin’s mind—manuals, chemistry, anything.

“Not now,” Taehyung said, reading the thought as soon as it crossed Jimin’s face. “We haul gas, we haul ass. If we’re still breathing after, maybe we swing back.”

“Maybe,” Jimin muttered, though his gaze lingered.

Yoongi snorted. “All this risk for paper. He’d better turn this shit into gold.”

But none of them said no to the idea of salvaging whatever texts they could. Books meant knowledge, and knowledge meant a chance for a future.

The air shifted then—the damp and staleness turning into some more…wrong. Jimin inhaled again, deeper. The usual rust, and beneath it, that tell-tale sickly-sour rot, fresh enough to prickle the back of his neck.

“Boys, I smell rot,” he said, lowering his voice.

Yoongi’s rifle was up in an instant.

“Alpha?” Taehyung asked, weapon already unslung.

Jimin inhaled once more, sharp and deliberate. The rot sat thick on his tongue—but under it, threading through like a hot wire, came something else. Strong, fierce, and…alive?

“No,” Jimin said slowly. “Omega ragers. But—”

He broke off, frown deepening. There was something else, another scent. He thought he’d mistaken it, but the scent was still there, invading his senses slowly. 

Taehyung’s jaw ticked. “I smell it too, but you’ve got it wrong. I smell alpha.”

Yoongi’s voice interrupted before Jimin could argue back. “Doesn’t matter what it is. What it needs to be is fucking dead.” A low growl threaded under his words.

He was right—hesitation killed faster than claws, this Jimin knew all too well. If they hesitated, whatever waited out there would tear them apart just the same. They dropped from the truck in practiced unison, boots striking cracked asphalt. Jimin swept broad arcs across the lot, scanning every shadow. Then a snarl split the air.

Three shapes lurched from behind the far pump, shrieking as they charged—ragers, limbs spasming with half-controlled fury, claws out, teeth bared, and voices still ragged with scraps of human vowels between the screams. Jimin snapped his rifle up—then froze. They weren’t charging at him.

In that same breath, Jimin caught the scent again—cutting through the sour stench of rot like a blade through cloth. An alpha’s scent. It slammed into his senses so suddenly he almost faltered.

Someone else was already here.

A figure burst from the shadow of the half-collapsed roof, moving with startling speed. A dark-haired man. Though he couldn't really make out the man's face, it was clear that he was young. Broad-shouldered. A machete flashed in his right hand, his left arm held close in a guard that felt trained  rather than frantic instincts.The first rager lunged at him. The stranger pivoted cleanly on the balls of his feet, weight dropping low, and swept the machete across its throat in one brutal arc. Blood sprayed across the pump, the body collapsing in a twitching heap.

The second came at him low, claws raking. For a single heartbeat, Jimin swore he saw something shift in the man’s posture—a flicker of instinct bordering on feral, the suggestion of claws in the curl of his fingers—before the machete punched clean through the rager’s chest. The corpse spasmed once and fell. The last barreled forward, mouth stretched too wide as it screeched, high and raw. The man didn’t flinch. He dropped his center of gravity, twisted with sharp, practiced torque, and drove a boot into its knee. The bone snapped sideways with a wet crack—precise, intentional, not desperate. A fighter’s strike. A survivor’s.

The rager collapsed, shrieking. The stranger tore the machete free and drove it down through the last one’s chest in a brutal, efficient strike. Steel met concrete with a hard crack, ringing with the impact. All three bodies hit the ground within a breath of each other, steam rising faintly in the morning heat. Silence followed, thick and heavy, vibrating in Jimin’s bones.

The man stood panting, chest heaving, arms slicked dark up to the elbows. When he turned toward the truck, sunlight caught him full in the face, and Jimin’s breath snagged before he could stop it. Not just  because he was beautiful, not exactly. It was more so at the shock of seeing someone so clearly, overwhelmingly alive in a place that had forgotten what that looked like.

But he was handsome in a way that felt almost cruel. Six years of ruin had sanded most faces down to something harder, gaunter, wary. This one hadn’t dulled. The man had the kind of face he would have noticed in another life, perhaps across a bar or a street corner, when the world still had room for such things. Strong nose, dark brows pulled tight in focus, sweat tracing the sharp line of his jaw. His hair curled damp at his temples, brushing the faint glint of metal at his lower lip. His eyes—wide, dark, startlingly clear—locked onto Jimin’s across the lot and didn’t waver.

He wasn’t clean. He wasn’t untouched. Blood slicked his forearms, dust clung to his clothes. But something in him burned bright anyway, fierce and unapologetic. It hit Jimin low in the chest, sharp as cold air. For a moment, it almost hurt to look at him.

The man adjusted the duffel on his shoulder and tipped his chin with a lopsided grin. “They wanted my cigarettes, I think. But I got them first.” His gaze flicked between them. “You wouldn’t happen to have a lighter?”

The haze shattered.

Jimin’s rifle was up before the last word finished leaving the man’s mouth, sights centered on his chest.

“Put your hands up," he said, voice unyielding. "And don’t take another fucking step.”

Taehyung shifted in beside him, barrel steady. Yoongi didn’t speak, but his stance tightened, lethal and precise. The stranger didn’t obey immediately. He flicked the machete once, a clean snap of the wrist to shake off the blood, then let the blade hang loose at his side. Only then did he straighten slowly, shoulders rolling back, chin lifted like he wasn’t staring down three loaded rifles.

“Hands,” Taehyung warned, sharper now.

The man’s mouth curved—not quite a smile, not quite anything Jimin could name—as he raised his hands at last, palms open and empty. He didn’t break eye contact while he did it. If anything, his gaze seemed to settle more firmly, dark and steady in a way that felt almost deliberate, like the immediate danger he was in didn’t scare him half as much as it should have.

“Name,” Jimin demanded.

The heat shimmered between them, asphalt breathing up the morning sun, the faint stink of rot still clinging to the air. For a long second, the man simply stood there, chest rising and falling, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

Then his lips parted.

“Jeon Jeongguk.”

Absolutely stunning art by Dolcca on Twitter

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: What We Let In

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Jeongguk didn’t so much as twitch. He carried himself like a man waiting out a bad punchline—irritated, faintly impatient, treating this whole standoff like just another pointless delay in a life already full of them.

Jimin kept his aim fixed on the center of his chest, breath measured. Only the tight pull across his shoulders betrayed him. Every instinct within him screamed not to trust a damn thing about the man—not the name he’d given, not the face he wore, and certainly not the way the alpha stared back without even the slightest flicker of fear in his eyes.

“Drop the machete,” Jimin commanded.

Jeongguk arched his brow, seemingly amused, and sent the blade skittering away with an easy snap of his wrist. The metal scraped loud against asphalt before spinning to a stop near one of the dead pumps.

“Good,” Taehyung said. His voice carried that clipped commanding edge Jimin knew well—the tone that left no room for negotiation.

Yoongi shifted a half-step right, angling for a clean shot if things went bad. His jaw was locked, expression giving nothing away, and his finger rested just outside the trigger guard—loose but ready. Always ready. Jeongguk tracked the movement with his eyes, but didn’t turn his head. His gaze drifted back to Jimin instead, the gleam in his eyes making it known that he was annoyingly sure of himself.

“You alone?” Taehyung asked, tilting his head to peer around Jeongguk.

“Yes,” Jeongguk answered without hesitation.

Jimin narrowed his gaze, tracing the line of Jeongguk’s posture. People who had something to hide usually filled the quiet—too many words, too much movement, anything to patch up the gaps and make their stories hold together. That used to mean something. In the world they lived in now, people could lie without flinching. He’d seen it too many times to trust the old tells.

“Bullshit. I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” Jimin muttered, cocking his rifle. The metallic click cut sharp through the air, and for the first time something flickered across Jeongguk’s face—a small crack in his composure, his fingers twitching like his body was already mapping out an exit.

“I’ve lasted this long on my own,” Jeongguk shot back.

“Not much longer,” Jimin grit, his patience beginning to thin out. “Not with you running that mouth and testing me”

Jeongguk lifted his shoulders in a loose shrug—as much as one could manage with their hands raised. “Believe what you want. You’ve got guns to my face—I’m not going to lie like a fucking idiot.”

The casualness of it scraped at Jimin’s nerves. He sounded like a man giving directions on a quiet street, not someone standing in a graveyard of bodies with blood drying on his skin. Even now, his arms moved loosely when he spoke, dark smears flashing across his forearms as if they belonged to another world entirely. It was absurd.

Jimin stepped forward, just enough to close the distance between them by a single echoing footfall. The diesel scent was beginning to irritate his lungs, but the man in front of him was far more distracting. It was Jeongguk’s pine smoke scent that cut through the stench—sharp, warm, fiercely alive. Too alive for Jimin’s liking.

Jimin shoved a snarl down before it had a chance to bloom.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked instead.

“Clothes, water, some food.” Jeongguk’s mouth then curved again into something close to a smile. “You know, a couple of things that make life less miserable.”

“Open it,” Taehyung ordered.

Jeongguk lowered his hands with careful, measured restraint, making it clear he wasn’t reaching for anything he shouldn’t. He crouched, unzipped the duffel with two fingers, then eased back to give them space. Jimin watched the bag open like he expected it to bite.

They found nothing hidden, nothing clever tucked between the seams. Just a battered collection of belongings—threadbare clothes rolled tight to save space, a half-empty bottle of water that was slightly filmed with dust, a flashlight missing its back plate, and a rusted tin of mints that Jimin was sure had been dulled by time and handling. It was a prime picture of what life looked like when only packed down to what could be carried without slowing your feet or costing your last breath. The sight was familiar, reminding Jimin of his days before finding the farm. Too familiar.

Taehyung’s gaze flicked toward Yoongi, and something unspoken passed between them—subtle enough that most people would’ve missed it. Jimin didn’t. He knew that look of pity—one that could only stem from the shared understanding that this was what surviving this hellscape eventually carved everyone down to.

Yoongi sighed. “You looking for a pack to join, kid? Or just trying not to die today?”

Jeongguk didn’t answer right away. His smirk lingered, but fatigue shadowed his eyes—loner’s exhaustion, worn too deep to fake.

Jimin shifted his grip, voice turning to steel. “Doesn’t matter. We’re not looking to babysit.”

Taehyung’s hand shot out, catching Jimin’s arm before he could shove the rifle closer. “Jimin.” His tone was quiet but firm. “A word.”

For a moment, Jimin held his ground, jaw locked, breath sharp through his nose, eyes fixed on Jeongguk like he could sear truth from bone. Then, finally, he let Taehyung pull him a few steps aside. Yoongi stayed where he was, rifle unwavering on the stranger.

Jimin hissed under his breath. “He’s a liability, Tae. That’s one more mouth, one more gamble we can’t afford. You and I both know what happens when you trust the wrong person.”

Taehyung’s expression didn’t shift, but his voice carried that steel edge Jimin knew from the field. “And you know what happens when you leave someone like him behind. He’s young, strong, can clearly fight—hell, you saw him take down three ragers like they were nothing.  There’s not enough of us to keep running the farm without stretching us thin. 

Jimin looked off to the side, tongue pressing hard into his cheek.

They hadn’t brought in new blood in years. Not since they’d found the Kang brothers stuck on the side of the road, fighting off a pack of ragers that had managed to corner them between a flipped bus and the edge of a bridge. Byungho had offered up his brother Daehyun, promising the alpha would carry his weight no matter what. They’d taken them both instead. That was four winters ago, when the world still coughed up survivors more often than it did than infected corpses. Since then, it’s been nothing. No strangers at the gates, no new voices at their dining table—nothing since what happened to Nabi.

“Or,” Jimin said quietly, “he’ll end up being someone we regret later when he turns on us.”

“Or,” Taehyung countered, eyes sharpening. “This is a chance to gain someone who will help us carry more weight than any of us can alone. Another set of hands for labor, another fighter on the line, and another set of eyes when we scout.”  He jerked his chin toward Jeongguk, still standing motionless under Yoongi’s aim. “We’re burning ourselves out trying to keep the pack fed and defended and you know it. I know it. Namjoon knows it. This—” he looks off, eyes scanning their surroundings before leaning in close to Jimin. “This is an opportunity we don’t ignore.”

Jimin’s teeth ground together. The memory of Minji’s café and Nabi in the bathhouse flared unbidden—the reminder of how trusting had gotten people killed, how hope had turned to rot.

Taehyung’s tone softened just enough to slip under Jimin’s armor. “I’m not saying I trust him. I’m saying we should utilize him. Just give him the chance to prove himself, yeah? If he screws up, we deal with it. But leaving him here?” His head shook once. “No, we’re not gonna do that.”

“Tae—”

“Think about it.” His brows drew tight, words coming faster now in a whispered hiss. “You want him wandering this close to our territory with no one watching him? Better we keep him where we can see him.”

A beat passes.

“Besides… from the looks of it, he’s got nothing. No one. You know what that kind of desperation turns into.”

Jimin’s gaze cut back to Jeongguk, the curve of his mouth, the steady set of his shoulders. Everything in him wanted to spit at the man’s shoes and walk away. But Taehyung was right—he usually was, and that was the problem.

He turned back, voice iron again. “Fine. He comes with us. But if he slips once—just once,” he held up his index finger, “I’ll put him down myself.”

Taehyung’s mouth curved, grim but satisfied. “Good enough for me.”

They rejoined Yoongi and Jeongguk. Jimin’s rifle lifted again, deliberate, and his voice dropped into a growl. “You heard us, Jeongguk. You step out of line even once, and I’ll make sure you don’t live long enough to regret it. Have I made myself clear?”

Jeongguk’s dark eyes flickered with something Jimin couldn’t quite read. But his answer was calm. 

“Crystal.”

Jimin stepped closer before Taehyung could say anything else,  boots grinding softly against the asphalt.

“If you’re coming with us,” he said, “I need to know what I’m bringing back.”

“Ask away, captain.”

Jimin pauses briefly, his jaw working as he studies the alpha’s face. “Have you killed anyone?”

A flicker crossed Jeongguk’s face—surprise, maybe—but it passed quickly. “Not people, if that's what you mean.”

Jimin held his gaze a moment longer, searching for the strain that usually came with a lie. There wasn’t any.

“How many infected?”

Jeongguk’s cheeks puffed as he let out a long exhale, looking upwards as if he was trying to wrack his mind for information. “More than I can count.”

That, at least, tracked with what Jimin had just seen.

“What about firearms?”

Jeongguk shifted his weight slightly. “Not much. I had a revolver for a while, but I lost it. Didn’t have bullets half the time anyway.”

Jimin’s gaze drifted, unbidden, to the dried black streaking Jeongguk’s arms, the machete abandoned near the pumps, the three bodies laid out behind him in the thickening heat. No gun, no back up—no way. Survival doesn’t work like that, and especially not for this long. Not without range, not without cover. The ones who tried ended up bones in stairwells or shapes in the tree line.

Which meant that there was a very real possibility that Jeongguk wasn’t actually alone.

Somewhere out there, a group of people could be just beyond their sightline, watching through scopes or cracked windows. Letting him make first contact, measure defenses, count bodies, map weak points. Jeongguk could be a scout. A feeler, prepping the new camp to be raided and bled dry.  Jimin had seen it before. Desperation made people clever—it made them cruel.

“You’re telling me that you’ve stayed alive this long without a gun.” It wasn’t quite a question, so much as it was an accusation that the alpha was lying.

Jeongguk’s mouth tilted faintly at one corner. “I don’t make myself easy to find.”

Something in Jimin’s chest tightened.

Two quick strides was all it took to close the space between them, and Jeongguk’s back hit the gas pump with a hard metallic clang that rattled through the lot. The rifle came up beneath his jaw, firm enough to pin him there, the barrel pressing into the hollow of his throat.

Behind him, metal shifted.

Taehyung and Yoongi brought their rifles back up in the same breath, safeties snapping off with twin, unmistakable clicks. Jeongguk’s hands lifted a fraction higher. 

“Hey—alright, alright…easy,” he said, voice raising a slight octave. Good. The alpha needed to be reminded of his current position. 

“Let’s not make this worse than it is, yeah? I swear to you, I am alone.”

Jimin didn’t ease the pressure.

“Don’t you play games with me, Jeongguk,” Jimin said, his voice low enough that it sounded far more dangerous than a shouting match. “If you lie—if any of the words that come out of your mouth deviate from the truth, I’ll find out.”

His grip tightened.

“And when I do, I won’t stop at you.”

The threat hung there, plain and unadorned. Jeongguk didn’t fight after that, but Jimin could feel the tension coiling through him, held tight.

“I’ve got more firepower than you’ve seen in years, more than you could ever hope to outrun. If you’ve got friends out there, hiding and waiting, I’ll deal with them too.”

For a moment, all Jimin could hear was his own breathing and the faint tick of cooling metal. Memories flickered across his mind—smoke, shouting, a man already too far gone to save. He’d pulled the trigger once, killing a man—half a man, by the time it was done.  He remembered the weight of it, the way it never really left. He’d do it again. He’d do it ten times over if it meant his people slept through the night.

Jeongguk swallowed carefully against the pressure of the barrel. “I’m not lying,” he said, quieter now. His smug little performance seemed to have dulled a fraction. “There’s no one else.”

Jimin held him there another second, searching his face for cracks. Behind them, Taehyung exhaled through his nose and tilted his head toward the pumps. “Alright. That’s enough.”

His voice shifted back into command without rising. “We don’t have time for a circus. Start loading the cans off the truck bed. When we’re done, they go back on and stay close so I can secure the tarp.”

He glanced toward the street. “Yoongi, you know the deal—you’re on watch.”

Then, to Jimin, in a quieter tone, “Don’t take your eyes off him.”

Jimin didn’t need the reminder. His gaze flicked to Jeongguk and stayed there, solid as steel.

Yoongi moved without a word, lowering into a crouch beside the truck with practiced ease, rifle resting across his knees. In moments like this, Jimin always thought he looked less like a man and more like something carved from the building itself—a Gargoyle—still, watchful, built to endure. Only the faint flex of his jaw gave him away.

The pump island leaned at a tired angle, like it had weathered more than one disaster. Hoses sagged from their brackets, split rubber hanging in loose coils that brushed the stained concrete. The kiosk windows had long since shattered, glass swept clean by years of wind and scavengers, but the pump housings remained stubbornly intact. Their electrical systems were dead—no power left to move fuel—but that didn’t mean the underground tanks were empty.

“A hand pump will do it,” Taehyung said, already reaching into the duffel. He pulled out a dented bellows siphon, the hose ends darkened from years of use. Mr. Park would’ve had plenty to say about the patchwork repairs, but improvisation had carried them this far.

With a low grunt, Taehyung seated the line and guided the other end into one of the tin jerrycans—the heavy kind Mr. Park insisted on, built to handle diesel without splitting seams or seeping fumes. The manual valve turned with resistance, metal protesting in a long, tired groan. Beneath the cracked concrete, fuel shifted thickly in the underground tank, and the smell rose slow and oily into the air.

“Ready.”

Jeongguk stepped in without waiting to be told. He took the hose, checked the seal with a quick tug, then fed the rubber line into the dark below. His shoulders tightened as he worked the lever, each pull smooth and efficient. Not the same military-molded movement that Jimin and Taehyung exhibited, but not exactly that of a civilian. Perhaps something in-between—something feral that had been shaped by necessity rather than training. Survival had its own way of teaching people how to move, after all.

Diesel sputtered through the hose, then settled into a low, steady glug as the first can began to fill.

“Careful,” Jimin said sharply.

“I am careful,” Jeongguk replied without looking up. “You’re the one hovering.”

Hovering—

Jimin’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, smartass. You’re the unknown variable here.”

“Fair enough,” Jeongguk murmured. “But that still doesn’t change how the pump works.”

From the curb, Yoongi let out a quiet snort but didn’t turn. His eyes stayed trained down the street, posture unchanged. Around them, the city exhaled in long, ruined breaths—nothing but broken windows, sagging awnings, and eerie silence.

Jeongguk filled the first can, capped it, and moved for the second without being told. His hands were quick, and his breathing had yet to waver. Jimin watched the pull and release of Jeongguk’s muscle beneath the torn fabric of his shirt, the faint tremor still lingering in Jeongguk’s forearms whenever he lifted the cans. There’s some residual strain from the fight, but he should’ve been slowing down a lot more by now. Adrenaline, probably. Still, it didn’t quite add up—being alone for this long and probably underfed. Yet he moved like someone used to carrying more than his share.

Each time Jeongguk hoisted a filled can into the truck bed, the metal thunk carried farther than it should have, skimming down the empty street before fading.

Three cans. Then four. Then five. Jimin never lowered his rifle. 

“How long have you been out here?” Taehyung asked after the sixth can was sealed and strapped down.

Jeongguk wiped his palms against his pants. “Couple weeks, I think. In this area, at least. I usually stay closer to the inner city.”

“Alone?” Yoongi didn’t look back, but his voice carried.

“Alone.”

Jimin took him in again—the wear on his clothes, used but intact, boots scuffed from miles of pavement, the duffel slung over his shoulder—battered yet still holding together. Nothing about him looked accidental. This was someone who scavenged with intention, who knew how to move through ruins without letting them swallow him whole.

Someone who survived because he was meant to.

The truck’s suspension groaned under the weight. When the last can was cinched down, Taehyung gave the pump one final glance, then the street. He adjusted the strap around the tarp once more for good measure. 

“Six full tins,” he said. “Good enough.”

Jeongguk exhaled once, then met Jimin’s eyes again. “So, the fuel’s done. What now?”

Jimin didn’t respond.

Taehyung swung his foot off the tire and dropped to the pavement in one smooth motion. “Now we check inside. If anything useful is left, we take it. If not, we move.”

Jeongguk nodded once, wiping the last trace of blood from his cheek with the back of his wrist. “I’ll help.”

Jimin’s rifle shifted an inch higher. “Yeah no shit. You’ll do exactly what we tell you.”

The alpha narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, the first real sign Jimin had seen of his nonchalant attitude faltering. 

“I figured.”

Taehyung motioned him forward. Jeongguk’s machete was sheathed now, shoulders loose and steps silent. Jimin’s teeth pressed together. A loner didn’t walk into ruins that comfortably. Not unless he felt at home in places like this.

The convenience store’s front windows had blown inward, jagged glass scattered across the tile in a dull, uneven glitter. A stale draft drifted through the doorway, carrying the sour trace of smoke that had soaked deep into the walls and never quite faded. Black scorch marks crawled up the tile behind the counter, and the ceiling above the registers hung blistered and raw, as if something had tried to burn the place out from the inside and failed.

The front had taken the worst of it—fire, likely stemming from panic and a rush of bodies—but the farther they moved from the registers, the less warped everything became. Shelves slouched instead of collapsed, and the air thinned. Whatever started the fire had done enough to empty the place, then moved on. It had just scared most scavengers away afterward.

Taehyung raised his hand once. Formation. Jimin fell in at his left without a word. Jeongguk hung back a pace behind them, empty-handed but alert, his attention drifting through the dim edges of the store like he was used to finding trouble where most people forgot to look.

“Stay behind me,” Jimin said without looking back.

“Not planning on getting ahead of you,” Jeongguk murmured.

Jimin let the comment fall away.

The place felt hollow, picked clean of anything that still mattered. Only the bones of the old world remained—metal shelves, sagging and cold, dust shifting under their boots where boxed dinners and cheap bread had once lined the rows. Rusted cans slumped against each other, their labels peeled to gray shreds. Chip bags had fused into tight curls of foil. Anything soft enough to chew had been shredded long ago by rodents. What survived either writhed with new growth or offered nothing worth carrying.

At the entrance, Yoongi held his post with the rifle angled toward the street, posture loose but ready. “Make it quick,” he said, eyes never straying from the open road.

Taehyung wrenched open a freezer door, the hinges giving way with a tired sigh. Lines of old condensation streaked the interior. In the bottom corner sat a plastic crate packed with shrink-wrapped gallon-sized water bottles, crushed slightly at the sides but still sealed. He shot Jimin a small, triumphant look. “Jackpot.”

They hauled it out together. The plastic crackled under Jimin’s grip. Jeongguk stepped in, lifting his share of the weight with an ease that felt almost dissonant given the previous hour’s violence. Alpha strength, Jimin noted. Only this time, it’s more controlled rather than showy.

As they set the crate near the door, Jeongguk drifted toward the counter, scanning the debris with a quiet, habitual focus. A handful of loose batteries lay scattered among receipts and warped plastic. He crouched, picked one up, and gave it a small shake beside his ear, listening. Another. Then another. The hollow rattle of corrosion gave most of them away. Only four made the cut. He brought those over and held them out to Jimin without a word, keeping none for himself. That earned a raised brow from Jimin, who slowly accepted them.

The auto aisle looked as gutted as the rest of the store—cardboard slumped against metal shelves, oil cans collapsed like kicked-in ribs—but not everything had been stripped clean. Taehyung crouched beside a half-collapsed crate, pried it open, and let out a low, pleased hum.

“Filters, wrenches, and let’s see—oh, some belts that might still fit Mr. Park’s rigs.” He tossed each item into a plastic basket, the clatter echoing faintly in the hollow store.

Jimin moved behind the counter. The laminate was peeling up at the edges, grit embedded in every groove. He shoved aside paper scraps and broken packaging until his fingers brushed cool metal. He pulled it free—a sealed canister of motor oil, label curling but intact. Three more sat wedged beneath fallen shelves, dust-caked but unbroken.

Not diesel—but something. Something Namjoon could test, maybe refine. Something that might keep their machines alive a little longer.

“Grab it all,” Jimin ordered. “Anything sealed comes with us.”

He stood, turning until his eyes found the alpha. Jeongguk was crouched in the snack aisle, moving through debris with a deliberate calmness. He picked up two packs of instant noodles, shook them once to test the contents, then slid them into his duffel. He discarded a stack of mold-swollen crackers without hesitation.

That was it.

Taehyung’s brows drew together. “That's all you’re taking?”

Jeongguk shrugged, expression matter-of-fact. “That's all I need right now.”

Jimin cut in. “You leave the rest? For who—raiders?”

“For whoever’s hungry enough to need it,” Jeongguk said simply, glancing up at him. His eyes didn’t waver, and there was no self-righteousness in his tone, just a quiet truth. “I don’t take more than I can carry. The world’s already stripped bare enough as it is, and I’m not adding to it.”

No one spoke. Somewhere deeper in the building, a slow drip of water ticked against the tile.

Taehyung’s mouth twitched, like he almost respected the answer. Seeing that made something coil tight and twist under Jimin’s ribs. Of course he had no admiration for the stranger and his response, but he couldn’t seem to shake off a feeling more complex, more unwelcome.

He gripped the strap of his duffel hard enough that the canvas bit into his palm. “We don’t have the luxury of leaving things behind out of charity. We’ve got too many mouths to feed. You travel alone? Fine, that’s your call. But in a pack, you take what you can carry, because someone will need it.”

Jeongguk didn’t argue. He just slung the duffel back over his shoulder, posture easy, eyes level.

Taehyung broke the quiet. “Load what we’ve got. Then we hit the bookstore.”

They gathered what they had, the air shifting as the moment broke, and drifted toward the exit. Jimin lingered half a breath longer, watching Jeongguk’s back—the restraint in his movements, the way he looked like he could melt into the ruin without leaving a trace.

He hated it. He hated that part of him wanted to understand it.

Outside, Yoongi lifted his chin in question. Jimin tossed the basket of oil and filters into the truck bed, harder than he needed to.

“Found enough.”

The street settled back into its quiet—that strange, uneasy quiet the city had been wearing for the past year. No constant rattling breaths in alleyways, no dragging limbs on pavement. Four years ago, this whole block would’ve been crawling—ragers were spilling out of every doorway, howlers perched on rooftops like carrion with lungs. You couldn’t take five steps without something sprinting at you.

Now it was just dust and rot and the faint stench of old fuel. Relief flickered through Jimin—quick, guilty, the kind no one ever trusted to last.

“Let’s go,” Taehyung said, slamming the truck door shut.

Jimin nodded, falling into step as they moved down the street. The city didn’t feel safe—not ever—but with the silence holding and the sun still high, it felt oddly survivable.

The bookstore slumped against the corner building like it had been holding its breath for years and finally exhaled. One side of the structure had folded inward, leaving a jagged mouth of brick and splintered shelves exposed to the street. Vines threaded through the broken windows, their tendrils brushing faded posters for newly released novels no one had lived long enough to read. The front doors were gone entirely—their absence leaving only a warped threshold and the damp breath of mildew drifting out to meet them.

“Jeongguk, you’re hauling the shit,” Taehyung ordered, tightening the strap of his duffel. “Don’t argue.”

Jeongguk only lifted a shoulder, the dried blood on his arm flaking as he moved. “Didn’t plan to.”

The inside of the bookstore smelled of old paper and rain, the kind of smell that felt almost reminiscent of an old attic. The front room had surrendered to the weather long ago, paper pulp smeared underfoot, shelves bowed from years of absorbing rainwater, covers bloated and split like spoiled fruit. But the farther they moved from the broken windows, the drier it became. Dust floated through the stillness, soft and swirling, catching on the faint shafts of light that filtered in through a cracked skylight.

They cleared the aisles with their weapons raised, each footstep muffled in the papery sludge. No movement, nor any breath but their own. When the last corner offered nothing but shadow, Taehyung lowered his rifle and gave a short nod. “Clear. Let’s make it fast, boys.”

The storeroom door dragged on the floor before it budged, the hinge snarling once in warning. Cooler air drifted out to meet them, carrying the dry sweetness of old paper, glue, and cardboard left too long in the dark. Boxes were stacked wherever someone had last dropped them—crooked towers leaning against the walls like they’d grown tired of holding their own weight. Taehyung slipped in behind Jimin, bending down to rummage through the texts.

“Mechanics,” he muttered, a low whistle slipping out as he dragged one into the light. The lid bent back with a crackle. A grease-stained manual came free, pages wrinkled but solid. “Mr. Park’s wet dream.”

“Chemistry,” Jimin said, pulling a warped textbook from another pile. The cover curled at the edges, but inside the formulas remained sharp and clean. He flipped through a spread dense with equations, thumb brushing the margins. “Namjoon’ll want this.”

They moved deeper. The shelves here had been spared the rain—dust thick enough to make Jimin sneeze a few times, but spines still intact. Jimin’s pulse eased, just slightly, at the neat rows of preserved knowledge. Order, finally, in a place that hadn’t completely rotted yet.

Jeongguk crouched at a lower shelf, dragging a half-crumpled box free. The cardboard peeled away at his touch, revealing shrink-wrapped stacks of lined notebooks—corners crisp, untouched by any elements. He lifted one, brushing dust away with his thumb.

“Journals,” he said simply. “For pups, if you’ve got them. Or… anyone.”

“Yeah, we’ve got pups,” Taehyung said, leaning over his shoulder, eyebrows climbing. “Holy shit. Actual clean paper.”

“The pack will certainly be happy with this haul,” Jimin added, already reaching for another manual on a different shelf.  A few gaudy romance paperbacks caught his eye, so he slid those into his bag without comment. Sooyeon would certainly be grateful. 

He found himself glancing over at Jeongguk. The alpha had set the stack of notebooks carefully to one side, as though they were something sacred. Nearby, Taehyung pried open another carton and grinned wide. 

“Pens, pencils, ooh—even a pack of highlighters. Nice.” He tossed one to Jimin, who caught it without looking.

“They’ll dry out fast,” he said, though his fingers lingered on the smooth barrel. He hadn’t held one since high school. It felt oddly unfamiliar, like something from a life that no longer fit.

“Still better than scratching charcoal on walls,” Taehyung replied, shoving the rest into his duffel.

Another box yielded calculators—cheap solar ones, the kind stacked by school registers. A dozen of them, most caked in dirt and dust, but intact. Jimin knocked one against his palm, watching the little screen struggle to flicker to life. Figures. He’ll have to bring them back and test them later. He shoved three into his bag.

In the back corner, Jeongguk ran a hand across a shelf and pulled free a thin stack of books—bright covers, cartoon animals on the front. Pups’s stories, spines frayed but pages mostly clean. He glanced up.

“Take these,” Jeongguk said, offering them out. “Pups need stories. Keeps the dark from winning.”

Taehyung snorted, tugging a book from the pile with a garish pink unicorn on the cover. “What, you planning to host a story time?”

Jeongguk looked at him dead-on, unblinking. “Maybe. You volunteering for voices?”

Taehyung barked out a short laugh, the sound muffled in the paper rot. “Only if I get the villain roles.”

“You’re already insufferable enough,” Jimin muttered, but his eyes lingered on the bright covers in Jeongguk’s hands a beat longer than he meant to.

They gathered atlases, dictionaries, carpentry guides, a battered book on solar wiring—anything with dry pages and a spine that hadn’t rotted through. They filled their bags until the straps dug deep into their shoulders, the worst of the weight shoved into Jeongguk’s duffle. He never complained, just adjusted the duffle bag across his broad shoulders and waited for the next load.

On the way out, Jimin caught a glimpse of the graffiti smeared across the wall beside the door—jagged paint, half-faded: ‘DON’T STAY AFTER DARK’.

A warning, or a memory of one. 

By the time they stepped into the street, lungs full of dust and muscles aching from the haul, the world felt sharper, the stakes closer. Yoongi’s eyes swept them, then flicked to the bulging bags. 

“Oh good, this is looking like one of the better hauls we’ve had in months.”

“I think we breathed in far too much book dust,” Taehyung said, tossing his duffel into the truck bed. “Pretty sure my brain cells might have resurrected.”

“That would take a fucking miracle,” Yoongi muttered, climbing back into the cab.

Jimin climbed into the truck bed and settled with his rifle across his lap, one boot braced against the tarp covering the jerrycans. He still didn’t take his eyes off Jeongguk, the barrel aimed straight at the stranger opposite him. The truck growled back to life, heavy with diesel and books, and rolled toward the road leading to home. Jimin took this opportunity to finally get a good look at the man they were dragging back with them.

Jeongguk leaned against the side panel with a looseness that grated against every wire of Jimin’s training. His hair—too long—fell over his brow until he forced it back with one broad, scarred hand. Fighter’s hands.

The knuckles told their own story—skin split and healed more times than tools could account for, the wrist steady in a way that came from repetition under pressure. Not clumsy strength, but rather controlled force.

Blood had dried in dark streaks across his shirt, stiffening the fabric across his chest and shoulders. And those shoulders—broad, strong, moving with an unconscious rhythm that told Jimin this man didn’t waste energy. Even sitting still, he looked like someone who could spring up fast if he wanted.

But it was the face that kept pulling at Jimin’s attention against his will. Sharp lines under eyes that felt far too soft and puppy-like. A mouth that curved more easily than it should in a world where softness got you killed. The piercings glinted when the truck hit sunlight—two points of silver at his lip, one on his now visible brow—a flash of defiant identity that shouldn’t have survived the apocalypse, and yet here it was. Here he was.

The sun finally caught Jeongguk square in the face, and it threw Jimin for a moment—his skin carried none of the burnished gold everyone at the farm wore by midsummer. No sunbite, no uneven color, nothing that said “I’ve been out here for weeks.” It almost raised more alarm bells in Jimin’s head. People who lived under the open sky didn’t stay that shade for long.

Jeongguk looked at Jimin, barely acknowledging the gun still pointing at him before rolling his eyes. And then, as though he couldn’t help himself, his mouth tipped into a brief, bright grin. Something quick and unguarded.

Jimin’s chest tightened, unwelcome heat pricking low beneath his ribs. He forced the rifle sight a little higher, fixing it on the hollow just below Jeongguk’s collarbone.

“Relax,” Jeongguk said suddenly, voice carrying over the roar of the engine. He nodded at the rifle. “If I wanted to take you out, I would’ve done it before you ever saw me.”

Much like a poorly delivered joke, the words landed heavy in the narrow space between them. From the cab, Taehyung barked a humorless laugh. 

“You talk big for someone under guard.”

“And big mouths get shot,” Yoongi added, still not turning around.

Jeongguk only shrugged, posture unbothered. “Long ride. Thought I’d at least try to strike up a conversation to pass the time.”

The truck swallowed his words in another jolt. The jerrycans clattered under the tarp. Jimin didn’t loosen his grip, even when his shoulder began to ache. He kept Jeongguk in his sights the entire time—not because he thought the man would strike, but because he couldn’t read him. Couldn’t pin down the shape of him.

The truck jolted over broken pavement, rattling the jerrycans again under the tarp. Jeongguk moved with the lurch, fluid as if the earth itself couldn’t throw him off balance. His hair slid into his eyes again, and he brushed it back. The motion was clearly habitual, and almost intimate in its simplicity.

Jeongguk’s eyes lifted.

Wide, dark, and disarmingly soft despite the blood drying on his skin. They focused entirely on Jimin with a steadiness that felt…wrong. It wasn’t hostile or even the usual pleading he’d expect when coming across a fellow survivor. Just aware. Jimin’s stomach churned with unease. He looked away at the road slipping behind them, at the low fields giving way to the distant smudge of their farm. Anything but those eyes, that grin, the strange gravity of him.

Because none of that mattered. Not Jeongguk’s face, not his strength, not the prickle of instinct low in Jimin’s spine. Not when Jimin had so much already riding on his back. Not when he’d buried too many people already.

The truck crawled past the last skeleton of a ruined storefront, and an hour later into the open stretch of farmland. The smoke from their farmhouse chimney curled faint against the dying sun. The relief he longed to feel stayed stubbornly out of reach.

Especially now with Jeongguk still sitting across from him—quiet, breathing, and unfortunately  real—like a shadow they hadn’t meant to drag back with them.

·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The truck lurched to a halt inside the gates, gravel grinding under the tires. Namjoon was already there, his tall frame braced at the center of the yard. His glasses sat crooked, worry sharpening the look he gave them. Hoseok stood at his side, rifle balanced casually. Behind them, Daehyun and Byungho leaned against the fence line, watchful, while Mrs. Han held little Minji close on the porch. Jihoon and Bomi peeked out from behind her skirt, wide-eyed at the truck’s return.

“You took too long.” Namjoon’s voice was even, but the crease between his brows cut deep. “It’s nearly dark. Do you have any idea what it’s like watching the sun drop with no word from you?”

Taehyung hopped down from the cab first, brushing dust from his palms. “Worth it,” he said simply, and pulled back the tarp.

Relief broke across Namjoon’s face with a sound almost like a gasp.

“Ta-da, diesel,” Taehyung blanched. “Six full tins, strained and sealed. Should last us a while if we’re careful.”

Jimin swung the riot shield down from the bed. The gouges across its surface caught lantern light, each claw mark a story of someone else’s last stand. “The police station still had scraps. Two helmets, one vest.”

Yoongi passed him a duffel, and Jimin yanked it open for Namjoon to see. “Ammo, radios, solar charger, etcetera-etcetera. We took whatever wasn’t rusted or ruined.”

Namjoon’s eyes lit for the first time all evening at the mention of the radios, his hand twitching like he wanted to reach for them right there. “Radios?” His voice cracked with cautious hope. “Do they—?”

“Untested,” Yoongi cut in, voice flat. “But intact. Don’t shit yourself yet.”

Namjoon ignored the jab, gaze snapping to the second duffel Taehyung hefted down.

“Books,” Taehyung said. His grin was boyish for a moment, proud despite the exhaustion dragging at his shoulders. “Mechanics manuals, chemistry texts, atlases. Even some kids’ books. The back shelves were dry enough to salvage them.”

Namjoon stepped in close, thumb grazing a warped spine reverently. His throat bobbed. “You don’t understand. This… this is more than just salvage. Thank you for all of your hard work.”

Hoseok leaned in, whistling low. “So we all risk our asses and Namjoon gets his library dream. You’re welcome, hyung.”

Namjoon shot him a fond scowl but didn’t peel his eyes away from the books. Jimin could already see the plans that were forming behind his expression—ration systems, teaching schedules, repairs they could finally attempt. The worry hadn’t faded from his brow, but something else stirred there now—perhaps relief.

For a moment, the mood lightened, the pack crowding closer to see the haul. Then Taehyung tilted his chin, a shadow crossing his face.

“There’s more.”

Every gaze followed as Jimin stepped down from the truck bed. Behind him, the stranger moved into the lantern light for the first time.

Every muscle in the yard went tense at once. Daehyun straightened off the fence, hand flying to his pistol. Byungho shifted to block half the gate, jaw clenched. Mrs. Han shoved the pups behind her skirt and fixed the stranger with a glare sharp enough to cut glass. Even Old Man Cho, half-deaf and muttering, stilled mid-step.

“Who the fuck is that?” Hoseok barked, voice sharp. His rifle lifted an inch, muzzle aimed square.

“A stranger?” Mira hissed from the porch steps. “Jimin, have you lost your goddamn mind?”

Jeongguk didn’t shrink from the circle of guns or fury. The blood dried on his forearms, and the machete strapped across his back did absolutely nothing to help quell the uneasiness of the pack. Still, he kept his chin lifted—his posture lacked challenge, but denied subservience. Had Jimin not wanted this man gone, he’d applaud how Jeongguk had yet to flinch under the rifles and accusations.

Jimin forced the snarl out of his voice. “He’s nothing yet. Just someone we didn’t kill on sight.”

That did little to settle the yard. Instead, the yard tightened around them—instinct and memory running ahead of sense.

Because they’d done this once before, three years ago.

Kang Nabi was ever so sweet, naive, and always believing in people even when she shouldn’t. She’d found an alpha roaming alone in the treelines just outside their land, and begged them to take him in. The poor omega had promised that the stranger was desperate, hungry, and not dangerous. And because no one could ever resist Nabi’s charm, they agreed and gave the stranger a place, a roof, and food. For two weeks he’d smiled at them, helped mend fences, and feigned friendliness.

Then Nabi’s scream ripped through the bathhouse walls.

Jimin had been the one to find her, bleeding and broken, fighting for her life until she couldn’t. He still remembered her voice crackling out—small, wet, terrified. She hadn’t survived sunrise.

He and Hoseok had tracked the bastard north by dawn. The alpha hadn’t gotten far, Nabi’s blood still fresh on his shirt. He’d tried to plead, to beg for his life to be spared—for mercy he hadn’t shown Nabi. With a rage he’d never felt in his life, Jimin put five bullets in his chest—leaving the man no time to choke out any more excuses. Hoseok had let Jimin silently cry on his shoulder the whole ride back, solemn as stone.

Nobody had forgotten. Nobody wanted to risk that again.

Namjoon stood slowly, gaze knifing through the lantern light toward Jeongguk. “You brought a stranger back here?”

Before Jimin could respond, Taehyung stepped forward, voice crisp but controlled. “You know us better than anyone, hyung. He’s not useless—he took down three ragers at the gas station, alone, with nothing but a machete.”

“That’s what the last one looked like he was capable of doing too,” Mira shot back.

Minseok added, limp dragging as he stepped closer, “One wrong turn and it’s our beloved Jimin—or any of our people—who will pay the price. You think we don’t see that?”

Jimin’s hand tightened on the strap until his knuckles ached, anger and shame and grief knotting in his chest. Taehyung’s hand pressed firm to his shoulder, grounding him before he could lash back.

“We’re stretched thin,” Taehyung said evenly. “We all know it. One more fighter matters. One more body hauling heavy loads matters. I’m not saying trust him, I’m saying we’re going to make use of him. If he earns it, he stays.”

The pack shifted, caught between fear and survival.

Jimin’s voice cut cold and clean. “If he slips once—if he even looks at one of us wrong—I put him down myself.”

Jeongguk’s eyes flicked to him, speaking for the first time since they’d arrived. “Then you won’t have to worry. I’m not here to hurt your people.”

The yard erupted into a new wave of noise, suspicion and disbelief sharp on the air. But beneath it all was that old wound—Nabi’s shadow stretching across the dirt.

Namjoon lifted his voice. “Enough.”

The pack stilled, eyes shifting to their alpha leader. Namjoon adjusted his glasses, gaze unwavering on Jeongguk.

“You fight, you work,” Namjoon started. “Apparently they’ve seen that much, but ability isn’t enough. Too many alphas mistake their strength for worth. Strength without control is nothing but danger.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping but no less firm. “So I’ll ask you straight—what can you do? Fight, clean, haul, mend—what do you bring that keeps twenty-one other souls alive instead of putting them at risk?”

Jeongguk’s jaw flexed once. “Everything you need. All of it. Like they said already, I can fight, and I can work. I’ll pull more than my weight, and I won't cause trouble. I’m not a charity case, I can guarantee you that.”

Namjoon studied him for a long moment, silence dragging, before he gave a single sharp nod. “Talk is cheap as shit, especially in this day and age. Protocol is what matters.” He glanced toward Jimin and Taehyung. “Quarantine shed. Now.”

That set the pack buzzing again, uneasy murmurs rippling through the crowd. They all knew what came next: every stranger stripped bare, every inch of skin searched. Bite marks, scars, infections—nothing hidden, nothing spared.

Namjoon’s gaze swept the pack, silencing them again. “No exceptions. Not for omegas, not for betas, not for alphas. We don’t gamble with lives.”

Then his eyes cut back to Jeongguk. “If you’re clean, you’ll earn a chance. If not—you won’t leave this yard alive.”

Jeongguk only paused slightly before nodding, his voice rough but sure. “Fine by me.”

Jiwon stepped forward, a medical bag slung over her shoulder. “The shed’s ready.”

“Move,” Jimin barked, jerking his chin toward the shed at the far edge of the yard. Jeongguk followed without protest, his broad shoulders staying level even with half the pack staring him down.

The quarantine shed sat at the far edge of the yard, past the burn pit, the greenhouse, and the stacked woodpile. It was little more than four walls of weathered wood, patched tin roof bowed in the middle. The walls were barren, save for the thin patches of insulation—it was the kind of place that carried every sound too clearly. Once it had been a tool house, now it was stripped bare but for a cot, a bucket, a stool, and a poor excuse of a rug placed in the center. The place smelled of bleach and old moisture, like every spill and scrub had sunk straight into the boards. A single lantern threw shadows up the walls like prison bars.

Namjoon entered first, glasses fogging in the humidity. Jiwon followed with her medical kit, snapping on gloves with crisp efficiency. Jimin and Taehyung closed the line. The door groaned shut behind them, swallowing the murmurs of the pack outside.

“Let’s begin protocol,” Namjoon said. “Strip. Every layer.”

Jeongguk’s brow arched, but he didn’t argue. His hands went to his shirt, peeling the blood-streaked fabric up over his head. The lantern light caught across a plane of muscle—broad chest, ink sprawling across his arm and shoulder, skin slick with a thin sheen of sweat. His ribs shifted as he breathed, the faintest shadows of old scars crossing his torso.

Jimin tried to keep his attention clinical, but his body had other plans. The alpha scent hit sharper here, confined to the shed—iron and sweat, threaded with something darker, notes of thick pine smoke. It sank under his skin before Jimin could stop it.

Pants came next. Jeongguk unbuckled his belt and shoved them down in one motion, stepping free. His thighs were thick with muscle, calves corded from what Jimin could only assume was miles of running. The lantern light slid lower—over the dark trail of hair arrowing down his abdomen, neat and deliberate, leading to a cock that made Jimin’s pulse stumble in his throat. Heavy, well-shaped, the kind of endowment no one should be forced to notice in a moment like this—and yet he did.

The details caught him harder than they should have— Jeongguk was trimmed. Clean. Not the wild, unkempt mess of a man scraping by in ruins, but deliberate grooming. Jimin forced his gaze away, ears hot as he stifled down his curiosity and confusion. If the alpha has been surviving on his own, when did he have time to comfortably tend to personal hygiene in such a meticulous manner?

Taehyung made it worse. He let out a low whistle, grinning smugly, eyebrows waggling as he glanced sideways at Jimin. “Well, shit. That’s… generous.”

Jimin smacked the back of his head, harder than necessary. “Shut up, idiot.” His voice came out sharper than he wanted, but Taehyung just grinned wider like he’d hit a nerve on purpose.

Namjoon ignored them both. His gaze swept methodically, clinical as he circled Jeongguk. “Arms out. Turn.”

Jiwon stepped closer, her movements steady and practiced as gloved hands traced over skin, cataloging scars, rashes, old injuries in quiet sequence. She crouched to inspect his ankles and calves, then rose again, attention moving higher along his frame—methodical and unhurried.  Her hands paused mid-motion once she moved to search his upper half, gloved fingers hovering near Jeongguk’s shoulder.

Her breath hitched. 

“Namjoon—” She stumbled back a step, eyes wide.

Namjoon was at her side instantly, steadying her elbow. His gaze followed hers, and then he saw it. The bite mark.

The lantern revealed it clearly—a bite, deep and unmistakable, carved into the curve of Jeongguk’s right shoulder. It was healed now, puckered and pink, but the shape made it very clear that he’d received it from a rager. It was the kind of bite that should have killed him from the resulting fever, or worse—turned him.

Jimin felt the drop in his gut before his mind could fully process it. The rifle was already moving, muscle memory outrunning thought, metal pressing hard to the back of Jeongguk’s skull as his breath tore sharp from his chest.

“You son of a bitch.”

Taehyung’s rifle snapped up just as fast, the muzzle angled at Jeongguk’s temple. His expression stayed carved from stone.

Namjoon was already moving, his notebook forgotten in the corner. He crouched beside the mark. “No… no, this isn’t right.” He lifted his fingers toward the scar, stopping just shy of touching it. “This bite should have killed you.”

He leaned closer, voice tightening with disbelief. “There’s no necrosis, no black veining. Tissue is closed, no fever sheen, what—there’s no scent of infection.”

His eyes darted along the lines of puckered flesh, the faint pink of healed tissue where there should’ve been rot. His lips moved soundlessly, running calculations no one else could follow.

“This should’ve killed you,” he repeated, as though he were trying to convince himself. His voice climbed, sharper now, the edge of awe cutting through the clinical mask. “A bite that deep—you should’ve turned in hours. Days at most. But the tissue—” He pushed his glasses higher. “The tissue is closed. I—I just don’t understand how you didn’t react to the infection.”

Jimin’s rifle dug harder against Jeongguk’s skull. “Don’t you fucking romanticize this—it’s a bite. He’s infected.”

Namjoon snapped his head up, eyes blazing in a way Jimin rarely saw.

“No, he isn’t. Do you see any signs? Do you smell rot on him? Because I don’t. I smell blood, sweat, adrenaline—but not infection.” 

“We don’t know that, hyung!” Taehyung shot back.

Namjoon’s hand cut the air with an impatient slash. “I’m telling you right now, this isn't an infection. This is—this is something else entirely.”

Jiwon’s voice wavered, low but firm. “I’ve never seen one close like that. Never.”

Namjoon straightened, eyes growing bright with a scientist’s terror and wonder. “How long ago?”

Jeongguk’s voice didn’t waver. “Six weeks.”

Namjoon sucked in a breath. “Impossible.”

He paced once, mind working faster than his mouth. “A-and yet…” His jaw worked.

“This changes everything! If you’re immune—if you can resist—” Jiwon cut herself off, the weight of it hanging heavy in the shed.

Jimin let out a dry, ugly sound, nothing close to a laugh. “Immune? You think he’s some kind of phenomenon? He’s a fucking risk.”

Namjoon turned on him, uncharacteristically fierce now. “Risk or not, we don’t put a bullet in him. I need—I have to understand h-how this could’ve happened.” 

His voice was iron now, leaving no room for argument. “If there’s even a chance this means something—he stays.”

Jimin’s chest heaved, gun steady. “No, we kill him now, before it spreads.”

“Or,” Namjoon countered quickly, lifting a finger, “we study him. Do you even understand what this means? A confirmed bite, but he survived.” He turned, looking at Jeongguk again. “He’s immune.”

That damned word continued to hang in the air.

Jeongguk finally spoke, quieter now, eyes steady on Namjoon. “I don’t know why I didn’t turn, but I’m not sick. You want to test me? Fine. As long as it’s not torture. Just…don’t throw me out.”

The lantern light flickered between them. Jimin’s rifle shook faintly where it pressed against Jeongguk’s skin. Every instinct he had told him to end it now. To end it before the risk could spread.

But Namjoon’s eyes burned with something Jimin couldn’t fight—pure, unadulterated hope.

That terrified him more than the bite itself.

Jiwon finally cut in between Namjoon and Jimin. “H-he’s filthy—we’ll need to clean him before anything festers.” She glanced at Taehyung, who gave a clipped nod.

“Clothes too,” Taehyung said, already turning for the door. “Something that actually fits.”

The two slipped out, the door creaking shut behind them. The lock rattled faintly as it slid back into place.

That left Jimin, Namjoon, and Jeongguk in the close lantern glow. Jimin’s rifle didn’t waver, sights fixed steady on the alpha. The silence rang in his ears.

Namjoon leaned closer again, less hurried now, eyes narrow with calculation. His voice came gentler and coaxing. “If you’ve survived a bite that should’ve killed you, then there’s got to be more. Please show me what else you can do.”

For a long moment, Jeongguk just stared at him. Then he sighed, slow, almost resigned. “Fine.”

He lifted his hand. His fingers flexed once, twice—and then the change rippled through them. Nails darkened, lengthened—claws forming cleanly, sharply, without any of the blistered rot of a rager. Smooth, sharp, clean, as if they belonged there. His lips parted, teeth catching the lantern light. His canines were long now, sharp and gleaming in a sight that felt less monstrous and more predatory.

Jimin’s breath caught. His gut said rager, but his eyes told a different story—a story terrifying in its meaning.

“God above…you’re showing controlled mutation—a-and it’s stable! The claws, the teeth—it’s all integrated and… natural.”

“Don’t call it that,” Jimin bit out. He doesn’t quite know why he’s so desperate to dampen this moment that many others would find godsent. “You can dress it up however you like, but it’s still rotten.”

“No,” Namjoon threw his hands up in frustration. “I’m telling you, Jimin, just look at him.”

Jeongguk’s claws curled back against his palm, retracting into his fingers as cleanly as they’d come. The shed felt too small suddenly, hot with breath and fear and everything Jimin considered unwelcome.

The door then creaked again, Taehyung’s voice muffled as he and Jiwon returned. Their arms were full of folded clothes and a bucket sloshing warm water. Namjoon stood calmly, slipping the scientist-mask back on, but his gaze lingered on Jeongguk like a man who’d just taken a glimpse at the future.

“Quarantine first,” he said firmly. “One week. I’ll test what I can, and if he’s clean and stable, he stays.”

“If,” Jimin echoed, voice flint.

“If,” Namjoon confirmed.

They stepped out into the night air, the shed door closed behind them with a heavy clank. Lantern light pooled from the small windows, moths slamming themselves relentlessly against the glass.

Namjoon removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You realize what this could mean, right? He’s a breakthrough—proof survival of humanity is possible.”

Jimin didn’t look at him. “Or another way we die. One slip, one change, and we could be digging graves for the pups first.”

“I feel like we’re talking in circles at this point, Jimin.” Namjoon sighed, turning to look at the shorter man with nothing but pure exhaustion behind his eyes. 

A sliver of guilt threaded underneath Jimin’s chest. Namjoon had come so close to completing his dissertation in his field of anthropology, and Day Zero had been nothing but cruel to him. It only made sense that a man this smart would continue to seek research-worthy endeavors as a last, desperate reach for familiarity. The desire for knowledge burned passionately within him, and to some extent, Jimin knew that it was his only respite in this new world. 

“I can study him—blood, tissue, scent markers. Please, just stick with me on this—we might find something we can use.”

“You sound like you believe in miracles,” Jimin said quietly. “There are none of those left.”

“Then call it science. Call it adaptation. But don’t call it nothing. He’s alive, and we need to know why.”

For a long moment, they stood locked in silence, the night crowding in around them. Finally, Jimin exhaled through his teeth. “One week. But if he so much as twitches wrong—”

“You’ll put him down,” Namjoon finished. “I know.”

“We can’t tell the pack.” The omega finally lifted his gaze from the ground, eyes meeting his. “Not until we’re sure.”

Namjoon’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t protest. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If he’s safe, they’ll know then. If he isn’t…” His voice trailed, unfinished.

Jimin shifted on his feet. “If he isn’t, we’ve got to kill him before we lose anyone else.”

Namjoon’s eyes glinted behind his glasses. “Then pray I’m right, Jimin. Because if I am,” his voice dropped, almost reverent, “he could be everything we’ve been waiting for.”

Behind the locked shed door, Jeongguk’s shadow moved once before settling again, quiet as breath. Jimin stared at it, unable to shake the feeling that the ground had shifted under all of them. The yard hummed with the kind of silence that followed bad decisions—or miracles pretending to be one. He dragged in a breath that didn’t do a damn thing to steady him.

The farmhouse lights were still warm in the distance. People were waiting, whether he was ready or not. He set his jaw and started toward the porch. The door creaked open before the two men were even able to hit the steps of the porch. Two figures stepped out with urgency.

Hana strode across the packed dirt first, braid swinging, relief written plain across her face despite the frown she tried to force. Areum followed close behind, arms folded tight, expression carefully controlled but her eyes shining with unmistakable worry. Namjoon gave them a light nod before continuing inside.

“You’re late,” Hana said, planting a hand on her hip. “Mrs. Han had half the place pacing holes into the kitchen floor.”

Areum didn’t bother with scolding. She stepped right into Jimin’s space and wrapped her arms around him in a firm, grounding hug—not dramatic, but the kind that let him know she’d been afraid.

“Did you find anything good for yourself?” she asked quietly, pulling back just enough to search his face.

Some of the tension bled out of Jimin’s stance. He ruffled Areum’s hair out of habit—earning an indignant swat—and pointed at the truck in response.

“We made it back, didn’t we? That’s all that matters. And no, but that’s not important—” He gave her a gentle smile, the feeling foreign after the day's events. “We brought plenty for the pack. Books, paper, even some insanely stale noodles.”

Relief spread across Areum’s features, softening them even more. Hana exhaled hard, tension bleeding from her posture as she nudged his arm.

“Good. We needed the win,” she said. “Namjoon really had been pacing since noon.”

“And Mrs. Han?” Jimin asked.

“Pretending she wasn’t waiting on the porch for the past three hours,” Hana replied dryly. “You know how she is.”

Jimin felt something warm tug behind his ribs. This was why he carried the weight, why he pushed himself to bone and breath, and why strangers made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

People like Hana and Areum. People who still looked at him like he was worth depending on.

“Go inside,” he said gently. “We’ll divide everything after the meeting.”

Hana squeezed his elbow once—quick, precise affection—before heading in. Areum lingered half a beat.

“Welcome home,” she murmured.

Jimin swallowed and nodded, watching them go. His hand lingered on the porch rail a moment longer, the warmth of the farmhouse fading off his skin as his gaze drifted back to the shed one last time. Whatever glow he’d carried from seeing Hana and Areum dissolved, quiet and fast, until nothing warm remained.

He didn’t stand there long enough to think too much about it—he never let himself—but the walk to the bath house felt heavier than usual.

Jimin washed in silence, bent over the tin basin with a rag in hand. The water was cold—well water always was—and already beginning to cloud with dirt and diesel streaks. He scrubbed harder than he needed to, turning the skin across his forearms pink as if friction alone could erase the day. But the day clung anyway—blood, gunpowder, city grime. And beneath it all, that new pine scent—sharp, alive, and wrong in a way that pricked at instinct. Jimin dunked the rag again, muttering to himself.

“Seokjin’s gonna wring my neck for wasting this much water.” He could practically hear the lecture already— ‘ration charts, low wells, every drop accounted for’.

“Better he yells at me than smell like a damn oil drum,” he muttered, dragging the cloth across his chest. For a second, the corner of his mouth twitched—the closest he’d come to humor all day—before the moment died under the weight sitting beneath his ribs.

He scrubbed harder, teeth grinding.

Jimin should’ve left the alpha behind. He should’ve walked away before instinct tangled with obligation. That would’ve been easier, so much safer. There would be no risk of betrayal, no chance of another Kang Nabi, no ghosts waiting to catch him by the throat in the middle of the night.

But Taehyung had been right—damn him. Another fighter meant another set of hands. They needed more bodies to stand on the fence line. They needed more people to share the weight Jimin carried until his bones felt hollow.

Even so, unease sat low and cold in his gut. Nothing about the way Jeongguk moved matched the mess he’d come from. When he answered questions, he did so without hesitation. That wasn’t normal—not after six years alone, constantly switching between fight and flight. People didn’t come out of six years alone still looking so sharp.

They came out of it hunted, or hunting.

Jimin rinsed the rag and dragged cool water down his chest. His reflection in the basin flickered—wet hair clinging to his face, dark circles under his eyes, mouth a hard line. Despite his young appearance, he felt like a man twice his age. A man who couldn’t afford one more wrong decision. He plunged his head under the water. The cold bit his scalp and chased some of the heat clawing at the back of his thoughts, but didn’t banish it completely. When he straightened, his spine ached from the day’s labor. Tomorrow would be worse—more work, more mouths to feed, more shadows waiting just out of sight.

That, at least, he understood. Work, risk, and responsibility. Those were constants.

Strangers, though? Strangers never fit cleanly into the picture. Strangers were unpredictable—the reason graves were dug.

Jimin wrung the rag once more, water dripping off his knuckles, and tossed it aside. The cold clung to him as he stood, tugging his shirt back over damp skin. But the smell of dinner drifted from the farmhouse, and routine tugged at him the way it always did. He followed it inside, letting habit push him forward.

The kitchen was still warm, air swarming with a comforting, savory aroma. Seokjin stood over the gas stove with his sleeves rolled, ladle scraping the bottom of the pot. A half-loaf of bread cooled on the counter—guarded poorly, considering Hoseok was already tearing off pieces with guilty fingers.

“Hands off,” Seokjin snapped, smacking Hoseok’s wrist with the ladle. “This has to stretch for the whole pack, not just your bottomless pit of a stomach.”

“It’s called quality control,” Hoseok muttered, crumbs decorating his shirt. “What if it’s poisoned?”

Seokjin rolled his eyes so hard Jimin thought they might lodge themselves there. Then he caught sight of Jimin in the doorway—still stiff, still wired from the day. Without hesitation, he filled a chipped bowl with rice and soup, poured a cup of water, and shoved both into Jimin’s hands.

“You’re taking it to him,” Seokjin said, not bothering to pose it as a question.

“Namjoon asked for quarantine treatment, not hotel service.”

“Okay, and it’s just food, not a fucking love letter,” Seokjin shot back, shoving the bowl into his hands. “Starve a stray and it’ll bite you out of desperation. Feed it, and at least it’ll have the strength to make itself useful.”

Hoseok leaned back against the counter, tearing another piece of bread with his teeth. “Or the strength to snap Jimin in half.”

The words hung between them for just a few seconds, before Hoseok and Seokjin turned to each other, deadpan. They collapsed into sudden laughter.

“Snap Jimin?” Hoseok wheezed at his own words, nearly choking on bread crust. 

“The bastard’s built like a wall. You’d need a bulldozer, and even then he’d probably dent the thing first!” 

Seokjin chuckled, stirring the pot. “Please. If Jimin ever births pups, they’ll come out with buzzcuts, six-packs, and rifles strapped to their backs—probably speaking in fluent drill sergeant before they can crawl.”

Hoseok slapped the counter, howling. “And a kill count before they hit three months!”

Jimin scowled, bowl still steaming in his hands. “You’re both idiots.”

“Maybe,” Seokjin said mildly, sliding the ladle back into the pot. “But we’re hilarious idiots. Now take him the food before Hoseok eats it.”

Jimin turned to leave the kitchen, but stopped just short of the doorway, the bowl warm in his hands and steam brushing his face. He stood there longer than necessary, jaw tight and staring into space.

“Don’t,” Seokjin scolded.

Jimin blinked. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t stand there like you’re contemplating throwing it at him,” Seokjin replied mildly, not looking up as he wiped his hands on a towel. “You’ll be wasting good food.”

Jimin exhaled through his nose. “I’m sure Namjoon has told you everything already. Are you really okay with this?”

Seokjin paused, finally glancing over at him. One brow lifted. “With what, exactly?”

“With him,” Jimin said quietly. “With letting him eat our food. Sleep under our roof. It’s only been—what—a few hours?”

Seokjin looked up, a finger resting on his chin as he pondered Jimin’s statement, then shrugged. “I’m not fine. I’m just not panicking.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“I know.” Seokjin’s mouth twitched. “Don’t let my gorgeous, young face distract you from the fact that I am mentally older. Panicking about everything takes far too much energy.”

Jimin shifted his grip on the bowl. “It just feels fast.”

“It is fast,” Seokjin said easily. “Everything is now.”

Those words bothered Jimin.

Seokjin leaned his hip against the counter, lowering his voice. “Listen. You’re not wrong for being on edge. If you weren’t, I’d be more worried. But he showed up breathing. Not biting. Not bleeding out. That buys him food and a night indoors. That’s it.”

Jimin searched his face. “And if that changes?”

“Then it changes,” Seokjin said simply. “We’ve handled worse.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened. “You’re not scared.”

Seokjin snorted. “Of course I am. I just don’t let it decide things for me on day one.”

He nodded at the bowl. “Give him the food. Doesn’t mean you trust him. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Just means we don’t start by acting like we’re already burying him.”

A beat passed.

Then Seokjin added, quieter, “You can keep watching him. No one’s stopping you.”

That eased something sharp in Jimin’s chest—not much, but enough.

“Yeah,” Jimin muttered. “That was never in question.”

Seokjin stepped aside, clearing the doorway. “I know.”

Jimin turned, bowl in hand, and stepped back into the night.

He made his way toward the shed with a tin cup and a chipped bowl balanced in one hand, a folded blanket thrown over his shoulder. The night had officially settled deep—horses snorting by the east fence, someone stacking dishes by the cookfire, quiet voices threading through the dark. The lantern by the shed burned low, throwing a small, steady glow across the warped boards.

He knocked twice. “Get back.”

The shadow inside shifted. “I’m back,” Jeongguk answered. 

Jimin slid the bolt, opened just enough to wedge himself in, and shut it behind him. The air inside held a faint heat from the lantern.

Jeongguk stood by the cot, damp hair pushed back from his forehead, dressed in a spare shirt and pajama pants Jiwon had dug up from storage. The clothes swallowed him at the ankles, the cotton softening the brute lines of his body in a way that made Jimin’s breath almost hitch. Without the blood and ruined clothes, he looked less like a weapon and more like just a man who’d survived too many nights alone.

“Food,” Jimin said, clipped. He set the bowl on the stool next to the cot and handed over the cup.

“Thank you.” Jeongguk took it carefully, fingers brushing Jimin’s—warm and callused. He didn’t look away while he drank, which irritated Jimin more than he cared to admit.

Jimin dropped the folded blanket onto the cot. “Nights tend to get chilly. Use it.”

Jeongguk’s mouth tilted, just a fraction. “You’re… nicer at night.”

“I’m simply following orders,” Jimin said flatly. “Don’t mistake this for softness.” He dragged his gaze over the room to check for potential threats—bucket, cot, the small neat pile of fresh clothes Jiwon had left. No tools, no metal, nothing you could lever a hinge with. Good.

When he looked back, Jeongguk was studying him openly.

“You always patrol this late?” he asked.

“I don’t sleep much,” Jimin said before he could stop himself.

He regretted the admission instantly. He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, irritation pricking—at himself, at the way the shed held sound too close.

Jeongguk didn’t push. He just dipped his spoon into the bowl and took the first bite.

The reaction was immediate. His shoulders, loose since Jimin arrived, jerked tight with the shock of actual flavor. His brows pinched, almost a wince, before his jaw worked faster, spoon dipping again and again until the bowl rattled faintly against the cot frame.

The alpha didn’t slow until the bowl was empty. He didn’t waste a drop, despite his movements being quick and driven. Every bite was chased by the next as if the food might vanish before he finished.

Jimin stilled, caught by the quiet intensity of it. He’d seen men fight like animals, he’d seen them collapse in pain over hunger—but this fracture in Jeongguk’s mask now felt deeply human. A slip, raw, almost vulnerable. Jeongguk scraped the spoon along the bottom of the bowl and let out a rough sound that was almost a groan.

“Who the hell cooked this?” His voice was ragged but full of something Jimin hadn’t expected—delight.

“Kim Seokjin.” The omega shifted his weight, forcing his voice to stay flat. “He does most of the meals.”

“Tell him he’s a goddamn miracle worker.” Jeongguk swiped the last sheen of broth from the bowl with the edge of the spoon, licking it clean. His lip piercing glinted when his mouth curved around the spoon.

Jimin reminded himself that this wasn’t surprising. Jeongguk had been living on scraps alone, probably for years. His body had survived, somehow, but even muscle burned when all you fed it was grit.

“Well?” Jimin asked, arms crossed tight over his chest. “What the hell have you been eating to stay upright like that?”

Jeongguk slouched back on the cot, bowl balanced in one hand, and huffed a humorless laugh. “Beans. So many fucking canned beans.”

Something traitorous in Jimin’s chest twitched, like a laugh wanted to break free. He choked it back down immediately. He refused to laugh, refused to soften, but something shifted in his chest anyway—a flicker that felt a little too much like pity.

Jeongguk set the empty bowl aside. The blanket slipped further into his lap as he leaned back. His eyes were heavy now—the weight of a full stomach settling into his bones. The lines of strain eased off his face, leaving something young and tired behind.

And Jimin hated that part of him—the smallest part that felt almost glad for it. It should’ve been his cue then to walk out. Drop the water, remind him of the rules, and leave the shed before any kind of familiarity forms between them. Instead, he lingered with his arms crossed, the rifle strap pressing uncomfortably into his spine.

Silence stretched, the lantern hissing faintly in the corner. Jeongguk’s eyes slipped half-closed, lashes long against his cheek, but when he spoke his voice was quiet and unguarded.

“You smell like orange blossoms.”

Jimin’s throat tightened before he could stop it. Jeongguk cracked one eye open at the lack of response from the omega, as if realizing too late he’d said it aloud. 

“Not like soap or chemicals or something. More like…real blossoms. Fresh.”

Jimin hadn’t thought about his scent in years. Not since the world had turned and every pleasant thing had been shoved under the weight of rot and duty. Orange blossoms belonged to a life he didn’t look at anymore. 

“You must be delirious from starvation. All anyone can smell out there is death.”

Jeongguk only hummed, sinking deeper into the cot. “Maybe that’s why it stood out.”

Jimin’s stomach flipped, heat crawling at the back of his neck. He yanked the blanket tighter over Jeongguk’s lap, rougher than necessary. “Get some sleep. One wrong move and you won’t wake up.”

“Jimin-ssi,” Jeongguk called out.

The sound of his name like that, soft and warm, caught him off guard. Jimin’s hand paused on the lantern hood.

“What?”

“Thank you,” Jeongguk said simply. “For not throwing me back, or you know—killing me.”

“We’re not doing charity,” Jimin snapped, but the edge had been dulled by a hair. “You’re here because Namjoon and Taehyung think you can be useful.”

“And you?” Jeongguk asked, eyes unwavering.

Jimin met his gaze. “I think if you give me a reason, I’ll end you before anyone else has to.”

He let the promise hang between them. “Sleep. Someone will bring breakfast at dawn.”

He dimmed the lantern until the corners of the shed softened, set the cup within reach, and stepped toward the door. His fingers found the bolt.

“Orange blossoms,” Jeongguk said again, like he’d tasted the words and wanted to set them back where they belonged.

Jimin didn’t answer. He slid the lock, stepped out into the cool air, and let the night swallow him. Crickets and frogs stitched their usual thin lines of song across the fields. 

He clenched his jaw until it ached. 

Foolish. Dangerous. Letting Jeongguk figure out anything about him had been a mistake—Jimin knew that much..

He dragged in a breath of the night air, before shoving the thought down hard where it couldn’t surface again. Whatever Jeongguk thought he smelled, it didn’t matter. Whatever Jeongguk was, whatever had healed him and sharpened him and kept him breathing when he should have rotted from the inside out, it wasn’t something Jimin could afford to believe in. 

He turned away before his thoughts could circle back, boots carrying him toward the farmhouse lights where the pack waited and the night’s routines still needed finishing. Tomorrow would come whether he trusted it or not.

And when it did, Jimin would be watching.

·· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The week slipped by in long, measured hours.

Jeongguk was never left alone. At dawn, the shed door cracked just wide enough for a steaming bowl to slide inside. At dusk, it sealed again, lantern light burning low behind the wood. Daylight brought short, supervised shifts—always within sight of a rifle. Byungho paced the yard with him. Jiwon shadowed him at the pump. Twice, Namjoon led him on quiet night rounds beneath a thin scatter of stars—the goat pen, the potato patch, the barns. Small things and small tests, all a way of letting him touch their world while watching how he moved inside it.

Jeongguk didn’t push back once. He split wood, hauled water, carried crates, and worked in the fields with a quiet efficiency that made the older men glance once and go back to their work with renewed vigor. He followed orders without argument, spoke only when spoken to, and by week’s end the tension surrounding him hadn’t vanished, but it had shifted—no longer the sharp edge of a stranger at their door.

On the seventh night, the farmhouse smelled of potato stew and nerves stretched thin. Lanterns hung low, pups dozed across laps, and every seat at the long table was filled. When Namjoon stood, the room folded into a hush.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, calm and deliberate. He waited for the quiet to settle. “We put this off until protocol was followed completely. Now you deserve answers.”

“What we’re dealing with,” Mrs. Han said, teacup clinking against the table, “is secrecy in our yard. That never ends well.”

Old Man Cho muttered something about wasting rations on a stray. The room tightened along old scars—Nabi’s name unspoken but present like a pressure drop.

Namjoon didn’t flinch. “Jeon Jeongguk was bitten seven weeks ago.” He let the words sit before continuing. 

“A deep bite. He should be dead, or turned by now.”

A breath seemed to leave the room all at once. Sooyeon held her pups close. Minseok slammed a palm onto the table hard enough to jolt the spoons. Even the pups dozing off were now awake, their eyes going wide.

“And yet,” Namjoon continued, voice firming, “he didn’t. Jiwon and I examined him thoroughly. His tissue is closed, his blood runs clean, and he shows no systemic markers of infection. There’s no necrosis, nor a scent signature consistent with sour pathology. He isn’t decaying. He’s… holding steady.”

“Steady,” Mira repeated, bitter, fear fraying her voice.

Taehyung leaned forward, elbows on knees—the commander in him steady and unflinching. “You weren’t there—this kid has some serious strength and combat skills. If fences start failing or scavenges get thinner, that kind of strength keeps us standing.”

Yoongi, who’d been silent near the window, shifted just enough for the lantern to catch his face. He didn’t need the scar on his cheek to emphasize just how serious his demeanor was, but it did help. 

“We’ve been over this already—if he so much as twitches wrong, Jimin will put him down. Everyone here knows that.” 

Hoseok ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, and we’re running on half rations and half sleep. One more pair of hands that can fight and haul could—practically speaking—save us from burning out.”

Seokjin crossed his arms and huffed. “Look at the haul from that run—radios, manuals, diesel. Now add a fighter who actually pulls his weight. Think of this as insurance. We’ve got a long winter ahead of us, and this year’s harvest is already not looking too good.”

Namjoon set his glasses on the table, palms braced. “This isn’t some kind of divine worship and it isn’t luck. It’s a new variable. We’re also going to continue to study everything about him so that we can understand what allowed him to survive. That knowledge could change how we catch this infection early—or hell, even stop it altogether. Please trust me when I say it’s going to lessen the risk.” 

The pack remained quiet, letting him continue.

His voice sharpened. “If he shows instability at any point, Jimin won’t hesitate. But if we learn something—anything—this could redefine how we live.”

Sooyeon scoffed. “So we gamble with our people and pups on the chance your experiments pay off?”

“We’re not making some reckless gamble, do not interpret this as such,” Namjoon said evenly. “We’re managing a threat we don’t understand by using the tools we have. Quarantine remains strict, and observation will be constant. No one is unprotected.” 

His gaze traveled the room. “He’s already been put through one week of intense observation already, but he’ll continue to be monitored until we can be absolutely sure he’s safe. This is possibly knowledge that could change what survival looks like for us.”

Jimin sat at the wall like he’d been carved from it. Outside, he was composed—a quiet axis between Taehyung’s pragmatism and Namjoon’s measured logic. Inside, something burned like a live wire.

Kang Nabi’s scream still lived in the marrow of his memory. Choi Minji’s last breath still curled around the center of his guilt. He’d buried both, carried both, and every time fear crept into the room, the pack looked to him first. Not because he was the oldest or the strongest—but because he was the one who pulled the trigger when no one else could.

He wanted to stand, slam his hand on the table, and remind them all what one wrong vote had cost them.

Instead, he swallowed it down. Leaders didn’t fracture in front of frightened people—they steadied the weight of their people until it stopped shaking. So he held the quiet, the way he’d once held a soldier’s head steady while waiting for the medevac that never came. He let Namjoon speak. Let Taehyung explain in the language their pack listened to. Let the pack argue back until the fear thinned into something workable.

Mrs. Han tapped her teacup again, slower. “Fine,” she said. “I’m willing to take the chance, because I know our Jimin has his gun close.” She nodded to the omega, small and fierce as always.

Her words rippled through the room, settling like smoke.

For Jimin, they only reaffirmed his role. Yes, he could mend fences, haul water, or pull crops from the dirt—he did, same as everyone. But protection was different—it was his. His kill count stretched longer than he cared to admit, a ledger written in black blood, gunpowder, and choices no one else wanted to make. If heaven existed, there was no room left for him. He’d made peace with that long ago. Still he would do it again tomorrow if it meant the pack slept safely. 

Pride lifted one side of the weight. Guilt pressed down the other. He bore both because it was cruel to let anyone else do as such.

Yet watching Namjoon—how he held fear and hope together in both fists, how he deemed risk acceptable or not—Jimin felt a flicker of something like envy. Where his worth was measured in bullets and bodies, Namjoon’s was everything else. And somehow, the man carried it without breaking.

Murmurs circled the table—some cautious relief, some skepticism. Daehyun stayed rigid, arms crossed. Byungho and Mira exchanged looks threaded with suspicion. Jiwon remained steady at Namjoon’s shoulder, ready to enforce whatever came next.

Namjoon straightened. “Limited tasks under supervision. No lone runs. No time with pups unsupervised. He can haul, mend, and assist on the fence line. I’ll handle the testing—blood samples, scent logging, reflex tracking. We’ll keep information contained until we’re certain what we’re dealing with.”

Taehyung’s voice carried the final weight needed to seal the room. “Let him work, and don’t shy away from assigning him tasks. He needs to earn his place.”

Jimin’s protest stayed folded inside him like a blade left sheathed for the right hand. He met Namjoon’s eyes and gave one curt nod—the closest to agreement he allowed himself.

The decision was settled.

A light tug at Jimin’s sleeve pulled him out of his thoughts. Minji stood beside him, curls mussed, cheeks pink from running. She lifted her arms in that automatic little gesture she’d never grown out of.

Jimin’s mouth softened despite himself. “Come here, button.”

He scooped her up easily, her small arms wrapping around his neck like they’d done since she was old enough to cling. Sooyeon trailed a step behind, just watching with the fond wariness of a mother who’d had a long day.

Minji leaned back just enough to look at him seriously. “Jiminie-samcheon,” she said, “you look sad.”

His throat tightened. “Do I?”

She nodded, very solemn. Then reached into her tiny pocket and pressed something into his palm—a bead, cloudy pink, scavenged from some broken bracelet. “You can have this. Mama says it’s important to show thanks to people who keep us safe.”

Sooyeon breathed a laugh at that, shaking her head. “She’s been saving that since yesterday. I swear she refused to give it to anyone else.”

Jimin swallowed hard. “Thank you, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of her head and set her back on her feet gently.

But Minji wasn’t done. She tugged his sleeve again, whispering, “Is the new man going to be scary forever?”

Sooyeon stiffened—painfully subtle, but Jimin felt it regardless. It was clear that her fear wasn’t aimed at her daughter’s curiosity, but rather at the answer she’d receive.

Jimin knelt to Minji’s level. “No,” he said quietly. “He’s just tired, and I’m watching very closely. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Minji nodded, satisfied. She grinned at her mother and began to skip off toward their room.

Sooyeon lingered a moment longer, brushing her hand against Jimin’s arm in silent gratitude—trust, faith, history all wordless between them. Then she followed her daughter, leaving the bead warm in Jimin’s palm. It felt like a reminder that no matter how the pack shifted, some trust had been built in blood and years—trust he wasn’t sure he deserved anymore.

Lanterns guttered low, conversations faded, and the house went still one room at a time. Outside, the yard lay quiet except for the low thrum of insects and the faint sound of the trees rustling in the night wind. Jeongguk stayed behind a locked door at the edge of their world, a stranger threaded into their routines by necessity, not trust. The pack would rest tonight, and Jimin would remain on his feet. He checked his rifle, checked the windows, then checked the yard.

Tomorrow would demand more of him.

It always did.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Not Welcome, Not Unwanted

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The farmhouse porch bowed under the weight of twenty-one people crowding shoulder to shoulder. Dawn hadn’t fully shaken loose yet. The yard still carried a soft veil of mist, blurring the fields into pale gray. From the open kitchen windows drifted the steady comforts of morning—porridge thickening in its pot, the clean bite of soap, broth simmering low over the gas stove. Goats bleated from their pen with rising impatience, hooves knocking wood in dull, rhythmic thuds.

Namjoon stood at the base of the porch steps, composed amid the quiet restlessness. His glasses caught the thin morning light as he scanned the gathered faces, lips moving faintly while he counted. Satisfied, he brought his hands together in a single, sharp clap.

“Good morning, everyone,” he began, pausing as the greeting rolled back toward him in uneven murmurs.

“Since we decided last night to let Jeon Jeongguk prove himself,” Namjoon said, voice measured and steady, “you deserve to see him—not as a rumor in a shed, but as a person.”

At his nod, Taehyung and Hoseok crossed the yard. Silence settled gently but completely, like fabric dropped over something fragile. Even the pups went quiet, small hands tightening around porch rails and sleeves as they leaned to see.

“I’ll remind you of something,” Namjoon added. “We’re not a righteous pack, we’re a surviving one. None of us are clean, and none of us get to pretend otherwise.”

“With all due respect,” Mira’s voice cuts through, interrupting Namjoon. “We don’t know this man. The last time we let a random alpha take shelter with us, he flipped us on our heads—so forgive me for not wanting to see another strange alpha treated like a fucking equal.”

Agreement moved through the crowd in low waves—nods, tight mouths, the soft scrape of boots shifting on wood. For a moment, pride warmed Jimin’s chest. Of course his people would be wary. Of course they felt the same resistance coiled tight in his own gut. He hadn’t spent night after night drilling safety protocols and combat discipline into every able body just to watch them turn soft at the first hard story. Not after Nabi.

“I’m not asking you to welcome him with open arms. I know that’s asking too much right now,” Namjoon said evenly. “I’m asking for a chance. He can’t show us who he is if we lock him out before he speaks.”

He stepped closer to the porch, gaze moving from face to face.

“Judge him after you’ve seen him work. After you’ve heard him speak, not before. We all know that had it been us in his shoes, we’d want the same.”

Before anyone else could counter, footsteps approached. Then, Jeongguk stepped into view—hair damp, face scrubbed clean, still wearing a shirt and pants far too big for him. The clothes softened him, but nothing dimmed the sharpness of his jaw or the calm weight of his gaze.

The porch bristled.

Mrs. Han’s mouth thinned, lines pulling sharp at the corners. Mira’s eyes moved slowly over his frame, measured and assessing, as if committing his proportions to memory. Sooyeon shifted both Minji and Bomi behind her hip without looking down, her hand settling protectively at her daughter’s shoulder. The pups, however, had no such defenses.

Jihoon leaned forward with open fascination, craning over the railing like he might miss something important. “He’s tall.”

Several adults shot him warning looks, but the moment had already slipped.

Hyejin, perched near the steps, leaned toward Hana and whispered just a little too loudly, “Wait… he’s really handsome.”

Their giggles fluttered out fast and nervous, like sparks landing too close to dry brush.

Jimin felt the sound land wrong in his chest—too easy and far too soon. Like despite their vocal apprehension, the porch had already started leaning forward when it should’ve been bracing. His fingers curled tighter around the railing until the old wood creaked beneath his grip, the vibration running straight into his palms.

Namjoon lifted a hand, steady and deliberate. The noise died down—not gone, but contained. “Introduce yourself.”

Jeongguk’s gaze swept methodically across the porch, catching every face and every line of tension. His throat bobbed once before he spoke.

“My name is Jeon Jeongguk. I’m twenty-seven, and I’m an alpha.” His fingers curled once at his side, then stilled again.

The porch stiffened again—fear and memory snapping back into place, instinct drawing invisible lines through the crowd. Jimin saw it land in the subtle ways people tried to hide—shoulders drawing a touch higher, breath held a second too long, space opening where none had existed before. Old instincts resurfaced without permission, because memories always moved faster than reason ever could. Having another young alpha meant added strength. It also meant risk. It meant history that still hadn’t healed.

A familiar tension coiled low in Jimin’s chest, protective and unyielding. These were his people. Their safety rested on decisions like this—measured, argued, carried long after the moment passed. He held himself still, but the resolve beneath it hardened. No one here would pay again for a mistake he could’ve prevented.

Mrs. Han broke the silence first. “They say you can fight. How many times have you had to?”

Jeongguk didn’t bristle, nor did he boast. “Enough,” he said simply. “Enough to still be here.”

Byungho shifted his weight, boots scraping the porch boards. “Where were you before we found you?”

Jeongguk hesitated, just long enough for Jimin to catch it. Not enough to look guilty, but to make it clear that he was carefully choosing his words. “Moving,” he said. “City to city. Wherever wasn’t picked clean yet.”

“And before that?” Mira pressed.

His shoulders lifted in a small, noncommittal shrug. “Didn’t stay anywhere long enough for it to matter.”

“So you were alone?” Mrs. Han asked.

“Yes,” Jeongguk answered. “Mostly.”

The last word slid in quiet and thin, but Jimin felt it lodge like a splinter immediately. Mostly.

“So no pack,” Hana said, brow furrowing. “No territory?”

Jeongguk met her gaze, steady. “No.”

That seemed to satisfy them—enough, at least. A few nods passed through the crowd. The porch loosened a fraction, and Jimin didn’t. Sooyeon stepped forward from the crowd, guiding the girls gently toward Mrs. Han, who gathered them in close without hesitation, arms folding tight around their small shoulders.

“And what about omegas? You expect us to believe you won’t lose control when heats run through this yard?”

Jimin watched the careful way she stood—shoulders squared, chin lifted just enough. He’d seen that posture before. The week they lost Nabi, Sooyeon’s voice had stopped shaking. The grief never left; it just learned where to hide. He didn’t blame her. An omega raising pups in a world like this didn’t get the luxury of sounding afraid.

He wouldn’t either.

A heavy silence stretched out afterward, thick with unspoken questions, pressing down like the humid night air. The porch boards continued to groan softly under shifting feet, boots scraping against weathered wood, and Jimin felt the tension coil tight behind his eyes, a dull throb echoing the uncertainty in his chest.

Jeongguk remained statue-still.

“I’ve been on my own for nearly six years,” he said finally. “If I were going to break and go feral, it would’ve happened long before today.”

No one breathed a word. From the edge of the porch, Yoongi’s mouth twitched faintly against the pull of his scar before settling again.

Jihoon, blissfully unburdened with the ability to read the fragile mood, piped up without hesitation. “Can you really turn into a monster?”

Sharp intakes of breath rippled through the group, followed by hurried shushes. A light smack landed on the back of the pup’s head, accompanied by a hissed scolding, but Jeongguk only let a faint, almost teasing smile tug at his mouth.

“Only if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

Taehyung drove an elbow into his ribs with sharp force. “Quit terrifying the kids.”

Jihoon, undeterred, beamed even brighter, eyes sparkling with mischief. Hana edged forward, arms folded tight across her chest, summoning her courage for the next probe. “Fine—what else? Aside from scaring pups?”

Jeongguk rubbed at his jaw, gaze drifting thoughtful as he considered. “I think we covered most of it when I got here—” He cut himself off abruptly, throat working as his eyes darted to Taehyung’s, which were already slitted in a fierce glare, piercing like honed blades.

“Right,” Jeongguk corrected, dragging a hand down from his face. “I fix things. I’m good at finding what people actually need when scavenging. I can haul whatever you’ve got.” A faint curve tugged at his mouth. “And I can cook beans seventeen different ways.”

The sound that followed was uneven—more breath than laughter. It sliced through the heavy air, jagged and sparse, more like puzzled grunts than genuine mirth. Even Seokjin, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, let out a reluctant snort. “We’ll see about that.”

Namjoon let the moment settle before stepping back in. His eyes swept briefly—calculated and calm—to Jimin, not as a provocation but a quiet nod to the one whose scrutiny would burn the hottest.

“He’ll work under everyone’s watch,” Namjoon said. “And you’ll observe and judge for yourselves. We’ll reassess the day and any other tasks that need to be completed at dusk.”

A collective breath escaped the porch, the group’s rigid posture loosening just a fraction.

This wasn’t an outright welcome or a leap of blind faith—distrust still hung on like stubborn thorns—but threads of curiosity wove in now, splintering the unyielding facade that had stood firm for so long. Leaning against the railing, Jimin observed it all with an expression carved from iron, even as a shift stirred deep within him—hesitant, unwanted, and edged like a fresh blade.

Namjoon lifted a hand before Jimin could voice any objections. “That’s enough for now.”

The porch cleared in gradual ripples, figures dispersing toward the fields and their daily labors until the morning resumed its familiar rhythm of distant calls and rustling leaves. Jimin remained rooted at the railing long after the others had vanished—his fingers clenched so fiercely that the weathered wood’s creaking turned into groans of protest under the strain.

Taehyung lingered as well.

He bided his time until the final footfalls dissolved into silence, then caught Jimin by the sleeve and drew him into the slim band of shadow hugging the farmhouse wall. Before Jimin could muster a word of resistance, Taehyung pressed close and trailed his scent across Jimin’s shoulders and the curve of his neck. The warm notes of cedar smoke pierced the clinging mix of sweat and crushed grass, as reassuring as the alpha’s broad palm splayed firm between Jimin’s shoulder blades.

“Better,” Taehyung murmured.

Jimin let out a slow exhale, his head falling back against the rough siding of the farmhouse. “You always do that like I’m about to collapse or something.”

“You always are,” Taehyung replied. “I hate that you carry rifles and labor and every goddamn ghost on this farm like it’s your job to answer for all of it. You think that doesn’t show?” He clicks his tongue, rubbing more of his scent into Jimin’s skin. “You reek of self-flagellation, Jimin-ah, and as much as it kills me to admit…” He paused, huffing out a breath as his gaze shifted sideways. “You have to start shedding some of this burden before it buries you.”

The omega’s jaw locked tight, muscles jumping under his skin. “If I drop it, someone ends up dead.”

Taehyung’s hand drifted lower, encircling Jimin’s wrist with a warmth that anchored him. “If you never let it go, you crumble under the pressure and die. Then what? We’re left picking up the fragments without you.”

Jimin fell silent, his throat constricting too sharply for any sharp comeback. He mustered a brittle laugh instead, the sound scraping out hollow.  “Maybe that’s all I’m good for.”

Taehyung’s fingers tightened.“Don’t say that. You’re not expendable. You’re not reduced to the weapon in your hands.” His stare bored in, steady and unblinking. “You’re woven into this pack—hell, before all that, you’re my best friend.  My soulmate.”

A sharp twist bloomed behind Jimin’s sternum—guilt and solace knotted so fiercely they bled into one. He dragged a hand across his face, scrubbing away the sting in his eyes. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not, I get that,” Taehyung admitted, releasing him from the onslaught of scenting at last. A faint smile ghosted his lips, gentler now. “But if you keep those barriers sky-high, I’ll keep battering them down until you remember you’re still human. That’s the deal.”

 Taehyung’s hand stayed firm against the middle of Jimin's back, heat seeping through the thin shirt like an anchor in rough waters.

"And don't act like this is you overreacting," he added quietly, voice pitched low for their ears alone. "If I'd caught wind of that bite before we cleared out from the lot, I'd have stood right beside you. Shit—I might've ended him on the spot."

Jimin's gaze flicked sideways, meeting Taehyung's steady stare.

Taehyung held it without flinching. "You weren’t wrong to be on edge. Had every reason to push back. We've been through too much to roll the dice without cause."

The admission sank in, easing a knot coiled deep in Jimin's ribs, like oil working free a seized joint. Even when they disagreed, Jimin always knew they’d understand each other’s side. It’s what’s kept them together for so long. It’s why Taehyung will always be the second voice in his head.

"But Namjoon saw something we didn’t," Taehyung went on. “And just like you trust me to call a fight, we trust him to do the thinking—to weigh the unknowns. That’s how this works.” His thumb dug in once, a firm pulse against tense muscle. 

"And if it all goes wrong?" Jimin breathes out, almost a sigh.

"Then it’s on us to deal with the weight, Jimin. You won't shoulder that crush by yourself."

Jimin swallowed, muscles clenching along his jawline. “Feels like I need to.”

"Yeah, I know." Taehyung's reply came soft but sure, laced with the weight of shared scars. "But  you don’t. Not ever."

Quiet stretched out between them, easy and worn-in, like the tread of boots on familiar dirt.

Jimin shook his head, a grudging breath escaping despite his resistance. He straightened his posture, drawing in one final lungful of Taehyung’s cedar-smoke scent, and pushed off the wall. His expression snapped back to granite in an instant, the fleeting vulnerability sealed away from prying eyes.

“Back to it,” he grumbled.

“Yep,” Taehyung agreed, falling into step beside him. But his eyes followed Jimin for a beat longer, like he was making sure the pieces had all clicked back into place.

They rounded the corner into the yard, now buzzing with activity under the rising sun. Seokjin hunched over the weathered outdoor table, dividing meager breakfast remnants into chipped bowls, his voice sharp as he swatted at Hana's hand sneaking toward an extra scoop. Hoseok stood amid a whirlwind of the three youngest pups, their tiny limbs scrambling up his broad back like vines on a trunk, their giggles slicing through the crisp morning haze. Byungho and Mira lingered at the fence line, gestures animated as they jabbed at a drooping post, voices overlapping in heated debate over reinforcements.

The moment Jimin emerged into the open, every gaze snapped toward him, loaded with unspoken trust. If threats clawed their way in before dusk, he'd stand first in the breach. Then Taehyung, with Hoseok close behind—a sequence etched into their bones. From the kitchen threshold, Sooyeon locked eyes with him for a fleeting second, her stare solid and unwavering, capped by a quick, reaffirming nod.

Jimin drew himself up, the rifle's weight pressing firm against his spine, his features carving into a mask of stoic resolve. No trace lingered of the man who'd leaned against the farmhouse siding moments ago, questioning if he amounted to more than sharpened steel. They saw exactly what they needed—their shield.

And he became it, without protest.

Namjoon continued with the roster, his tone clipped and efficient. “Byungho and Mira, stick to the fence repairs. Sooyeon, handle the schoolhouse lessons, then tend the chickens. Hoseok, when you’re done being attacked by the pups, you’re on fruit harvesting. Seokjin, you're tied to the kitchen all day.”

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, anyway.” Seokjin called over his shoulder, slipping back into the farmhouse.

A hush fell then, thickening the air like gathering clouds. The yard held its collective breath.

Jeongguk stood apart, still and quiet in his ill-fitting, borrowed clothes they'd scrounged for him, droplets from his recent wash tracing paths down his exposed skin that gleamed in the slanting light. The loose collar draped awkwardly, making him look younger than he was, but there was a steadiness to him that no shabby fabric could disguise.

“And you,” Namjoon said, the pen striking the clipboard with a decisive snap. “We’ll start you off with an easy task. You’ll haul whatever the pack needs you to.”

Murmurs stirred faintly, a wave of wary evaluations rippling outward. Namjoon's words brooked no argument. He nodded toward the cluster of water barrels piled against the yard's edge. “Begin with these. Haul the filled ones to the greenhouse, then transport the crates from the barn over to the east shed. You’ll do it under guard. Consider this your first test.”

Jimin and Taehyung shared a glance, loaded with inevitability. Naturally, the oversight defaulted to them.

“Understood,” Jimin replied, his voice even and devoid of inflection. “I'll stand guard.”

Taehyung stretched like a cat, cracking his neck. “And I'll make sure he doesn't crush a toe under one of those beasts.”

Jeongguk’s mouth twitched—half amusement and half challenge. “Wouldn’t be the first time I carried more than my share.”

That earned him a few raised brows from the men and a muffled snicker from Hana on the porch rail. Jimin’s stomach clenched. The arrogance grated, but so did the calm behind it.

“Go on,” Jimin said sharply, cutting the moment short. He jerked his chin toward the barrels. “Show us what you’re worth.”

Jeongguk’s fingers wrapped around the rusted iron rims of the nearest barrel, cords of muscle flexing beneath the worn fabric of his shirt. He hoisted it upward in one fluid motion, no strain marring his face, no hitch in his breath. The children’s murmurs swelled into a chorus of wonder—Jihoon’s mouth hung open, eyes saucer-wide, while even Mrs. Han let out a faint, grudging hum from her spot by the door. Jimin schooled his features into indifference, but the display of strength was something else.  Most people needed at least a second pair of hands to shift a water-filled barrel that far without spilling a drop.

Raw power didn’t buy loyalty, and it didn’t erase the shadows clinging to a stranger’s edges.

But hell, the man handled it like he’d been forged in fire for exactly this.

Taehyung matched Jeongguk’s stride without a word, hovering just within arm’s reach, ready to step in if anything went wrong. He flicked a quick look Jimin’s way over the barrel’s curved edge—I’m on it.

Jimin dipped his chin in the barest acknowledgment and stepped back, boots thudding once against the porch boards as he took his post. He settled into position with a clear line of sight across the yard, rifle cradled loosely over his arms. Vigilance wasn’t about crowding a man’s space—it was mapping the angles, the gaps where trouble could hide, the split-seconds needed to drop a threat before it spread. Close enough at times to catch the rhythm of Jeongguk’s exhales under the strain, distant enough at others to sweep the perimeter, eyes scanning fences and shadows alike.

The yard fell into its usual rhythm of work, hammers ringing on wood, low voices trading instructions, the crunch of gravel under shifting loads. Jeongguk wove through it without a stutter, shifting crates that typically left sweat beading on their strongest. Whispers followed him like dust in his wake. Minseok offered a tight-lipped incline of his head after Jeongguk stacked a pile of feed sacks solo, and Mira paused mid-swing of her mallet to mutter, “Not half bad,” under her breath.

Jimin watched every second—every step, every breath, the fleeting glints of softness cracking Jeongguk’s guarded mask. It sharpened most when Jihoon buzzed around him like a persistent fly during the mid-morning water break, unleashing a barrage of questions that tumbled out in a breathless rush, drawing out clipped replies from the newcomer despite his evident reluctance.

“How much can you carry? More than Uncle Hoseok? Heavier than Uncle Byungho?” 

Mrs. Han tsked sharply from her vantage by the pump, snatching the boy’s arm and steering him off with a woven basket toward Hoseok’s post at the fence line. “Enough chatter—go make yourself useful.”

Later, as Jeongguk wrestled logs from the stack near the barn, Hana elbowed Hyejin with a sly whisper that flushed the younger omega’s cheeks crimson. She buried her giggle in her palm, eyes darting away. Jeongguk either missed it entirely or feigned ignorance, his focus locked on the task, but Jimin caught every nuance from his perch on the porch steps, jaw clenching like a vice. The man toiled without a single gripe—hauling crates down into the dim cellar, shoring up sagging fence posts with brute force, propping the buckled chicken run steady while Daehyun drove nails in with rhythmic thuds. Once, mid-stride with a groaning crate balanced on his shoulder, Jeongguk’s footing slipped on loose gravel, and the wood splintered with a sharp crack as one edge dipped toward the dirt. Rifles snapped up in unison across the yard—Jimin’s pulse hammered, his finger ghosting the trigger guard—but Jeongguk caught the shift, muscles coiling like steel cables. He eased the load down, lowered it gently, and kept moving, silent as stone.

Each chore sent echoes through the group. Whispers carried an undercurrent of intrigue now, edging out the outright hostility. Sooyeon’s gaze lingered from her spot under the sprawling oak, narrowed and unyielding, while Bomi and Minji scribbled oblivious patterns on the chalkboard propped against the schoolhouse wall. The morning inched along, Jeongguk gliding through the routine without a snag. By noon, that tell-tale sweat soaked the neckline of his shirt, the damp fabric molding to the flex of his shoulders and back as he labored on. He no longer seemed like some feral find dragged from a roadside shelter; instead, he blended in, head bowed, hands occupied—a quiet reliability that might have swayed hearts in softer times. The branded scar on his shoulder still drew sidelong stares, but the instinctive recoils had faded, replaced by wary tolerance.

Jeongguk continued to work under watch, Jimin’s stare boring into his spine or Taehyung’s form a constant echo at his flank. He remained constant, voice low when he spoke at all. Over the next few days, the shift crept in unbidden, too swift for Jimin’s liking. It surfaced in quiet ways.

Questions veered toward Jeongguk first now, bypassing the old habits. Laughter no longer hinged on Jimin’s nod of approval. Jihoon abandoned Taehyung’s shadow during a lull in chores to shadow the newcomer instead, his queries flying like sparrows scattering from a bush.

“Is this the strongest you’ve ever been? What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever picked up?”

Jeongguk paused, his gaze flicking toward the boy with a hint of amusement softening the hard lines of his face. He indulged him that once—gripping the rim of a brimming water barrel and swinging it aloft with a single arm, the motion fluid and unstrained, as if the heavy load weighed no more than a sack of feathers. He held it steady for a beat, then lowered it back with the same measured precision, the water inside sloshing gently but not spilling a single drop.

Jihoon’s shout split the yard like a crack of thunder. “He’s definitely stronger than Hoseok-samcheon!”

Hoseok snorted from his spot by the fence, the sound loud and rough enough to shatter the building tension, drawing a ripple of chuckles from the others. Jeongguk’s lips curved in response—a quick, startled smile that bordered on shy, unguarded in a way that caught the sunlight and made his eyes crinkle at the corners

That smile twisted something sharp in Jimin’s gut, ugly and hot all at once. Too real, too soft for a man like him. It made the whole yard feel lighter, like he was weaving himself into them without even trying. And Jimin  just watched, hating how it pulled at the edges of his control, stirring up wants he couldn’t afford.

By midweek, the sun beat down high and merciless, turning the air thick with heat as Mira and Byungho grappled with another stubborn fencepost. The wood resisted every push, refusing to settle straight into the earth. Byungho braced it against his shoulder, teeth gritted in frustration, but the beam wobbled stubbornly under the strain. Before either could call out for assistance, Jeongguk approached without a word, sliding one broad shoulder beneath the post like it was an extension of his own frame—steady as an anchor. Byungho hammered it home with rhythmic blows, the post finally locking into place with a satisfying thud. No grunts escaped Jeongguk, no flashy display—just raw power that left the task done and the air humming with quiet approval. 

Mira straightened, wiping sweat from her brow as she eyed him, muttering, “Show-off,” though the word carried no real bite, more curiosity than complaint. Byungho offered a curt nod of acknowledgment before trudging off to the next job.

A few days later, a sharp cry pierced the yard’s hum of activity. Minji had stumbled over a loose root, her basket tipping as beans scattered across the dusty ground like spilled marbles. Jeongguk was there in an instant—faster than Jimin could even process—scooping her small frame up with one arm while his free hand deftly gathered the spilled vegetables, cradling them against his side. Minji’s initial shock melted into a mixture of sniffles and bubbly giggles as she buried her face in his shoulder, her tiny fingers clutching at his shirt.

Sooyeon halted in the doorway, her posture snapping rigid, every muscle coiled like a spring ready to unleash. Jeongguk sensed the shift immediately, his movements stilling. He lowered Minji gently to the ground, brushed the dirt from her hair with careful fingers, and retreated a step, palms raised open and empty in a silent gesture of peace. Sooyeon's hand hovered near the rifle propped against the doorframe, her knuckles whitening as she tracked Jeongguk's every move. The yard fell into a hush, the only sound Minji's soft whimpers fading into sniffles as she clutched the hem of her dress, beans forgotten in the dust.

“Sorry,” he said quietly.

Sooyeon’s stare could’ve carved wood, but surprisingly, she didn’t rush to yank Minji away. That restraint burrowed into Jimin’s ribs as he observed from afar. He should’ve been the one close enough to catch her. He used to be. Instead, he just watched as Jeongguk waited, letting the moment stretch until Sooyeon exhaled sharply and turned away, muttering something under her breath about 'kids these days.'

Jimin’s jaw clicked tight. Strangers weren’t supposed to read this pack so quickly—the pauses heavy with unspoken warnings, the gaps where trust frayed like old rope. Jeongguk had no right to glide through their guarded spaces with such instinctive grace. But more concerning than that, it seemed as though the pack was already softening to a stranger with teeth sharp enough to tear them apart. Jeongguk was slipping through their defenses like water through cupped hands.

Another week slipped by, and the transformation etched itself too clearly for Jimin to ignore.

During one of their usual midday breaks, the pack ate in loose clusters under the forgiving shade of the trees, bowls of rice and greens cooling in their laps. Jeongguk sat alone in the shade, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. Byungho approached with heavy steps, dropping down beside him in silence and digging into his meal. The hush that settled between them carried no edge—only a companionable ease that spread outward like a subtle current. Murmurs stirred across the clearing: arched eyebrows, sidelong looks, a hush of intrigue blooming amid the ordinary. Areum, Hana, and Hyejin huddled close, their heads bent in conspiratorial huddles, stifled laughter bubbling behind cupped hands.

Jimin watched from the kitchen window as the space between Jeongguk and the pack shrunk inch by inch, suspicion loosening around the alpha with no ceremony or permission asked. His molars ground with relentless pressure, sending a dull pulse through his jaw, and the knot in his chest wasn’t from fear this time. It wasn’t anger either, not exactly. It felt more like watching a door close from the wrong side—quiet, final, and all too familiar. They were letting Jeongguk fold into their rhythm, and Jimin was still standing outside of it, teeth tight around every reason he’d built to keep the stranger at arm’s length.

Work itself changed. Loads moved faster, repairs finished sooner, meals hit the table earlier. The air carried a faint new ease, a lightness the pack hadn’t felt in months. They didn’t say it—they never did—but Jimin could see it plainly. One man was tilting their balance. What used to take three men now took just one.

And for the first time since the collapse, Jimin wondered—briefly, unwillingly—what use there was for a shield when there was no wall to shake.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Four weeks.

That was how long Jeon Jeongguk had been working their land. Long enough that the crunch of his boots on the gravel no longer made spines snap straight or hands twitch toward hidden knives. Long enough that his name rolled off tongues like a routine order, stripped of its edge.

At first, every task came clipped from Namjoon’s mouth, formal and measured, with Jimin’s rifle never far from Jeongguk’s back. But by the fourth week, the hesitation faded. No one paused for Namjoon's nod anymore. Minseok jabbed a finger at the splintered beams leaning against the barn wall, his grunt all the direction needed. Daehyun thrust a stack of rough-hewn lumber into Jeongguk's grip, the wood scraping against callused palms, before turning back to his own load without a backward glance. Hana caught his eye from across the sun-baked yard, her arm cutting through the dust-moted air as she hefted a crate of jars—“Take this to the barn?”—the words casual, woven into the rhythm of the day like they'd always been there.

Jeongguk never said no. He just nodded, muscles coiling under his shirt, and got to it.

Even the pups trailed him relentlessly—Jihoon bounding up at dawn's first light, eyes wide with that endless challenge, shoving a rusted barbell or a feed sack heavier than yesterday into Jeongguk's path, breath hitching as he waited for the effortless lift. Minji's laughter bubbled up sharp and bright when he'd scoop her onto his broad shoulders for a swaying ride, her small hands fisting his hair, only for Jimin's sharp commands to cut through the moment, his voice laced with that old, firm edge. And Sooyeon—once her gaze had burned like embers, watching him from the porch with fists clenched at her sides—now passed him woven baskets brimming with fresh-pulled roots or the cool heft of iron tools, her fingers brushing his in the exchange, steady and unremarkable as the turning soil.

The pack moved around him without comment, adjusting their rhythm the way water adjusts to a stone. The yard carried a subtle ease that Jimin didn’t trust—less strain on people's shoulders, fewer arguments over who would haul what and where. Suspicion hadn’t vanished completely, but it bent under the weight of convenience, reshaping itself into something quieter.

Useful, Jimin thought grimly. That was how it always started.

He sank into the tub with a controlled exhale, the warm water lapping high against his ribs, steam curling up to fog the edges of his vision. His muscles protested as they always did once he stopped moving, a deep ache blooming in his shoulders and back now that the day had paused long enough to let it surface. He had just closed his eyes, letting the heat seep into his bones, when the door creaked open on its rusty hinges.

“Sorry,” Hoseok said. “Didn’t know you were in here.”

Jimin’s eyes snapped open, water dripping from his lashes as he straightened slightly, the surface rippling around him.

Hoseok stood half in the doorway, a dented metal bucket hooked over one arm, sloshing faintly with soapy water. Jeongguk loomed just behind him, his dark hair pulled back into a loose knot at the nape of his neck, sleeves rolled up to expose corded forearms dusted with faint scars. The air seemed to thicken with their entry, carrying the faint scent of sweat and earth from the yard.

Everything in Jimin went tense, his fingers curling against the tub’s slick metal edge.

“What,” Jimin paused, eyes darting back and forth between the two men, “is he doing here?”

Hoseok shifted his grip on the bucket, the metal clinking softly. “Namjoon wants the bathhouse scrubbed. Apparently the drain’s backing up again—clogged with hair and grime—you know, yucky shit.”

Jimin’s gaze cut to Jeongguk. The man’s eyes dropped immediately to the worn floorboards, posture respectful, shoulders squared like he was bracing for orders.

“I can wait,” Jeongguk said, his tone flat, devoid of edge or challenge.

Jimin studied him for a beat, then looked back to Hoseok. “But Namjoon won’t, will he?”

Hoseok hesitated, his expression twisting with apology, brows knitting together before he nodded once. “I’ll supervise. Keep things... straightforward.”

Jimin sank a fraction lower in the tub, the warm water rising to lap against his collarbones, soothing the taut lines of his neck. “Fine.” He turned his gaze to Jeongguk, narrowing his eyes into slits of warning. 

“Scrub the walls too. But, start on the main drain first, and don’t speak.”

“Okay,” Jeongguk said immediately.

He moved with silent precision, snatching up the stiff-bristled brush from the corner and dropping to his knees beside the drain. His broad shoulders flexed under the thin fabric of his shirt as he worked, efficient and methodical, his focus locked on the grimy tiles like they demanded his full attention. The scent of lye soap mingled with the earthy tang of his sweat, cutting through the steam. Minutes ticked by in the scrape of bristles against stone and the soft gurgle of water swirling down the pipe. Jimin let his eyelids drift half-shut, tension easing from his limbs by the barest degree. This was manageable—controlled, even. Jeongguk reduced to nothing but raw labor and compliance, a tool in his hands, precisely where Jimin wanted him.

The rhythmic scrape of the brush blended with the gentle slosh of water in the tub, while Hoseok lingered near the doorway, humming a tuneless melody under his breath. The sounds wove together into a deceptive calm, almost hypnotic, pulling at memories Jimin shoved aside— late nights in cramped barracks, Taehyung shoving an earbud into his ear with a grin, whispering about how the whispers and taps would chase away the insomnia. It had worked, sometimes, in the quiet dark. Then Seokjin’s voice sliced through the steam from the yard outside, sharp and insistent.

“Hoseok! I need you—now please!”

Hoseok let out a long-suffering groan, but color bloomed at the tips of his ears, already tinting red at the sound of the beta’s voice. “Of course you do.” He flicked a quick glance between the two of them, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “Will you two be…”

Jimin cut him off with a lazy wave of his hand, water droplets scattering from his fingertips. “Go on, Hoseok-hyung. Your prince awaits.”

“I’ll be right back. Don’t kill Jeongguk, he’s actually useful sometimes.”

The door clicked shut behind him, sealing the space in sudden, weighted silence. The room shifted, the air growing denser, pressing against Jimin’s skin like an unspoken promise. It settled low in his chest, heavy and off-kilter, like the prelude to a storm he could feel brewing in his veins. He cracked open his eyes, one by one. Jeongguk wasn’t staring at the floor anymore. His dark eyes fixed on Jimin now, steady and unblinking, but not leering. His gaze was intense, as if he’d claimed the right to look his fill. 

Heat prickled along Jimin’s skin, his breath snagging in his throat. Instinct surged through him, clawing up from his core, fierce and unrelenting. His fingers shot forward, wrapping around the rifle's cooled barrel where it leaned against the tub's side. He lifted it slowly, laying it across the basin's rim like a drawn line in the sand—a silent warning etched in steel, barrels aligned toward the alpha who dared to hold his gaze.

Irritation spiked fast, white and vicious.

“Eyes down,” Jimin snapped.

Jeongguk yielded without protest. His gaze dropped at once. Something flickered across his face before he looked away—too sharp to be an apology, but too calm to be fear. Jimin felt it anyway, lodged under his skin. This was too much. He then stood abruptly, water sloshing over the edge of the tub as he reached for a towel. His body burned, the vapor now suffocating, heavy as chains.

“I’m done,” he said flatly. “Hurry up and finish your job.”

He didn’t wait for a response, nor did he spare the alpha a single glance. Because he knew—knew—that if he did, Jeongguk would still be watching. And worse, that his body would awaken to that gaze, traitorous and alive.

The days that followed looked ordinary enough. Jeongguk kept working from first light until the sun bled into dusk, and no threats pierced the quiet. In retrospect, that very peace should have raised the flags. Jimin had noticed the faint slump in Jeongguk's posture during those unguarded moments, the rough catches in his breathing after hauling crates under the scorching midday sun. But he dismissed it. The man had endured half a dozen years in isolation—he'd bear this load as well.

That's what made the unnatural quiet so jarring when Jimin approached the shed. Usually, even before the bolt slid open, he’d hear movement—the scrape of boots, water pouring into a basin, the steady rhythm of a man ready before dawn and waiting for orders. This evening, only dead air greeted him. Jimin's brow furrowed as he drew the bolt and shoved the door open.

“Back,” Jimin barked out of habit. The reply came late and sluggish.

“…I’m back.”

The door swung inward.

Jeongguk was perched on the edge of the cot, right where they'd left him after he’d finished his chores for the day, his shoulders curved inward, the blanket tangled around his waist as if he'd lacked the energy to shrug it aside. In the dim lantern glow, his face seemed ashen, dark hollows pooling under his eyes like fresh bruises. When he lifted his head, his stare drifted, struggling to lock onto Jimin.

“On your feet,” Jimin commanded, his tone edged with steel to mask the knot tightening in his stomach.

No movement.

Jeongguk's fingers twitched against his thighs, then went limp. His lips parted, but all that escaped was a shallow, stuttering exhale. Jimin's rifle snapped up in a blur, his shout slicing through the stillness.

“Namjoon! Jiwon!”

Boots thundered across the yard. Namjoon burst in first, pushing his glasses higher on his nose as he knelt swiftly. Jiwon was right behind, yanking on her gloves, her med kit slamming against the shed wall.

"What is it?" Namjoon demanded, eyes scanning.

“He won’t stand,” Jimin said, the words coming out clipped and wrong. “He’s not responding.”

"Jeongguk, can you hear me?" Jiwon asked, edging forward to assess him.

"He's turning," Jimin growled through clenched teeth.

Jiwon moved in close, her fingers probing his wrist for a pulse, then tilting his chin to check his eyes and the sheen of his skin. "No fever," she reported quietly. "Heart rate's elevated, but stable. He's definitely washed out, but he’s not sweating through."

Namjoon fitted the stethoscope to Jeongguk's torso, his focus intense as he listened far longer than Jimin could stomach. At last, he rose, releasing a slow breath.

“He’s not turning, Jimin,” Namjoon said as he exhaled. “He’s exhausted.”

“Dangerously so,” Jiwon added without looking up.

Jimin let out a harsh scoff, his defenses flaring. "Exhausted? He's pulled the same shifts as the rest of us."

Namjoon's eyes met his steadily. "Has he, though?"

Jimin's hold on the rifle loosened, the barrel dropping slightly. On the cot, Jeongguk's eyelids fluttered in a slow blink. "I can push on," he murmured. The words barely made it past his lips, stubborn even now.

"No chance," Jiwon snapped, her voice brooking no debate. "You're done. Rest up, or your system will force you down harder." She tugged the blanket snug over his shoulders, then dug into her kit for a canteen.

She pivoted to Jimin. “He’s obviously dehydrated and overworked. All he needs right now is fluids and sleep.”

Jimin's gut still twisted with warnings—screamed shoot-before-it’s-too-late. But as Jiwon cradled Jeongguk's jaw and trickled water into his mouth, he gulped it down eagerly, water spilling down his chin—desperate, human. Mrs. Han appeared in the doorway then, her steps steady despite the tension in the shed. A covered bowl steamed in her hands. 

"Cold slop won't cut it for him. He requires proper nourishment."

"Mrs. Han—" Jimin started.

She cut him off with a look that brooked no argument. “I was your age when I lost my pup. I’d overworked myself because I thought work was more important than preserving strength. I refuse to watch him harm himself doing the same.”

She set the bowl in Jeongguk’s lap and pressed the spoon into his hand. His fingers trembled, but he ate—slow at first, then faster, as if hunger had finally caught up with him.

From outside, the evening tasks dragged on at a muted pace: axes biting wood in sporadic thuds, boxes landing with less frequency. The slowdown hung palpable, weighing on them all. Jimin’s rifle lowered completely at last, but his chest didn’t ease. Watching Jeongguk wrapped in blankets, spoon clinking against Mrs. Han’s bowl, he felt the unease shift again—away from suspicion, into something heavier. Because this was new, and perhaps even worse. Now they’d seen it—not just what Jeongguk could do, but what it cost to not have him.

The next day crawled by in a rhythm that grated on everyone's nerves. Without Jeongguk lugging crates or steadying fence posts, the yard felt… lopsided, like a wheel missing a spoke. Hana, surprisingly, was the first to voice what everyone silently felt.

“Hold it—hold it—dammit, Byungho, you’re letting it tilt!” Mira snapped, wrestling a beam into place. Beads of sweat traced paths down her temple, her tools fumbling in clammy hands.

Byungho heaved beside her, boots digging grooves in the dirt. “I am holding it,” he grunted.

“Would’ve wrapped this up by now if—” Hana started as she strode past, only to swallow the rest of the sentence when Sooyeon shot her a look sharp enough to cut wood.

Sooyeon shifted Bomi higher on her hip, her mouth set in a firm line. “He's just one man,” she murmured, the edge in her voice softening unexpectedly. “We shouldn’t rely on one person that much.”

Mrs. Han, basket of herbs swinging from her arm as she walked by, let out a derisive huff. “Then perhaps we shouldn't have ridden him like a plow mule.”

Jimin lingered at the edge of the yard, eyes sweeping the treeline out of long-ingrained habit, but his focus kept snagging on the labored efforts behind him. The difference was impossible to miss. With the new alpha here, there were fewer arguments, fewer inefficiencies… fewer people shouting his name for help.It was odd how one absent figure laid bare the invisible load Jimin had shouldered for years, unnamed and unrelenting. Stranger still, how effortlessly Jeongguk had filled those voids without a word. Jimin resented the faint ease uncoiling in his gut, even as it twisted into a sharp, acrid knot.

If there was less for him to hold, less for him to solve… what role remained for him?

The group flowed past him, around him, not from neglect but because—for the first time in ages—they weren't tethered to his every step. And that unsettled him more than any danger outside the fence.

Under the porch's shadow, Hoseok propped himself against the railing, watching the sluggish rhythm of the yard. “You feel it?” he asked, not looking at anyone in particular. “The drag. How everything takes longer now?”

Seokjin, arms plunged into soapy water scrubbing cookware nearby, grunted. “I feel it in my back. That boy hauled like he was built differently—superhuman endurance or something.”

Namjoon’s eyes roamed the yard from his spot by the steps, clipboard clutched loosely in one hand, its purpose momentarily abandoned. His tone dipped lower than usual, laced with that familiar pensiveness. “He’s endured alone for years. Likely locked in survival instinct longer than the rest of us could imagine. No surprise he labors as if pausing means the earth will swallow him whole.”

No one pushed back against his words, and that silence stung worse than dissent. The unease rippled outward, and Jimin could see it on their faces—acknowledgment, guilt, and something else none of them could name just yet.

Jimin caught fragments of the exchange as he patrolled the perimeter, thumb looped through the rifle sling. He squinted into the glare of the sun, refusing to weave into the conversation, yet the truth burrowed into him like silt in a riverbed. He’d witnessed it firsthand—Jeongguk grinding through fatigue as if stillness was an unaffordable luxury. Rest was something Jeongguk took like he expected someone to snatch it away, and perhaps it’d been a bit harsh of Jimin not to offer that mercy to the alpha sooner. 

That night, the shed’s lantern flickered with a subdued glow. Mrs. Han delivered the bowl personally, setting it in Jeongguk’s lap with a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Eat slowly,” she told him. “You’re not in the ruins anymore—you don’t have to choke it down like something’s waiting to steal it.”

From the doorway, Jimin watched with his arms crossed, a silent guard. But when Jeongguk obeyed, chewing slower this time, some of the knots in the yard seemed to loosen with him. The murmurs among the others had shifted, carrying a softer edge.

The kitchen lay shrouded in twilight when Jimin stepped inside, the lantern’s fuel waning, the aroma of simmered grains and brined vegetables lingering in the beams overhead. Namjoon hunched over a notepad, pencil drumming against stubborn calculations. Opposite him, Seokjin planted his forearms on the battered tabletop, his voice worn thin.

“We salvaged a few seeds, but it’s looking like slim pickings. Half are rotten through, the others barely viable. Another bad crop, and we’re staring down the barrel.”

Namjoon’s frown deepened. “Then we need more, soon. It’ll have to be a longer run—stores, depots, anything still standing.”

Seokjin dragged a hand over his face. “Every damn scavenger within fifty miles has picked those bones clean. You’ll be sending them into ruin for some measly scraps.”

“Scraps,” Namjoon said, shutting the ledger with a snap, “might be what gets us through winter.”

The quiet lingered, interrupted solely by the subtle groan of wooden beams settling under the evening breeze. At last, Seokjin shoved away from the table. “You’re asking them to risk everything again. Just…make it count.” He left without another word, the door sighing closed behind him.

Hoseok, lingering in the doorway with his arms folded, caught Jimin’s eye from where he sat in the shadows of the living room. Moments later, as Namjoon emerged with his notes secured beneath one elbow, Hoseok traversed the space and halted next to Jimin.

“Another run,” he murmured, keeping his voice low. “You heard.”

Jimin nodded.

Hoseok studied him intently, then added in a subdued tone, “You’re already thinking about it.”

Jimin’s head lifted. “Thinking about what?”

“That he’d be useful.” Hoseok’s expression remained serious. “Jeongguk. If we’re heading back into the city’s bones, wouldn’t you rather have him up front than stacking wood here?”

The silence stretched. Jimin’s jaw tightened.

“He’s not part of the pack,” Jimin said at last, getting up to leave.

“Not yet, but he’s busting his ass to be,” Hoseok replied softly.

Moonlight draped the fields in silver once the farmhouse went quiet. Jimin didn’t follow it. He slipped out barefoot into the yard, rifle slung by habit, the night air cool against his skin. 

He walked the perimeter slowly, feet scuffing the dirt, every step meant to bleed off the restless churn in his chest. Hoseok’s voice still echoed. You’re already thinking about it. He hadn’t denied it—he couldn’t. He wasn’t blind. Jeongguk’s presence changed their small commune. A mere month in, and the rhythm of their days had shifted, undeniably. Fewer shoulders sagged by dusk. People laughed more and breathed more easily. All because one stranger carried more than his share. Only now, with Jeongguk sidelined, did the absence show itself—tight and aching, like a muscle pulled too far.

Jimin stopped at the east fence,his fingers tightening around the cold chain-links until the rough edges bit into his palms. The metal hummed faintly under the pressure, a low vibration that mirrored the unease coiling in his gut. His eyes drifted upward to the shed, where the lantern's warm glow seeped through the cracks in the weathered boards, casting elongated shadows that danced like wary sentinels. Jeongguk's silhouette passed across the light once more, moving with a deliberate slowness—pacing, perhaps, or simply unable to settle, mirroring the restlessness gnawing at Jimin's own edges.

The memory of the bite ignited in Jimin's mind unbidden, sharp and insistent, pulling him back to that chaotic day four weeks ago. It shouldn't have healed like that: the wound sealing over with clean, white-scarred tissue instead of festering into the foul reek of decay that haunted every other bite victim. Namjoon had examined it under the dim light of their makeshift clinic, his brow furrowed in that thoughtful way of his, declaring it stable—a mutation, not the infection's usual rot. Immunity, he'd ventured, a rare defiance of the rules that had rewritten their world. Jimin had scoffed then, labeling it impossible. And impossible things stayed buried in the realm of desperate hopes, not harsh realities.

He squeezed the fence harder, the links groaning in protest as if echoing his internal war. For weeks, he'd clung to the grim certainty that Namjoon might be mistaken—that this so-called stability was merely a prolonged illusion, a slower burn toward the inevitable turn. Every moment Jeongguk lingered among them felt like tempting fate, housing a potential bomb in their fragile sanctuary, its fuse invisible but ever-present. Yet now, watching the steady rhythm of that shadow, Jimin couldn't ignore the evidence stacking against his doubts. Jeongguk hadn't faltered beyond exhaustion—he'd shouldered burdens that would have broken others, his strength unyielding, his presence weaving subtly into the fabric of their daily grind. The man was proving Namjoon's theory, bit by stubborn bit. And sooner or later, Jimin would have to accept Jeongguk as a new pack member whether he wanted to or not.

A shiver traced Jimin's spine, unrelated to the night's deepening chill that carried whispers of distant wind through the fields. He wrenched his gaze from the shed and turned sharply, stalking back toward the farmhouse. The rifle dug into his shoulder like an anchor, its weight a familiar reminder of duties that remained unfinished. Sleep eluded him tonight, as it had so many nights before, but rest was a luxury for safer times.

Vigilance, though—that unyielding watch he'd honed through years of loss and scrapes—remained his constant ally. It had shielded them through raids and close calls, and it wouldn't fail him now, not with so much hanging on the line.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The dining room was already awake the following morning—chairs scraping softly across the floor, low voices overlapping, the steady clink of spoons against ceramic. Morning light slid in through the narrow blinds, catching on chipped bowls and the dull shine of worn cutlery. The pups—sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired—rubbed the remnants of sleep from their faces, their small shoulders brushing in easy familiarity as they ate. A burst of laughter erupted from one end of the table, too cheerful for the hour, only to be swiftly quelled by a neighboring hush, the sound fading into the group's ingrained caution.

Then Jeongguk stepped into the doorway, and the rhythm thinned—stretched tight, like a thread pulled just shy of snapping. He looked better. The color had returned to his skin, the feverish-looking sheen was gone—but weariness etched him still, softening the sharp lines of his jaw and pulling at the corners of his eyes. His dark hair hung damp and tousled from a hurried basin wash in the yard pump, droplets tracing faint paths down his neck before vanishing into the collar of his loose flannel shirt. The wool blanket from the shed draped unevenly over his shoulders like a misshapen cloak. He appeared like a stranger again, but less ghostly than yesterday.

He stood there a beat too long, Jeongguk’s hesitation flickering across his features, before stepping fully inside. The pack’s conversations trailed off mid-sentence, spoons hovering mid-scrape against bowl rims, the metallic ting ceasing abruptly. Eyes lifted—not with the wary sharpness of confrontation, nor the braced readiness for threat, but with a quiet, probing curiosity, as if each gaze needed to trace the steady rise and fall of his chest to believe yesterday had actually happened.

Minji, perched on Sooyeon’s hip with her tiny fingers tangled in the fabric of her mother’s shirt, was the first to break the hush. She pointed, voice high and pleased. “He’s not sick anymore! Look, he's all better!”

Her voice rang too bright for the quiet that had settled. Sooyeon pressed a gentle hand to Minji's back, murmuring a soft shush, but there was no real reprimand in it. No fear, either, for that matter. Just wary hope. Across the table, Byungho paused with his spoon halfway to his lips, his broad shoulders hunched over his meal. He grunted, a low rumble from deep in his chest, before shoveling another lump of the gluey porridge into his mouth, chewing methodically.

“Good,” he muttered around the bite, eyes fixed downward on his bowl as if the scarred wood held more interest than the man in the doorway. “Fence won’t mend itself out there.” A smattering of chuckles followed, hesitant at first, then warming into something genuine, rippling along the length of the table.

Mira, seated midway down with her tool belt slung low over one thigh—still dusted with sawdust from the pre-dawn repairs she'd tackled—glanced up with a wry smirk curling her lips. She stirred her porridge idly, the spoon clinking softly. “Don’t act like you weren’t pacing the yard last night, oppa, waiting for news,” she teased, her voice pitched low but softened now by the relief threading through the room.

Jimin followed a step behind Jeongguk, rifle slung, expression unreadable. But inside, something twisted. Relief slithered in uninvited at the sight of Jeongguk moving without sway, his steps measured but sure, the blanket no longer a crutch but a simple shield against the draft. Jimin recoiled from the feeling instinctively as it grated against his resolve. The pack couldn't afford to soften around Jeongguk, to let one man's recovery erode the walls they'd built. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Jeongguk's presence still carried the echo of that impossible bite, the mutation that Namjoon swore was a gift rather than a curse, and Jimin's instincts snarled at the vulnerability of trust.

Jeongguk didn’t dare approach the heart of the table, where the core group clustered in their unspoken hierarchy. Instead, he eased into a chair nearer the edge, his broad shoulders folding inward slightly, posture compacted as if bracing for rejection or the sharp command to step back. The seat creaked under him, a familiar groan in the old wood. His rations waited there already, portioned out by Seokjin. A shallow bowl of watery potato porridge, flecked with bits of wilted greens scavenged from the greenhouse edges, accompanied by a thin sliver of salted radish that gleamed faintly under the light. Standard fare, no favors extended. He curled his callused hands around the warm ceramic, knuckles whitening briefly as the heat seeped into his skin, grounding him amid the subtle scrutiny.

Then it happened, unannounced and out of character for the man who rationed every morsel with the precision of a quartermaster.

Seokjin—who never shared his food unless it was with the pups—forked half a boiled potato—plump and rare in their stores, its skin still faintly steamed—from his portion and deposited it onto Jeongguk's bowl with a quiet clink. He didn't lift his gaze, just kept methodically scraping the last of his porridge, his voice emerging flat and matter-of-fact, laced with the dry edge of someone stating the obvious.

“Eat. You've got work ahead if you're not planning to laze the day away.”

The weight of it hit heavier than the potato itself. Hana glanced away before she could be caught smiling. Even Mrs. Han paused with her teacup halfway to her lips, watching with a faintly approving tilt of her head. Jeongguk blinked, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face—wide eyes darting from the added food to Seokjin—before he dipped his chin in a small, measured acknowledgment.

“Thank you,” he murmured, the words scraping low and unused from his throat, roughened by disuse and the weight of unexpected kindness.

Jimin sucked in a sharp breath. The air felt too warm suddenly, too tight around him. Seokjin's food-sharing was as close to a sacred rite as this battered house offered—a wordless seal of acceptance that everyone at the table acknowledged without question. Breakfast resumed, quieter than before. The conversations skimmed along the benches like tentative probes, testing the new boundaries. After a few minutes, Namjoon cleared his throat, the sound cutting through the murmur, drawing every head his way in an instant.

“Once you’ve eaten, Jeongguk,” he said, “you’ll take on what tasks you can manage. Later, Jiwon and I will need you in the lab. Jimin, you'll come with us as well.”

Jeongguk's brows drew together in a faint furrow, curiosity mingling with wariness, but he offered only a single, firm nod, his shoulders holding steady under the blanket's drape. Jimin kept his face still, but tension coiled deep, thickening like smoke. He recognized it now—the undercurrent he’d been fighting since dawn. The pack was officially making room for Jeongguk. Space opened where there hadn’t been any before, and every inch they gave Jeongguk was an inch Jimin felt slipping from beneath his own feet. They had felt Jeongguk’s absence. Now they felt his presence just as sharply, and Jimin was no longer the only pillar holding the room upright.

Breakfast wound down slowly, bowls emptying one by one as the morning hum returned—chairs scraping, spoons clinking, someone calling for more hot water near the stove. 

Breakfast ebbed gradually, bowls scraping clean as the morning's cadence reasserted itself—chairs shifting with soft protests against the floorboards, spoons tinkling faintly, a call for fresh hot water drifting toward the stove where steam still curled from the kettle. Namjoon stood from his place at the table's head, tucking away his scribbled notes into a worn satchel and tipping a brief, encouraging nod toward Jeongguk. “Everyone,” he said. “Let’s get through another day.”

Jimin pushed away from the table, and followed everyone into the yard. The hours unspooled in a haze of unease, the day stretching taut and unfamiliar under the relentless sun. Jeongguk remained in sight at all times—kept to light duties, benched on a crate near the tool shed with a canteen pressed into his hand more often than not, assigned to sorting seeds or mending straps that demanded focus over strain. Jiwon circled back for another check as shadows lengthened toward evening, her hands probing gently at his pulse and temperature, while Namjoon lingered nearby, his eyes tracking the even cadence of Jeongguk's inhalations, the steady flush returning to his skin.

Jimin tried to return to routine. Patrolling, working on the fence line, and sweeping the orchard perimeter. None of it grounded him, the motions hollow against the churn in his mind. Each pass near Jeongguk's workstation pulled his attention like a tether, ears straining for irregular steps, a suppressed cough, or the drag of prolonged quiet that might signal relapse. By the time the afternoon waned, the yard's bustle had slowed to a languid crawl. 

When the sun finally sank behind the treeline, painting the sky in bruised oranges and purples, lanterns flickered to life one by one across the compound—and the tension, instead of fading with the light, seemed to thicken. 

Jimin brought up the rear as Namjoon and Jiwon guided Jeongguk toward the lab, their footsteps echoing softly on the packed dirt path leading to the house's underbelly. The lab was little more than a repurposed stone-walled chamber branching off the cellar stairs, its rough-hewn walls lined with salvaged shelving and scarred workbenches cluttered by jars of murky solutions and faded labels. Scavenged cabinets stood sentinel along one side, doors ajar to reveal stacked tins of preserved odds and ends, while dented metal trays bore the scars of repeated use. The air hung perpetually chill, laced with the sharp tang of alcohol swabs and the deeper, earthy chill of stone that no amount of body heat or flame could fully dispel—a remnant of its original purpose as a root cellar for potatoes and casks of homemade wine.

A lone lantern swayed from its hook in the low ceiling, the flame's glow dancing across the precise lineup of instruments that Jiwon and Namjoon had arranged on the scarred wooden surface. Slim syringes lay in a glinting row, flanked by fluffy wads of cotton, rows of sealed glass vials shimmering with captured light, and a weathered stethoscope whose rubber tubing had cracked but endured through the chaos of the last six years. Jeongguk sat on the table’s edge, trying for a straight-backed posture and failing. His gaze darted methodically over each tool, assessing them as if they were concealed weapons in unfamiliar hands.

“Vitals first,” Jiwon said, making her way around the table to Jeongguk. She slipped the cuff around his arm, squeezing the bulb until the gauge quivered.

“Blood pressure’s decent,” she murmured, listening, then glanced up with the faintest of a smile. “Haven’t felt this much like an ER doctor in years.”

Namjoon gave a small huff through his nose. “Well, isn’t this quite the red-carpet comeback, yeah?”

“Mm,” Jiwon hummed, jotting the numbers down on a scrap of paper. She pressed cool fingers against Jeongguk’s wrist, counting under her breath, then tilted his jaw upward with gentle precision to inspect his pupils with a small flashlight. “Responsive, and much stronger today. Better than last night.”

Jeongguk stayed silent through it all, his attention shifting uneasily between the coiled stethoscope and the cluster of syringes poised nearby.

Namjoon adjusted his glasses with a nudge from his knuckle, his tone level and unhurried. “Next, we’ll need a blood draw. Just two vials.”

That was when Jeongguk finally spoke—or rather, breathed the words out.

“…Can he stand closer?”

Jiwon blinked in confusion before her eyebrows arched high in realization. Namjoon's eyes snapped toward Jimin, who leaned against the far wall.

Jimin’s arms uncrossed, his mouth already twisting. “Why the hell would I—”

His words halted as he caught the intensity in Namjoon's stare—composed on the surface, yet laced with something sharper—a plea, silent and firm. Keep him calm. Keep this controlled. Don’t make this harder for everyone. The protest caught in Jimin’s throat. He ground his teeth, then shoved off the wall, his boots scraping harshly over the uneven stone.

“Fine,” he grumbled under his breath. “But don’t expect me to hold your hand.”

Jeongguk offered no reply. Jimin positioned himself at Jeongguk's side—close, but without contact, their shoulders hovering just shy of touching. Jeongguk leaned a little closer and  inhaled once, slowly, the tension in his jaw easing a fraction. His eyelids fluttered down as he took another measured inhale, then pivoted his attention back to Jiwon. Jimin willed away the unwelcome warmth creeping along his skin.

“It won’t take but a few seconds.” Jiwon assured, swabbing the inside of Jeongguk's elbow with a chilled pad of cotton. She pierced the skin with the needle in one fluid motion, the dark flow of blood surging into the first vial without resistance. Jeongguk's biceps flexed, veins standing out, but he held steady. His breaths synced to Jimin's presence—deep, even pulls that anchored him through the draw until the second vial brimmed full.

“Done,” Jiwon said, pulling the needle free and pressing cotton against the crook of his elbow. “Not bad for a man who doesn’t like needles.” She leans over a little, glancing at his right arm. “Though it’ll never make sense to me considering you’ve got an arm covered in tattoos.”

“Just trying to keep the juxtaposition alive and well,” Jeongguk sighed, a faint smile on his lips.

Namjoon stoppered the vials with a satisfaction he tried and failed to hide as he held them up to the lamp light. “We’ll store them here in the cold cellar for now. Stable temperatures, but we’ll need to add more ice through winter.”

Jeongguk released a breath, eyes flicking briefly to Jimin, as if checking whether he’d stepped too close or too far. Jimin stepped back abruptly, the motion sharp like recoiling from flame.

“You’ve got what you need,” he said curtly, striding toward the exit, craving open space, fresh air, anything.

Namjoon caught him there, his voice dropping to a confidential murmur. “He trains with you from now on. Hand-to-hand first. After what we’ve seen, he needs some skill sharpening, and I trust no one else to do it but you.”

Jimin’s pulse knocked hard in his throat, but the refusal died before it formed. He only gave a curt nod and stepped out, the lantern light cutting his shadow sharp across the hall. Jimin left the cellar, the door swinging shut on Namjoon’s faint voice and Jiwon’s efficient clatter. The air felt colder than usual, brushing damp against Jimin’s skin as he stepped out into the courtyard. Above ground, dusk had draped the settlement in a hushed veil—horses snorting wearily as they plodded from the fields toward the barn, the younger ones grumbling as calls herded them inside, and smoke drifting in thin ribbons from the slowly dwindling cooking fire.

Train him. Namjoon hadn’t asked—it had been an order wrapped in calm reasoning. As if Jeongguk were simply another recruit. As if Jimin hadn’t spent an entire month waiting for a crack, a twitch, a sign of hidden intentions and a heart threaded with nothing but rot. He stopped near the grain shed, leaning a forearm against the wooden frame. He hadn’t said no—he couldn’t say no. Not when Namjoon’s logic was ironclad. Jeongguk needed sharpening, and Jimin was the blade they all trusted to hone it.

Still, the thought of it grated. Training the others had always been done out of pure necessity. He loathed the purple blooms of bruises on Hana's forearms from his grapples, despised how Sooyeon's frame quivered once he'd pinned her in practice. Omegas deserved the tools to shield themselves, proved they could wield them fiercely—but Jimin never enjoyed being the one to break them down in order to build that strength. This would be different. Jeongguk wasn’t fragile. He was built like a weapon already, strength stitched into every line of him. And maybe, Jimin admitted to himself with a bitterness that tasted too much like anticipation, it would feel good to knock him flat. To remind the pack—and for his own doubts—that raw power was useless if it lacked discipline.

Jimin lingered, gaze tracking as Namjoon guided Jeongguk from the cellar toward his shed. The pistol he carried was tucked into his waistband, making Jimin chuckle lightly to himself. He doesn’t know why Namjoon insists on carrying it—Namjoon had never drawn the thing in all their time together. Nor did Jeongguk appear to unsettle him enough to consider it now. Perhaps Jeongguk wasn’t a monster today, and maybe not tomorrow either. Just a man who’d worked himself to collapse because no one told him when to stop.

Jimin hated that he noticed. He hated even more that a part of him—a small, raw part he’d buried years ago—felt something almost like… pity. Immune or not, Jeongguk was a variable. And now he was Jimin’s to shape, sharpen, and break down until they knew exactly what kind of threat he was…or wasn’t.

The thought settled heavy in his gut as he turned back toward the farmhouse. Tomorrow, he’ll start. Tomorrow, he’ll strip the arrogance out of that stance and see if Jeon Jeongguk could fight to survive.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The dawn arrived muted and crisp, a thin veil of mist hugging the earth across the sprawling fields. Jimin waited by the porch steps. He stood with his arms folded, weight balanced forward on the balls of his feet, and posture set for movement rather than rest. Jeongguk crossed the yard toward him, shoulders squared despite the exhaustion still lingering from the night before. When he spotted Jimin, something passed across his mouth—almost a smile, pulled tight at the edges.

“Training?” he asked. The word was casual, but there was tension under it, like he wasn’t sure whether he was walking toward instruction or his judgment day.

“Don’t make it sound like recess,” Jimin replied curtly, shoving away from the porch railing. “Follow me.”

They walked across the dew-damp grass in silence. Jeongguk walked half a step behind him, as if he was unwilling to match him exactly—deference, or wariness, Jimin couldn’t tell.

“So, why you?” the alpha asked, breaking the quiet.

Jimin didn’t look over. “What?”

“Why are you the one training me? Hoseok-ssi could’ve done it, or even Taehyung-ssi. But Namjoon-ssi sent me to you.”

“Because I’m better than them at combat,” Jimin said. “But do not take that as an invitation to test them.”

Jeongguk hummed. “That answer sounds rehearsed.”

Jimin’s jaw flexed.

“How long did you serve?” Jeongguk continued, stealing a sidelong look. “Before everything went to shit, I mean. Because you move like—”

Jimin cut in, eyes still forward. “You trying to build a profile on me?”

That drew a grin out of Jeongguk, sharp and amused. “Maybe. Gotta know what I’m up against in training, don’t I?”

“You’re up against someone who doesn’t care if you end up flat on your back by the end of it. That’s all you need to know.”

Jeongguk’s grin widened, teeth catching in the morning light. “Sounds like fun.”

Jimin shot him a look then—quick and cutting, the kind that could’ve frozen a man in his tracks. Jeongguk only met it with his own, almost daring. When they reached the hard-packed dirt behind the goat shed, Jimin stopped abruptly. The dirt field that had seen every spar, every drill, every fight since the farm had learned the price of survival.

“Fun,” Jimin echoed, voice flat. “We’ll see.”

The air smelled of dirt, hay, and faint iron from the rusting tools stacked along the fence. Beyond the fence came the low clucking of chickens and the rhythm of axes biting wood, distant enough to make the space feel like its own little arena.

Jimin rolled his shoulders, loosening the stiffness from breakfast, and launched himself over the fence, planting himself in the dirt. His rifle wasn’t on him for once—left propped against one of the wooden poles—but his stance had the same coiled steadiness as if it were. He turned to Jeongguk as the alpha began to climb over.

“Is there, uh,” Jeongguk started as he lifted one leg over, “no gate in this ring?”

“Take that up with Byungho and his genius brother Daehyun,” Jimin huffed, shaking his limbs loose one last time.

“You know what, I’m not surprised.”

“Shoes off,” Jimin muttered, not really in the mood for any more chatting. More than anything, he was ready to put this man on his ass.

Jeongguk blinked. “Already?”

“Unless you want the dirt to fuck with your footing,” Jimin said. “Off.”

Jeongguk lingered for a beat, processing, then crouched to loosen the laces of his boots. Once he was barefoot on the cool earth, he bounced lightly on his heels, testing the dirt. He kept his arms loose, and his shoulders squared. It was clear that he was comfortable. 

“There it is,” Jimin muttered.

Jeongguk blinked. “There what is?”

“Your stance.” Jimin circled him, slow and assessing. “Your weight is centered, your footing is light and your guard is high, but your shoulder dips.” He tapped Jeongguk’s arm with two fingers. “Just from looking at you, I can tell you’ve got a boxing background.”

Jeongguk’s brows rose, surprised. “Impressive observation skills. But me being a boxer—that’s a problem?”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “Not when you’re fighting your average man. But ragers aren’t men anymore. They don’t break when you tag their jaw.”

He watched as Jeongguk rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his shoulders, fully exposing his arms now dusted with a warm, sun-bronzed glow—much different from when they’d originally found him. Jimin tried not to note how the golden tone complimented him well, the light playing off of his taut muscles, making them look almost inviting. 

Shit. No time for that.

“You don’t want points for style,” he continues, dismissing that fleeting thought. “You want them on the ground before they can get their teeth in you. That pretty stance won’t mean shit when one of them eats your hook and keeps coming.”

Something shifted in Jeongguk’s face—some mix of both defiance and challenge sparking in his eyes. “My boxing skills have kept me alive for six years.”

“Only ‘cause you haven’t come across anyone who could actually break you.” Jimin closed the distance, his shadow merging with Jeongguk’s. “That ends today.”

Jeongguk’s jaw flexed. “And you think you’ll be the one to show me how?”

Jimin’s mouth curved into a knowing smirk that felt more like the bare gleam of a knife. “You’ll learn fast, or you’ll eat dirt.”

Before Jeongguk could respond, Jimin snapped a kick into his shin. Not full force, but sharp enough to jar him off balance. Jeongguk staggered, eyes wide, and Jimin was already there—palm slamming flat into his chest, shoving him backward into the dirt. Dust puffed up in a thick cloud. Jeongguk hit the ground hard, breath leaving him in a grunt, eyes locking onto  Jimin with something that hovered between irritation and—God help him—interest.

“Rule one,” Jimin said, his foot pressing down on Jeongguk’s ribs for a beat before he pulled back. He didn’t offer a hand. “You’re never safe, not even for a second.”

Jeongguk groaned, pushing up on his palms. His teeth flashed in a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Holy shit,” he panted. “You like cheap shots, huh?”

“Oh come on, pretty boy, that wasn’t cheap.” Jimin shook his head, stance relaxed but ready, arms loose.

“Pretty boy?”

“Not a compliment at this very moment, so don’t think too much into it.”

“You’re the pretty one, Jimin-ssi,” Jeongguk muttered, finally standing up to face him. “And I don’t think pretty boys should throw cheap fucking shots.”

Jimin scoffed, closing in on the alpha. “You’re just blinded by your own arrogance if you think I’m gonna wait until you finish monologuing.”

Jeongguk lunged this time, fast and direct—a left feint into a right hook at Jimin’s jaw. He had speed and power, but not enough to catch him off-guard. Jimin caught his wrist mid-swing, used the momentum and twisted with the force before ramming his shoulder straight into Jeongguk’s chest. The alpha slammed into the dirt again, the impact shaking the nearby fence.

“Remember,” Jimin said as Jeongguk coughed dust. “You don’t fight to win, like this is some silly competition. You fight to end any threat as quickly as possible.”

A knot in Jimin’s chest loosened as he watched the alpha blink away his confusion.  Sparring the other omegas always meant restraint—careful hands, softened blows, gentling corrections with soft words so they didn’t walk away too bruised. Here with Jeongguk, he could strip all of that back. No gentleness or pulling back strength. Just straight power against power.

Jeongguk twisted to his knees, spitting grit, his smirk faint but still alive. “You really enjoy this, don’t you? Get some kind of high from it?”

Jimin ignored him. “Get up.”

Jeongguk jumped to his feet and swung again, quick jabs snapping out. One-two-three. Jimin blocked the first two, the third clipping Jimin’s jaw enough to sting. His head jerked to the side, and Jeongguk’s grin flashed full, like he’d won. It lasted only a breath, because Jimin ducked the next punch, hooked his foot behind Jeongguk’s ankle, and swept him flat onto his back. Jeongguk’s breath exploded out of him in a rough sound.

“Rule three,” Jimin said, crouching over him, palm pressed into his sternum. “The second you get cocky, you’re dead, you hear me?”

For a moment Jeongguk just lay there, chest heaving, fists curling uselessly in the dirt. Then the grin returned—tempered, but there. “Guess you’re not only capable of shooting after all.”

Jimin’s fingers flexed against his chest before he shoved off and stood, dust streaking his knees. “Is a smart-ass comment really necessary after each time I put you on your ass?”

“Is an alpha not allowed to at least try and spare his own dignity?”

Jimin rolled his eyes. It was clear that Jeongguk wasn’t taking this seriously enough, and that just made Jimin want to drill the lesson home harder.

“You can save what little you have left by actually fighting back.”

Jeongguk rolled to his side, slower now, likely winded from Jimin’s relentless assault. His chest rose and fell heavily, sweat mixing with the dirt on his skin. When he spoke, there was a knowing gleam in his eye.

“You’re holding back, Jimin-ssi.”

“If I weren’t, you wouldn’t be able to stand.”

That earned a short, sharp laugh. “But I’m the cocky one.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the silver of his lip ring catching sunlight. “Fine. Let’s go again.”

He came low this time, aiming to take out Jimin’s legs, quick and hard. Jimin turned, slammed his knee into Jeongguk’s side, and shoved him face-first into the dirt.

“Too open,” Jimin barked. “You leave gaps like that, and you die—yet again.”

Jeongguk snarled, hair falling into his eyes, and swung high and wild. Jimin blocked it, countered, and drove an elbow into his shoulder. Jeongguk staggered but caught himself, before swinging again recklessly. Jimin’s foot hit his thigh hard with a crack, dropping him to one knee with a sharp breath of pain.

“Come on, now,” Jimin growled, stepping close, voice low. “You should know that strength means nothing if you can’t control the ground beneath you.”

Jeongguk’s breath rattled, but he pushed back up, even slower this time. His fists were curled, and his jaw tight. He didn’t strike right away—he studied Jimin, like he was recalibrating. It finally seemed clear to him that this was not boxing at all. His stance was looser, more grounded.

“Better,” Jimin said, tone almost approving. As much fun—or at least fun-adjacent—Jimin was having fighting Jeongguk, he had to keep in mind the goal of their training. Jeongguk struck him as a quick learner though, so he didn’t expect to have to slow down any time soon.

They circled each other, eyes unwavering. More dust rose around their feet, sweat glistened along Jeongguk’s throat. He feigned right, then came in hard from the left. Jimin parried, shoved before countering, and drove him down again—only this time Jeongguk twisted mid-fall, rolling to his side instead of flat on his back. He scrambled up faster, sharper, eyes fierce.

A smile almost tugged at Jimin’s mouth. Almost.

“Good,” he said. “Again.”

Every time Jeongguk rose, Jimin was faster—shoulder slamming, foot sweeping, hand twisting him into the ground with practiced efficiency. Jeongguk readjusted over and over, but Jimin was built for this—every move etched into his bones. Crows cawed overhead. Goat bells tinkled. The distant thud of an axe marked each smack of flesh against soil.

By the time Hoseok shouted from the goat pen, “Jimin, don’t break him before lunch!” Jeongguk was panting hard, sweat slicking from his collar down his spine, dirt smeared across  his face.

A drier shout followed, Yoongi’s rasping from somewhere on the fence line. “If he cries, you’re on pup duty tonight.”

Jeongguk flushed, frustration mixing with determination, but Jimin didn’t even glance away. He pressed him down one more time, knee digging into the alpha’s ribs, eyes locked with his.

“I could bring any one of my people in here, and they’d put you flat on your ass just the same—even Sooyeon.” Jimin spat into the dirt, mere inches away from Jeongguk’s hand. “

So I leave you with one final rule.” 

“And that’s what, Jimin-ssi?” His name left Jeongguk’s mouth with a hiss, a clear sign that Jimin had humiliated him entirely. 

“You don’t fight fair. You strike hard, fast, and you don’t stop until they can’t rise again. That’s the only way you walk away from it.”

Jeongguk’s chest heaved, teeth flashing red with blood that dripped from his split lip. For a second he just laid there, pinned in the dirt, staring up at Jimin like he was seeing him clearly for the first time. Then he grinned, wide and unbroken. “Lesson learned.”

Dust clung to his lashes, his clothes clinging wetly to him, and every muscle howled from exhaustion—but his eyes burned with something fierce. Jimin straightened and stepped back, breath ragged in his own chest. His knuckles ached, but his shoulders felt loose in a way they hadn’t been in months.

The day wound down slowly. Dinner was quiet, the pack tired and soft-spoken. Jeongguk helped Seokjin wash pots, shoulders still hunched like he was trying not to take up too much  space. The dim kitchen window framed him like a portrait Jimin refused to look at. Taehyung found Jimin on the porch afterward, leaning on the railing as the moon slipped up the sky. The porch was quiet, lanterns burning low, the yard covered in that familiar moonlight. The pack’s voices had thinned into soft murmurs—pups asleep, adults scattered to their rooms, the day finally loosening its grip.

Jimin leaned against the rail, rifle propped beside him, breathing slowly. 

“You look less homicidal,” Taehyung said as he slid up beside him, dropping into a crouch on the porch steps. His scent carried that aroma of smoky cedar, always comforting to Jimin.  “Sparring help with that?”

Jimin huffed, staring out at the dark field. “It was necessary. You know I prefer to spar with skilled fighters like you instead.”

Taehyung tipped his head. “Smart answer, doll. But still, something’s different.” Then his mouth curved slyly. “Sparring with Jeongguk really helped,” the alpha held up a finger, like an idea had just struck him. “But you know, there are other ways to loosen you up, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin arched his brow, slowly. Taehyung only grinned in return, teeth glinting in the lantern glow. A scoff broke from Jimin, sharp but quiet. “You just want a break from fucking that cranky goblin. Do you think I’m any easier?”

That earned a bark of laughter loud enough Jimin had to shush him, though he couldn’t help the twitch of his own mouth. Taehyung clapped a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking. When he finally caught his breath, Taehyung tilted his head toward the farmhouse windows. Golden light poured from the kitchen, where Jeongguk moved—wide shoulders hunched as he bustled about. He and Seokjin appeared deep in conversation, heads hovering close over some task.

“You know I’m not talking about Yoongi and me,” the alpha murmured, voice lower now, the playfulness softening into something else. His eyes flicked back to Jimin, steady, serious even through the smirk. “Though I cannot lie, we do enjoy dipping into you occasionally—”

“Taehyung.” Jimin’s warning was flat, but his ears warmed.

“I’m talking about him,” Taehyung said simply, nodding again toward the kitchen window.

Jimin whipped his head around, eyes narrowing. “Don’t start.” The words came out tight, meant to cut the thought off before it could grow.

Taehyung only raised his brows, unbothered. Jimin blew out a breath, gaze dragging back to the dark fields. 

“He’s not—” His jaw clenched, words grinding down to stone. “Just don’t.”

Silence stretched, save for the faint clatter of pots inside. 

“This kind of defensiveness looks good on you, Jimin-ah. Haven’t seen you this worked up about a crush since grade-school.”

“Oh fuck off, my crush was you.”

“And I take absolute pride in that, Jimin-ah.”

“No wonder I stopped liking you—you never fail to remind me just how annoying you are,” Jimin huffed, brushing off Taehyung’s mock-comforting pats across his back.

Jimin’s fingers flexed on the railing, but he said nothing more. He couldn’t—not without having to ponder Taehyung’s words. That wasn’t a can of worms he was willing to open up right now.

The front door creaked open. 

Jeongguk stepped out, sleeves pushed high, face damp from steam and sweat. His hands were still red and wet from scrubbing in hot water, and drying them absently on the hem of his shirt. Seokjin’s voice floated faintly from inside, sharp as ever—probably scolding him for leaving a pot half-polished.

Taehyung’s eyes darted between the two. Before Jimin could rein the scheming alpha in, Yoongi’s gravelly call cut through the yard from the bathhouse.

“Taehyung!”

Taehyung smirked wider. “Saved by the boss.” He squeezed Jimin’s shoulder once—comfort, or warning—then jogged off toward Yoongi’s voice.

That left heavy silence to linger in the air. Jeongguk glanced between them, brows faintly drawn, but said nothing.

“Come on,” Jimin sighed, pushing off the railing. “Shed.”

The walk across the yard was short, but every step stretched. The moonlight cut Jeongguk’s features sharp, throwing shadows under his jaw, catching the faint wet shine of his hair. Jimin fixed his gaze forward, willing it to stay there. Taehyung's earlier jab echoed too insistently in his mind, and he crushed it back with force. Reaching the door, he drew the bolt aside before gesturing for the alpha to step inside. Jeongguk paused for a split second before crossing the threshold, the warm lantern light spilling over his broad frame. Jimin trailed after him but halted at the frame, propping himself against the wood rather than venturing fully inside.

“One week,” Jimin said, voice flat, leaving no space for argument. “That’s how long you’ve got to prove to me that you’re more than dead weight. There’s a run coming, and you’re on it, because I don’t trust leaving you here.”

Jeongguk’s eyes lifted, steady even in the dim. “So I don’t actually have a choice.”

“Sure you do,” Jimin’s grip tightened on the doorframe. “You can get the fuck out of here and never come back, or you can prove you’re worth keeping.”

“The latter sounds like the better option,” Jeongguk deadpans.

Jimin nods curtly. “By the time we leave, you’ll fight like one of us, and shoot like one of us. That, or you’ll stay behind six feet in the ground, one way or another.”

For a moment, silence held. The alpha’s mouth was set, but his eyes caught the glow of the shed’s lantern like they were carved deeper than they should be. The thought struck Jimin sharp and unwelcome, yet again. Handsome. Too handsome.

Jimin’s stomach twisted. He stamped the thought out quickly, smothering it like embers before they could ignite dry grass. No matter what the pack whispered among themselves, he couldn't shake the conviction that nothing about this man was safe—not what little they knew of his past, not his abnormal strength, and not the way his stupidly beautiful face looked in this light.

“Then teach me,” Jeongguk said, voice barely above a whisper.

Jimin closed the door and slid the bolt home with more force than needed, breaking the moment in two.

“Just get some sleep,” he muttered from the other side of the door. “You’ll need it.”

Outside, the night stretched wide and quiet. But Jimin’s chest didn’t ease, the echo of Jeongguk’s face still lingering in the dark even when he’d finally settled in for the night.

Jimin lay flat in the dark, staring at the faint outline of beams across the ceiling. The farmhouse groaned softly around him—beams contracting in the cooling air, a faint breeze scraping at the panes, muffled steps echoing from down the hall. These familiar rhythms usually steadied him. Tonight, they only sharpened his unease, keeping sleep at bay.

He tried to focus on what he should—the animals in their shed, the fences in the east field, the perimeter paths he’d walk at dawn. But his mind rebelled, thoughts snagging and pulling him under, all of them orbiting Jeongguk.

Jeongguk being thrown to the ground again and again, chest heaving, eyes dark and unyielding even with Jimin's knee in his sternum. His mouth bloody, his expression unreadable—gritted, flushed, alive. That raw, unpolished strength coiled under Jimin’s hands like a challenge waiting to be broken. Jimin had looked down into Jeongguk’s face and felt something in himself shift in a way he didn’t like.

It was nothing more than just training. A test to gauge the alpha’s skills.

So why did that slow fire soil low in his gut?

He rolled onto his back, trying to bury the memory. The blanket dragged over his hips and made it worse, skin too hot, thighs pressed tight all evening without him noticing. It was as if his body had already made the decision, and his mind was just catching up. He exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to will it away. It didn’t.

He hated it—the weakness, the way his body betrayed him without permission. Six months since anyone had touched him. Six months since he’d let himself want.

The images flashed in his mind again.

His thighs pressed tight, heat already gathering where it shouldn’t have. He could feel how wet he was already, slick pooling hot between his folds, soaking the cotton there. He tried to just lay still and let the feeling burn until his body began to move out of desperation. But his hand inched downward, breath hitching as his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his pajama pants. 

He tried to think of Yoongi—callused hands, precise and steady, the kind of lover who built him up until he broke. He tried to think of Taehyung—sweet and filthy, relentless in the best ways. Together, they’d taken care of him, given him softness when he needed it, taken the edge off when the world felt too sharp. His body missed that pleasure. Craved it, even. The ache from within, the hot throb under his own palm, screamed for it. But his mind wasn’t on them—not Yoongi’s clever fingers, not Taehyung’s cock filling him.

It was Jeongguk. His eyes, his relentless grin, the dust on his skin. Jeongguk’s strong body folding under his own hand, and the flicker of something raw that stirred inside Jimin because of it.

His fingers brushed the soft tuft at the top of his mound. The contact sent a spark racing up his spine, his clit swelling instantly under the barest, accidental graze. Fuck. It felt incredible—too incredible after going so long without. It was as if his body had been waiting, starving for this illicit rush. Jimin bit the inside of his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut.

His thighs eased open, breath caught, fingertips hovering just above his most sensitive spot. The anticipation coiled tight in his gut, pleasure flooding his veins like fire made hotter by the wrongness of it all. The shame was already crowding in. He hadn’t even touched himself, not really, and yet his heart beat like a drumline.

No.

Jimin tore his hand away and pulled the blanket to his chin. His thighs clamped shut, the heat trapped and unwelcome. He swallowed hard, breathing through his nose, slow and shaky. He wasn’t allowed this. Not with him—not with the stranger he’d only known for a month. Perhaps Mira had been right from the moment they’d brought Jeongguk back. Had he lost his goddamn mind?

Jimin rolled onto his side, clutching the blanket as though it were his lifeline. His heart pounded, his core still clenched burning hot, his body begging him to finish what he’d selfishly started. But his stomach twisted bitter with disgust. Because this wasn’t relief, and it wasn’t want. It was weakness, and weakness was exactly how people ended up dead.

He pressed his forehead into the pillow, eyes squeezed shut, and forced the last thought into his skull like a knife meant to cut clean. Whatever Jeon Jeongguk was—asset, anomaly, danger—he was not Jimin’s to want. And Jimin refused to fall into the kind of hunger that never left anyone standing in the end.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 : Too Close For Comfort

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jeongguk's boot plunged into the sodden earth as he lunged forward, the mud sucking at his sole with a wet squelch. Rain had passed through sometime before dawn, enough to darken the ground behind the goat pen and pack it into slick mud. The dust that used to leap up around their feet was gone, replaced by shallow impressions that held—marks left behind by repeated weight and not yet erased. 

Jimin's hand clamped around Jeongguk's wrist mid-swing, yanking him off-balance. Jeongguk twisted, but Jimin shoved hard, sending him sprawling. He rolled through the cold sludge, mud splattering his face and soaking his shirt, then surged up onto one knee—head whipping around just in time. Jimin didn't hesitate. He drove in again, pinning Jeongguk face-first into the muck for what had to be the hundredth takedown this week. No mercy, no pause.

There were no signals anymore. None since the training kicked into overdrive.

At the start of the week, Jimin had given him fractions of warning—half-beats to read, room to feel the mistake before correcting it. That courtesy was gone now. The attacks came when they came, uneven and sharp, the kind that punished hesitation instead of teaching around it. If Jeongguk was going to survive a real fight, he wouldn’t be handled gently like some schoolpup.

The goat pen rattled faintly as the animals shifted, chains clinking as heads moved in uneasy tandem with the back-and-forth in the ring. Somewhere beyond the fence, axes struck in a steady rhythm, dull and repetitive as the rest of the pack worked in preparation for winter without looking up.

Jeongguk moved differently now. Jimin wanted to chalk it up to bruised pride—three straight days of face-planting in the muck had a way of sanding a man down—but it wasn’t just that. The alpha kept his weight centered low, stopped bouncing on his heels, stopped squaring his shoulders like he was waiting for a bell to sound. Earlier that morning, Jimin had seen him probe the mud with a single deliberate step, eyes already locked on him when he closed the distance. Something in that stare pulled at Jimin, instinctive and unbidden. He mirrored it, sliding his boot back through the slick earth, stance shifting to brace.

Palm to wrist, forearm up under the jaw. Jeongguk dipped low, boot scraping close—too close—forcing Jimin to widen his base. Jimin countered, shoulder slamming into Jeongguk's chest with a wet thud that echoed through the rain-soaked shirt. Jeongguk staggered, mud sucking at his heels, but he recovered in a heartbeat. He charged back, quicker, fiercer, eyes boring into Jimin's like the rest of the world had faded to irrelevance.

That unshakeable focus ignited a spark of anger in Jimin's gut. He gritted his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of exertion on his tongue, and lunged to meet the next assault head-on.

Jeongguk let himself be shoved, twisting the momentum into a controlled roll through the sludge. His fingers grazed for Jimin's ankle as he recovered, but the mud dragged at him, buying Jimin the split second to dodge. Jimin pivoted and rammed his knee into Jeongguk's side, slamming him against the fence post. The wood shuddered under the impact, rain-damp fibers scraping his skin through soaked fabric. Jeongguk dragged in a ragged breath—and grinned anyway.

For a split second, Jimin’s mind supplied something it shouldn’t have—the remembered heat of that same grin in the dark, the way his hand had stilled mid-motion when the thought crossed him uninvited. The memory sliced through, electric and intrusive, stirring a low ache he crushed with brutal force. He surged forward, colliding with Jeongguk's chest harder than the morning's toll demanded, bodies locking in a grind of muscle and mud.

They went down together the next time. Jimin snagged him mid-spin, forcing him flat. Knee dug into Jeongguk's hip, pinning bone to yielding earth. His forearm bore down on the alpha’s collarbone, feeling the steady thrum of pulse beneath. Jeongguk’s breath stayed even beneath him—no struggle, no flare of panic. Just endurance, quiet and stubborn as stone. He lingered a fraction too long, the press of thigh against thigh igniting unwelcome sparks, before hurling him aside.

“Scan.”

Jeongguk swept his gaze—left, right, over Jimin's shoulder—his spare hand rising to shield the blind spot, instinctive as breathing.

Jimin stepped back, jaw tight. They reset without speaking. More than enough mud streaked Jeongguk’s palms and clung to his shirt, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. His eyes followed Jimin now, not the treacherous ground, reading his movements instead of anticipating it. Jimin circled once, watching the subtle corrections Jeongguk made without prompting. The adjustments were small, almost invisible, but they were there, and that was the problem: Jeongguk wasn’t flailing anymore. He wasn’t simply surviving the lesson, and it sort of irked Jimin. There had been some comfort in knowing that he could easily overpower Jeongguk using just his combat skills.

Now, he was just stuck with whatever had started knotting under Jimin’s skin over the past two days—the edge that refused to dull, the restlessness that followed him out of the ring and into sleep—he drove it down the only way he knew how. He struck harder, shortened their distance, and kept Jeongguk close enough that he didn’t have to think about why that closeness felt like anything at all.

“Again.”

They collided in a blur of motion. Jeongguk feinted low but surged upward, arms hooking for a clinch around Jimin's torso, fingers digging into sweat-slick fabric as he tried to unbalance him with raw leverage. The sudden press of Jeongguk's body against his—solid, unyielding—sent an unwelcome jolt through Jimin, not heat but a prickling unease that coiled in his gut like a warning he couldn't shake. It grated, this involuntary awareness of the younger man's strength invading his space, stirring a restlessness that bordered on violation, fueling his snap to break free.

Jimin twisted away, knee snapping up to thud against Jeongguk's thigh, the impact vibrating through muscle. He followed with a sharp pivot, hooking an arm behind Jeongguk's neck to yank him down into the sludge, their boots churning divots in the earth.

Jeongguk rolled with the force, shoving off the ground to scramble back to his feet, mud flinging in arcs. He pressed forward again, this time jabbing quick with elbows to test Jimin's guard, forcing him to circle warily. Jimin absorbed a glancing strike to the ribs, breath hissing out, then exploded into a tackle that slammed them both against the sagging fence. Wood creaked, nails protesting as Jeongguk's back hit first, the jolt rattling his teeth.

“Almost,” Jimin rasped, pinning him there for a beat longer than necessary, chest heaving against Jeongguk's.

Jeongguk sucked in a breath, a half-smirk breaking through the grit on his face. “Almost.”

The bout dragged on, relentless—Jeongguk's lip splitting on a blocked punch, crimson blooming against his skin; Jimin's jaw aching from a wild elbow that grazed too close. When Jimin signaled the stop with an upraised fist, Jeongguk collapsed to one knee first, then the other, forearms resting on his quads as he dragged in ragged breaths, the now light drops of rain pattering on his heated form. The air thickened with the musk of effort, faint lowing from the livestock drifting on the wind.

Jiwon appeared and stepped into the ring smoothly, the canteen in her hand extended like an extension of the routine, her presence a steady anchor amid the chaos.

“Pulse.” She captured his wrist in a firm grip, then trailed her fingers to the pulse point at his neck, feeling the wild throb ease under pressure. The touch lingered just enough to map the fading adrenaline, skin salty and alive.

“Better recovery,” she murmured, faint approval threading her voice. “Your body clearly knows when it’s time to downshift, which is good.”

“Or he's hiding the shame of needing a breather after overdoing it,” Yoongi quipped from afar, his tone laced with that familiar edge as he ambled toward the rhythmic thud of distant chopping.

“Both,” Jiwon decided, handing Jeongguk the canteen. “Small sips.”

Jeongguk lifted it, water spilling slightly over his lower lip as he drank, washing away the iron tang. As he handed it back, Seokjin materialized briefly, pressing a cloth-wrapped hard-boiled egg into his fist—warm from his pocket, unassuming nourishment.

“Don’t tell the pups that you got to have snack time early,” Seokjin said, already turning on his heel and heading back toward the farmhouse.

Jeongguk eyed the egg for a split second, thumb tracing its curve, before peeling it and eating in measured bites, the soft give of yolk against his teeth a small mercy. Jimin watched from the periphery—the deliberate swallow, the faint smear wiped away with the back of his hand—and forced his stare to the horizon, the image searing in despite himself. That unguarded moment of refueling, vulnerable yet resilient, coiled heat low in his belly, mingling with the bruise blooming on his jaw. He flexed his fingers, tasting the lingering bite of mud and blood on the air, and turned toward the fading light, shoving the distraction down before it surfaced.

By midday, the yard had lost whatever moment of reprieve the morning mist had offered. The sun blazed overhead, merciless, as humidity wrapped around every breath like a damp shroud. Sweat beaded and trickled relentlessly—down temples, pooling in the hollows of their collarbones, and soaking through shirts until fabric clung like a second skin. Someone near the fence wiped their face with the back of their sleeve and muttered something about the air being thick enough to chew.

Namjoon caught the complaint, pausing mid-sort of coiled ropes and battered shields. "Savor it," he called out, voice steady amid the labored huffs. "Autumn's creeping closer. This heat's our final taste of summer before it gets bitterly cold.”

Groans rippled through the group, but no one slackened. Jimin least of all. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling the ache settle into his sockets like molten lead, and snatched the wooden practice knife from the dirt without fanfare. Pivoting, he found Jeongguk's gaze already locked on him—no smirk, no quip, just that piercing focus that had been needling Jimin since dawn, burrowing under his resolve like an itch he couldn't scratch.

He lobbed the knife. It flipped once in the heavy air before smacking into Jeongguk's upturned palm with a solid thwack. Jeongguk's fingers snapped shut around the hilt, veins standing out along his forearm from the firm grip.

“You’ll think of using teeth when you panic,” Jimin said, stepping into his space. “You’ll think of bringing out those claws. You won’t use either unless I tell you to. This,” he nods down at the wooden weapon in Jeongguk’s hand before meeting his eyes once more. “This’ll take their life before they take yours first.”

He seized Jeongguk's wrist in a vise grip, yanking it forward to realign the hold—thumb pressing into the meat of the palm, forcing the fingers to splay and reform around the wood with a decisive snap. The alpha's skin slid slick under his touch, but Jimin didn't linger, releasing with a shove that rocked Jeongguk back half a step. "Grip it like you mean to keep it.”

Jeongguk adjusted without argument. His focus sharpened, shoulders settling, stance shifting to compensate for the slick ground. 

"One more round."

They moved faster now.

They flowed into motion, quicker now, the drill a staccato of wood on wood. Slash—Jeongguk lunged, blade whistling low. Trap—Jimin's free hand clamped over his wrist, locking it mid-arc, the jolt traveling up both arms. Strip—Jimin wrenched, but held back just enough for Jeongguk to taste the error, the knife hovering a hair from slipping free. He reclaimed it, pressed it back into Jeongguk's palm, and seized it again. Each pass shaved something rough away, replacing it with control. Sweat stung Jimin's eyes. He blinked it away, ignoring the burn.

He pinned the frustration twisting in his chest on the haze, the endless loop, the way Jeongguk absorbed every correction without crumbling. Anything but the truth—that nagging spark reigniting at inopportune flashes: Jeongguk's steady stare holding too long, or the flex of his biceps under damp cloth, dredging up echoes he'd rather forget.

On the fourth exchange, Jeongguk shifted the script. He feinted into the trap, then twisted his wrist free in a fluid roll, flipping the grip and driving the hilt upward toward Jimin's chin—swift, restrained, halting an inch shy of contact. Jimin froze, the wood's blunt edge a phantom pressure against his skin.

“Finally,” he said, voice flat as he stepped back. “But you’re still stealing slower than a child.”

Jeongguk's lips twitched, the barest hint of a smile cracking through the strain. “Compliments from you are never just compliments, are they?”

“They never were compliments.”

From the yard's fringe, Hana and Hyejin trudged past with mud caked along their rubber boots, baskets hooked over their arms, brimming with late herbs and sun-warmed roots.

“He’s getting faster,” Hyejin noted softly, eyes flicking to the pair.

"Watch yourself, Jimin-oppa," Hana teased, her gaze snagging a moment on the alpha at his side, a playful glint in her expression. “Jeongguk might give you a run for your money.”

Jimin caught it all—the sidelong glances, the easy adjustments in posture, the way no one flinched anymore when Jeongguk loomed too near. The farm was without a doubt reshaping itself around him, carving out room for the new alpha without a vote or a whisper of consent. The weight of it coiled tight in Jimin’s chest, sour and unyielding.

“Again,” he gritted his teeth.

They pushed on until their shadows shrank against the packed dirt and the midday blaze softened into a bearable haze. Jimin feinted left, hooked Jeongguk’s ankle on the pivot, and drove him down into the ground with a controlled slam. The knife wrenched free in the tangle; Jimin pinned it against the soft notch beneath Jeongguk’s jaw, the blunt wood digging in just enough to dimple the skin without breaking it. The pin was exact, impersonal—technique honed long before Jeongguk had ever set foot on the farm.

“Dead,” Jimin said, holding the pressure steady.

Jeongguk’s throat flexed under the blade’s edge, a swallow rippling the muscle. His breaths came even, unhurried. “Doesn’t really feel like you’re showing me how to stay alive.”

“You only ate shit eight times today. Yesterday it was fourteen.”

Jeongguk sat up slowly, turning his head to spit into the dirt beside him. He then leaned back on one hand, squinting up at Jimin through the beaming sun. “Well shit. I guess that’s something. Another round?”

Jimin stepped back. “Lunch first, kid.”

“You’re two years older than me, not twenty.” Jeongguk called out from behind Jimin.

Jeongguk rolled to his feet with a grunt when Jimin didn’t respond, shoulders flexing as if he could work the tension out that way. The tension clung like the mud on his boots—he couldn’t shrug it loose. Jimin knew that strain intimately, because it mirrored the one knotting his own spine. Good. He should let it sit.

At the long table, the pack shoveled food faster than words could form. Jimin scraped the last of his rice from the bowl, the midday heat pressing down like a damp cloth over everything, muting talk to grunts and essentials. Forks clinked against tin, bowls shuttled hand to hand with quick brushes of knuckles—work waited in the glaring fields beyond the table's ragged shade, and no one was fool enough to stretch the meal. He chewed methodically, sweat beading at his temples, the air thick with the tang of steamed greens and pickled brine. 

Jeongguk slid into a chair midway down the table with no hesitation now, not like the tentative edge he'd carried those first days. Jimin noted it from the corner of his eye, the way the younger alpha claimed space without apology. Byungho was already sprawled there, elbows fanning out, rumbling about a fence post that had canted overnight in the softening ground.

“We should reset it while the dirt is still wet—that way it basically bakes itself into place when everything dries up,” Byungho said, fork scraping his plate. “Because I’m getting tired of these things warping right back every time we fix them.”

Jeongguk nodded, chewing steadily. He swallowed. “I can help after drills.  Sounds like it might be a weight-distribution problem or something. We can brace it properly first, then tamp it down once the sun hits it.”

Byungho eyed him a beat, then shrugged. “Yeah. That works.”

Mrs. Han swept by, basket wedged at her hip, dropping a slab of pickled radish into Jeongguk's bowl mid-stride. Jimin watched the alpha glance up, catch her retreating shoulder, then drop his eyes to the slick, vinegary slices, briny and crisp. There’s a flicker of hesitation, before he murmured a soft thanks to the air and crunched through it in measured bites, the sharp scent cutting through the meal's earthy steam.

Across the table, Sooyeon's mouth pressed thin, her stare drilling into the exchange like she was etching it into some private journal. Jimin knew that look all too well—the way her fingers tightened around her spoon, knuckles paling just a shade, a tell she'd had since she'd first started watching over the younger ones in their pack. It wasn't outright hostility, not from her; it was more of a fierce tallying of threats and trusts, her omega instincts coiling tight around the pack's fragile balance. 

He'd caught her like this before, after late-night talks by the fire where she'd vent her worries about outsiders threatening their survival. And now, with Jeongguk's easy acceptance, it stirred that same quiet storm in her eyes, one he felt compelled to ease later if the heat didn't melt them all first. But she stayed silent, no snap to reclaim the gesture, just that coiled watchfulness, weighing how it fit—or didn't—into the farm's rhythms.

Minji sat tucked into the curve of her arm, silent and absorbed in braiding twine around a small wooden animal Minseok had carved earlier that morning. Her fingers worked steadily, unbothered by the undercurrents that hummed through the table.

Further along, Mira darted a hand over Daehyun's plate and nabbed a scrap of bread. He muttered a lazy objection and surrendered it anyway. A chuckle broke out; someone else urged them to wrap it up. Jimin handed off his empty bowl to Seokjin as the clatter swelled—chairs scraping, utensils rattling. Namjoon's voice sliced through once most people had finished eating, listing out the afternoon's loads: channel the irrigation, sharpen the tools, rotate the goats through the upper pasture. No one cut in; eyes flicked his way, absorbing the orders. He finished without flourish, gaze shifting then—locking on with that clear, no-nonsense weight that demanded attention, pulling the group's focus taut.

“Jimin,” Namjoon said, voice level but expectant. “You’ll need to run live-fire drills with Jeongguk sometime this week.”

Jimin nodded once.

“That’s the last bit of training, right?” Jeongguk cut in, his tone blunt. He didn't so much as flick his eyes toward Jimin, just scraped at the remnants in his bowl as if the question hung in the air for anyone to field. “What happens after?” 

Namjoon held his gaze. “You've got a couple loose ends after that. But after that, we’ll see whether or not you’re a liability off the range.”

The quiet stretched thin, not edged with barbs but charged all the same—like the whole table had inched closer, breaths held in the humid press. Jimin felt it coil in his chest, that familiar itch under his ribs at how Jeongguk slotted into these moments, probing the boundaries without a flinch.

Jeongguk's jaw flexed once, a brief knot of tension, then smoothed as he dropped his gaze to the empty bowl and gave a curt nod. “Got it.”

That was that.

Benches groaned as bodies shifted, someone rising with a drawn-out groan that echoed the ache in everyone's limbs. A stray bowl tipped, spilling a dribble of brine, but it went ignored amid the shuffle. The group splintered off in pairs and singles, the farm's pull yanking them toward their tasks. Jimin peeled away before Namjoon's eyes could snag him for more, his pulse a low thrum against the day's sticky grip.

The yard shimmered under the climbing sun, humidity thickening as the afternoon clawed back its heat, sweat beading fresh on Jimin's neck and soaking another layer into his collar. Clusters of voices trailed off toward the irrigation lines and pastures, the farm's rhythm swallowing them whole. Jimin cut away from it, boots thudding a straight line to the greenhouse hunkered at the edge, its fogged panes a dim sanctuary against the glare. Lingering in the yard meant watching Jeongguk weave deeper into the pack's core, that seamless fit gnawing at him until he'd either slam the alpha face-first into the dirt or spit words too raw to take back. Better to bury it in the stuffy green inside, where the vines and soil demanded focus over fury.

The greenhouse needed work, and everyone knew it. The rain had made a point of it—seeping through weak seams, bowing the insulation where it had gone soft, tugging at plastic that no longer sat tight in its frame. It had been thrown together in the second year after Day Zero, once scavenging ruins couldn't sustain them anymore and the soil had to pull double duty.

They’d built it from whatever held: splintered boards from gutted houses, salvaged windows hauled back piece by piece, sheets of plastic patched and re-patched until light came through in a dull, uneven wash. It wasn’t pretty, and it was never meant to be a permanent solution. Just something to stretch the season and buy them time. Instead, it worked better than anyone expected.

By the third year, they’d figured out how to trap heat properly, how to bank soil and stagger plantings. There were small crops still pushing up even in the dead of winter—greens cut back carefully so they could regrow, roots kept alive beneath layers of straw and compost. Scant portions and certainly not enough to be comfortable, sure, but real— real enough to ditch the illusion of canned slop as sustenance.

Now it was aging like everything else—fixes layered over old fixes, corners soft where they should’ve been rigid. Jimin didn’t have the patience to be sentimental about it. Winter would come whether they were ready or not, and he wasn’t going to lose food because someone had let a seam sag or a panel slip when there’d still been time to fix it.

He snagged a roll of insulation from the barn's dim corner, slinging it over his shoulder. The bulk dragged, moisture from the morning's damp making it slick and heavy. He hitched it higher, jaw set, and trudged on. Halfway across the trampled grass, the edge unraveled, yanking him sideways.

“Careful.”

Jimin kept his eyes forward, grip clenching as he powered through another step. The roll bucked again, harder, dumping his balance. He bit off a curse, knee slamming into the soft earth, warm mud seeping instant and insistent through his pant leg. A broad shadow eclipsed the sun at his back.

“I said be careful,” Jeongguk said, voice low and nearer, boots scuffing close.

"Heard you the first time," Jimin ground out, shoving upright, mud streaking his leg like a fresh bruise. “I don’t need a spotter.”

Jeongguk didn't budge. He closed the gap, snatching the trailing end without a word, muscles coiling as he shouldered the load. The pressure lifted from Jimin's frame in a rush, the roll steadying between them like an unwelcome bridge.

"I can handle it," Jimin said, fingers digging into his side of the coil even as it steadied.

"Figured," Jeongguk replied, flat. "That's why I'm on this end."

They stood there for a beat, both clutching tight, the space between crackling—not solely the day's swelter, but something sharper. Jimin could feel it again—that awareness he hadn’t asked for, the precise sense of where Jeongguk was standing, how close his chest was, the way his breath hit Jimin’s shoulder. He let go abruptly and stepped aside, forcing Jeongguk to scramble to adjust his grip on the insulation.

“Fine,” Jimin muttered. “Don’t slow me down.”

Jeongguk's lips quirked, barely—a flicker gone in the sun. “Wasn’t planning to.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Inside the greenhouse, the air was worse. It smacked them like a thick wall, laced with the faint earthy smell of wet soil and leaves pressing in from all sides. Light filtered through the patched plastic overhead, glinting off dew-slick vines and suspended motes, the enclosure a humid cage closing around them.

Jimin set to work immediately. He climbed the short ladder, tugged at loose seams, checked fastenings with quick, practiced movements. Jeongguk followed without being told, bracing panels, holding things steady when Jimin needed both hands free. It should have annoyed him more than it did.

“Hand me the staples,” Jimin directed, voice clipped.

Jeongguk passed them over. Their knuckles grazed—quick, unintended, vanished in an instant. Jimin shoved aside the spark that raced up his arm, eyes locked on the sagging insulation  before him.

They worked like that for several minutes, the rhythm settling despite the churn in Jimin’s gut.  The insulation went up faster with two people, and as much as he’d prefer help from anyone else, Jimin knew that it was better to just accept it from Jeongguk and get the job done. He told himself that was all it was.

"You're doing it again," Jeongguk said after a bit, his voice breaking the steady thump of the stapler.

Jimin didn't stop. "Doing what?"

"That whole ignoring-me-like-I'm-invisible bit." Jeongguk leaned against a post, wiping sweat from his brow. “It’s impressive, honestly. Really takes commitment.”

Jimin jabbed the staple in a little too hard, the tool kicking back against his palm. "You're supposed to be helping, not running your mouth."

“I am helping.”

"Then just... help. Quietly."

Jeongguk snorted, the sound bouncing off the plastic walls. “Look, I get it. I’m a stranger to you. But have you ever considered that maybe you wouldn’t be so pissed off all the time if you stopped acting like I personally ruined your life? We’re all experiencing this shit at the same time, in case you forgot.”

Jimin eased down the ladder, one step at a time, then turned to face him, jaw set hard.

“You don’t know shit about me or my life.”

"Yeah, no kidding," Jeongguk said, not moving an inch. “But I know when someone’s carrying a stick so far up their ass it’s starting to affect their balance.”

Jimin felt the familiar flare of anger—hot, sharp—but underneath it, something else twisted, tighter and more uncomfortable. Because some part of him, traitorous and unwelcome, recognized the truth buried in it.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Jimin grit out.

Jeongguk met his gaze without backing off. “Or what? You’ll knock me into the mud again? Look, Jimin-ssi, I'm not afraid of you."

Jimin stepped closer before he could stop himself. The greenhouse felt smaller suddenly, the air nearly suffocating. Jeongguk didn't budge; if anything, he squared up, his stare locked and unblinking.

“I’m not an asshole who hits people for talking, Jeongguk-ssi,” Jimin said, voice low and tight. "Just saying what's on your mind doesn't get you decked."

Jeongguk’s mouth curved, just a little. “No. You hit them harder and disguise it as ‘training’ because it’s easier than dealing with whatever’s actually got you wound this tight.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and electric. Jimin’s hands clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening. He hated the way Jeongguk filled the space—solid and immovable, his stance too damn assured, stirring up that buried, nagging feeling Jimin had shoved down deep.

“Just fucking get back to work,” Jimin snapped finally, the words sharp and bitten off.

Jeongguk met his eyes one beat longer, then dipped his chin in a curt nod. “Yeah. Sure.”

He pivoted, grabbing the insulation roll like the moment hadn’t cracked the air. Jimin lingered there, gaze tracing the flex of Jeongguk’s shoulders under his shirt for a split second too long before he dragged himself back to the ladder. Whatever Jeongguk thought he saw, he was wrong. And if Jimin swung heavier in training tonight, drove the drills until his muscles screamed, that was just the job. Nothing personal. Nothing more.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Dinner roared around Jimin like it always did—pups squabbling over the last bits of bread, Mrs. Han's sharp voice cutting through to nag Jihoon about his half-empty bowl, Mira threatening to throw her hammer at Daehyun if he didn’t stop chewing like a horse. Jimin sat at the table's edge, rifle propped against the wall within reach, spoon scraping stew from his plate in mechanical bites. His shoulders still hummed from the day's training, loose in a way that bordered on ache, but the food settled heavy in his stomach, grounding him.

A few seats over, Jeongguk ate steadily, chin dipping in nods as Daehyun and Byungho dove into talk of fence lines and irrigation leaks. When Mrs. Han ladled a couple extra potatoes onto his plate, he murmured a quiet thanks, voice low enough that it barely carried. His hair stuck up in damp spikes from the humidity, knuckles scabbed red, but his eyes—when they flicked Jimin's way—held that steady glint, like the bruises were just fuel. Like he was nowhere near finished with Jimin and his training sessions.

Jimin shoved his bowl aside as the group started breaking up, chairs scraping back toward the bathhouse or the sagging porch. He pushed to his feet, muscles protesting the shift, and that's when Jeongguk's gaze locked on. The alpha didn't rise yet, just tilted his head slightly.

“Another round,” Jeongguk said, words pitched soft under the chatter's fade. “Before lights out.”

Jimin's jaw locked, a refusal rising sharp on his tongue. His first instinct was to shut it down, to remind him he'd taken enough hits today, that the greenhouse spat had been warning enough. But Jeongguk's shoulders sat easy, not tensed for a fight, just... expectant. Patient in that way that grated, like he knew Jimin better than he should.

“You don’t know when to quit,” Jimin muttered, already half-turning toward the door.

Jeongguk's mouth quirked, faint but there. “No. Not when it feels like I'm finally getting somewhere.”

The words hooked into Jimin, stirring that coil low in his chest—the one he'd ignored all day. He could walk away, let the night swallow it. But his body betrayed him, pulse quickening at the challenge.

“Fine,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the training ring. “Ring. Don’t make me regret it.”

Jeongguk’s grin sharpened, excitement flickering under the lantern glow. He trailed Jimin out without a word, rolling his neck like the real hunger had just hit. Jimin hated that he recognized the feeling in himself.

The dirt ring waited behind the goat pen, shadows swallowing the edges where lantern light gave out. Crickets thrummed in the dark, horses snorting faint from the barn, farmhouse windows spilling soft yellow behind them. The air cooled fast, carrying the sharp bite of lingering sweat and turned earth. Jimin stripped off his jacket, slung it over the fence post with his rifle—out of reach for once—and toed his boots loose. Bare feet sank into the damp soil, cool and gritty between his toes, the mud from earlier rains not fully dried.

 He faced Jeongguk with a flat expression. “Mud isn’t too bad anymore, so shoes off.”

Jeongguk nodded, kicking his own boots aside and stepping in, toes curling into the dirt. His smirk edged back. “Whenever you're ready.”

Jimin didn’t bother answering. He lunged—palm snapping high to force the guard up. Jeongguk blocked smooth, but the wet earth shifted under him, pulling his stance wide. Jimin dropped low, sweeping at his ankle. Jeongguk staggered, boots forgotten, but twisted mid-fall, arm hooking to shove back. They slammed together, bodies thudding dull against the chill night, mud sucking at their steps. 

Jimin pressed, elbow jabbing to test footing, knee driving up to unbalance. Jeongguk took the hits, breath huffing hot near Jimin's ear, then countered—fist glancing off Jimin's ribs, sharp enough to bloom fire. The alpha adapted quick, feet finding purchase in the slop, pushing forward until Jimin had to circle, lungs burning from the cold air. He went down once, Jeongguk's weight pinning him mid-roll, mud splattering cold across his cheek. Jimin bucked up, elbow cracking into Jeongguk's side, and the alpha grunted, rolling off. But Jeongguk sprang back faster, streaked in dark smears, chest heaving as he circled again. Jimin wiped grit from his mouth, tasting earth and salt, the thrill twisting sharper in his veins.

Then Jeongguk struck true—a feint high, grab low, yanking Jimin's legs from under him. The ground rushed up, slamming breath from his chest in a whoosh. Cold seeped through his shirt, mud oozing under his back, and for a split second, Jeongguk loomed above—knees bracketing his hips, hands planted beside his shoulders. The alpha's face cut sharp in the lantern's edge, eyes gleaming, that grin slicing through the dim like a blade. Breath fogged between them, heavy and close.

“One.”

Jimin bucked up, flipping them with a surge of muscle, forearm pinning across Jeongguk's chest until the alpha's ribs compressed under the pressure. “Don’t count.”

But Jeongguk’s grin held as they broke apart, mud streaking his jaw like war paint. They reset, circling slow, but Jeongguk closed faster this round—tighter lines in his strikes, that building certainty seeping into his footing. His fist grazed Jimin's jaw, a jolt that sparked stars, then hooked his thigh to haul him down amid a rough laugh that scraped something raw inside Jimin.

Jeongguk swiped blood from his unhealed split lip, thumb smearing it, grin unwavering. “That’s two for me, Jimin-ssi. You slowing down?”

Jimin's jaw clenched, a tic firing under his skin. His blood thrummed like a drum, fire licking along his nerves. He shook out his arms, dropping back into guard. “You got lucky. That’s all.”

“Lucky twice now?” Jeongguk circled, chest pumping, sweat tracing paths down his neck to soak his collar. “Doesn’t sound like luck.”

Jimin’s mouth curved into a sharp, humorless smile. “You talk too much.”

“And you’re—” Jeongguk lunged, but Jimin was ready this time, catching his wrist mid-swing. He wrenched, drove forward with a hip check, leg sweeping clean to drop Jeongguk flat into the muck.

The alpha landed flushed and gasping when Jimin hooked his ankles for the third takedown, thudding down with a low grunt. But before he could scramble back up, Jimin was on him—fist knotted in his hair, yanking his head back until his throat stretched taut.

“On your knees,” Jimin growled, voice edged like flint. His thigh jammed against Jeongguk's shoulder, the press of heat flaring hot between their bodies, electric and edged. “This is what happens when you get cocky.”

Jeongguk’s hands came up, but not to shove him off. His fingers curled against the backs of Jimin’s thighs, as though steadying himself there, thumbs pressing into muscle with a grip that sent a jolt straight up Jimin’s spine. It wasn't resistance; it felt like holding on, like the alpha was bracing against a wave crashing over him. Jeongguk's chest labored, each inhale ragged and deep, sweat tracing his jaw as his lips parted wider. But then Jimin caught it—the shift. Those breaths weren't just from the scramble, the strain of the fall. No, they deepened, pulling in deliberate, nostrils flaring as if drawing something vital from the air. From him.

Jimin's stomach clenched, a cold twist amid the heat. The realization slammed into him.  Jeongguk wasn't panting from the fight anymore. He was smelling him—chasing that faint, treacherous slick that had bloomed unbidden, warm and insistent between Jimin's legs, seeping into the space they shared. The alpha's fingers tightened, kneading the flesh of his thighs like he could anchor himself there, and his eyes—god, those eyes—darkened to pits, pupils flaring as a low hitch broke his rhythm. In that locked instant, Jeongguk's head dipped forward on pure drive, nose brushing close, inhaling as if the scent was a hook yanking him under. 

Heat flooded Jimin's face, his pulse a thunder in his ears. ‘No—not now, not him.’  The vulnerability hit like a blade, exposing the omega pull he'd buried under layers of control, rivalry, anything to keep this alpha at arm's length. He wrenched Jeongguk's hair harder, snapping his neck back to sever the connection, the pull. 

“Get up.” The command scraped out, edged with a tremor he couldn't fully mask.

Jeongguk gulped air, blinking to clear the haze, his body jerking back to sense. He lingered on his knees a beat too long, gaze flickering with something unspoken, before Jimin shoved him away and stepped back fast, heart hammering a frantic beat.

“Training's over,” Jimin clipped, turning sharp on his heel, muscles locked tight as he put distance between them, the night's chill doing nothing to cool the burn lingering low.

He didn’t wait to see Jeongguk’s expression. He couldn’t. The image was already carved into his mind: Jeongguk on his knees, inhaling his scent. Jimin's body ached for it even as his mind recoiled, insisting it was all misplaced—wrong to yearn for the alpha's nearness, wrong to feel that traitorous warmth stir low inside. He turned and left the ring, mud crusting his clothes, the burn of the moment searing his chest like an open wound, trailing him straight to the bathhouse.

To his luck, the bathhouse was empty by the time Jimin stormed inside. Steam lingered low and heavy in its familiar manner, softening the edges of the room until the lanternlight blurred and the walls seemed farther away than they were. Water dripped somewhere near the corner basins in a slow, steady rhythm, the sound rivaling the rapid thump in Jimin’s chest.

He stripped with hurried, precise movements, each muddied layer shedding heavier than the one before, clinging to his damp skin. His muscles pulsed—not merely from the drills, but from restraint, from the strain of burying that rising heat now pressing along his spine. From the lapse mere minutes back, when his scent had bloomed unchecked, warm and revealing, right in Jeongguk's reach. He stepped into the basin and sank down quickly,the heated water enveloping him, rippling against his sides. It ought to have steadied him. Instead, the warmth coaxed the tightness loose, letting it seep broader, settling heavy across his ribs and deeper still. 

He leaned ahead, forearms resting on his knees, eyes tracing the subtle quiver of water between his thighs. It had simmered like this since that night—since his thoughts had veered into uncharted ground, lingering on Jeongguk's steady frame, the shift of his muscles in the light—and the day's drills had only fanned it higher. He could still feel the shape of it—Jeongguk’s body under his, solid and sweating, his thighs spread in the dirt, his mouth open around panting breaths. That rough sound when Jimin tugged his hair. The way Jeongguk's hands hadn't resisted but held fast, palms pressing into Jimin's thighs as if to draw him nearer, to claim the space. Jimin raked his hands over his face, releasing a slow breath that fogged before him, beads of moisture gathering on his lashes, sliding down his neck to settle in the curve of his collarbone. He tried to shake the image—tried to replace it with drills, routines, anything else—but it wouldn’t leave.

He could still picture the change in Jeongguk's eyes, how they'd widened in sudden knowing, deepening to something fierce and intent, like a hunter catching a trace on the wind. And more mortifying, he could still feel that rush of warmth, the way it had gathered uninvited, seeping along his skin, saturating the close air between them with his own unguarded need. He'd forced it back with gritted force, jaw locked until it throbbed, chalking it up to weariness, the press of forms too near, nothing but rotten chance in the humid dusk.

But still his body wasn’t letting it go.

The water shifted as he moved, a faint warmth blooming anew, mingling with the bath in a way that made his thighs tense, an empty pull echoing inside. Jeongguk's breath haunted him—warm, purposeful inhales that raised goose bumps, quickened his blood in a low, persistent rhythm. He laid a hand to his chest, sensing the wild beat beneath, but it offered no relief from the deepening ache low down, the quiet urge that whispered for touch, for closeness, for the alpha's presence to fill the void. ‘Dammit’, he thought, head tipping against the basin's rim, steam enfolding him like an unspoken promise. It lingered, unrelenting.

Jimin gritted his teeth, a harsh exhale breaking from his nose. His hand drifted lower without thought, tracing over his stomach, slick with sweat and steam, and slipped beneath the waterline. His fingers found his folds—hot and slick, yielding in a way that caught his breath, shallow and sharp. He tipped his head back just enough to stare at the ceiling through the haze.

“Fuck,” he hissed, barely above a whisper.

He wasn't even seeking release, so much as trying to press the ache back, to silence his body's insistent pull toward whatever this haze demanded. He grazed his clit with careful pressure, a half-hearted bid to dull the sensation rather than feed it, but the contact only sharpened everything—sending a spark of pleasure that bloomed warm and insistent, too good to ignore even as he told himself it was just friction, just temporary ease. His hips shifted once without permission, then again, the motion subtle and contained, as if he could still claim he hadn’t crossed a line.

The image of Jeongguk on his knees surged back—dirt streaked along his jaw, sweat tracing his collarbones, that faint split in his lip adding a reckless edge that twisted something deep in Jimin's gut. Infuriatingly compelling. His hand moved with a reluctant rhythm, hips easing into it, the faint ripple of water echoing in the high ceiling. Each stroke pulled a thread of relief that felt dangerously sweet, coiling tighter in his core, making his denial feel thinner, more fragile.

He didn't want to unravel it, this tangle of want.

But if there had to be some sort of explanation, then it had to be his omega that was the one acting—tugging him into the fog of heat and scent and bone-deep craving. His fingers pressed harder, tracing between his slick folds more insistently, before yielding to the pull with a shallow dip inside. The stretch brought a rush of warmth that edged toward bliss, his body arching faintly into it despite the bite he clamped on his wrist to stifle the sound. It's nothing, he insisted inwardly, even as the pleasure hummed deeper, undeniable, urging him to linger just a moment longer.

Jimin closed his eyes, breath shuddering as his fingers moved with more purpose now. His omega responded greedily, the slick warmth spreading freely, his thighs parting slightly under the water as if on their own accord. The sensation drew a low hum from his chest before he could stop it—a sound born of how good it felt, how the pressure built in waves that soothed the ache even as they stoked it higher. His free hand gripped the basin's edge, knuckles whitening, as if anchoring himself against the tide. It felt wrong in a way that had nothing to do with rules. It felt like his body had developed a preference without consulting him, had started leaning toward something it recognized on instinct alone. Jeongguk’s presence, his scent, the way he watched—steady, unflinching—had sunk under his skin and settled there, irritating and persistent.

A craving, then. Not hunger, but close enough.

What if Jeongguk wasn't a stranger—some distant shadow, untouchable and mocking from afar? What if the barriers shattered all at once, letting Jimin plunge into the forbidden without restraint? He could lean in close, lips brushing Jeongguk's neck, tongue tracing the salt of his skin, savoring the alpha's pulse hammering under his mouth. Hands roaming free—gripping those broad shoulders, nails scraping down to the firm ridges of his back, pulling him nearer until their bodies locked in a tangle of heat and need. And then, deeper: Jeongguk's thick cock pressing against him, sliding in slowly at first, stretching Jimin with that unyielding girth, filling him completely as thrusts turned urgent, bodies slamming together in a rhythm that drowned out everything else.

The image twisted sharper, flustering heat flooding Jimin's cheeks even in the solitude of the bathhouse. Jeongguk's snarky grin flashing in his mind, that cocky tilt to his mouth mid-taunt—‘That’s two for me, Jimin-ssi. You slowing down?’—and Jimin silencing it for good. Straddling him, sinking down onto that hard length, riding him with punishing force. Hips grinding down, taking every inch deep, clenching around him until Jeongguk's words broke into moans, his hands clutching Jimin's waist in surrender, eyes glazing over as Jimin set the pace, relentless and claiming, until the alpha bucked up helplessly, spilling inside with a choked gasp.

He wanted to wipe the grin off Jeongguk’s face. He wanted to shove him down again and again until that grin turned into gasps, until that mouth was open for a good fucking reason. Until Jeongguk splintered beneath him, spent and quivering, every muscle yielding to Jimin's command, broken and marked.

Not holding back anymore—his strokes quickened, insistent, delving into the soaked core where nerves ignited like live wires. The tension snapped suddenly, sharp and overwhelming, hips bucking as ecstasy ripped free in a stifled gasp. He trapped the sound against his knuckle, body trembling through the pulses, the bathwater rippling in quiet chaos around him.

Bliss, pure and searing, for one stolen heartbeat.

Then the void rushed in.

Jimin let his hand sink away, alien and heavy, eyes fixed on the water's settling dance as they smoothed out again. Dread coiled low in his gut, heartbeat thundering like an accusation. He rasped his fingertips along the basin's curve, then his own skin, as though scrubbing could unmake the surrender, the ease with which he'd tumbled into it. This was a mistake. Whatever this pull was, whatever his omega had decided it wanted—it was a luxury he couldn't indulge, a fracture in his armor.

With a jerk, he yanked the drain, the swirl pulling the warmth down in a hungry drain. The water gurgled and began to sink, steam thinning as the level dropped. Jimin stayed where he was until it was gone, until there was nothing left but the bare basin and the faint echo of sound. He wiped his hands once more, the chill of the wash cloth biting deeper.

Jimin forced himself to stand, water sluicing from his skin in slow, shameful rivulets. He didn’t look down. He wrapped a towel around his hips and left the steam behind, jaw clenched. The scent of his slick followed him anyway, a shadow he couldn't outrun.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Sleep didn’t come easily—but then again, it hadn’t for a long while. Instead, it clawed its way in a little past midnight, heavy and unwelcome, forcing Jimin’s eyelids closed more from exhaustion than peace. When dawn finally broke, he dragged himself upright, still raw with the night's memories clinging like damp heat to his skin, determined to bury them beneath more drills and farm work.

The yard lay pale under the morning light, cool mist tangling in the corn fields and brushing against his face like a chill reminder as he approached the ring. Namjoon and Jiwon were already there—Namjoon adjusting his glasses against the early glare, Jiwon setting out her box of supplies: gauze, antiseptic, sealed vials, the battered ledger she always scratched notes into.

Jimin gave Namjoon a curt nod, his rifle shifting easy against his back. “You want claws first or bite?”

“Start with claws,” Namjoon said. “Jiwon will record range, speed, depth. Bite comes later.”

The words lodged in Jimin’s throat, a sudden tightness gripping him. That was the moment Jeongguk stepped into the ring, Hoseok trailing just behind with a grin wide enough to light the dim yard, like he’d personally delivered the sun.

Jeongguk’s hair was—different. Shorn tighter at the sides, the top sides longer, the back layered into a sharp fall that brushed the nape of his neck. A mullet in the modern sense, the kind Jimin had only glimpsed on old city kids before everything fell apart. It shouldn’t have suited this place, the dirt and ruin of their yard, but it did—framing Jeongguk’s face, sharpening the cut of his jaw in a way that yanked Jimin’s gaze despite himself. The damp strands caught the light, drawing his eyes to the exposed line of Jeongguk’s neck, and a fluttering sensation happened low in Jimin’s stomach.

He stopped the thought fast, clamping down like slamming a door shut. He hadn’t dragged himself half-feral into the bathhouse just to walk straight back into the same trap. Straightening his rifle strap with more force than needed, Jimin fixed his eyes on the mist-shrouded fields, anywhere but the sweep of that newly bared skin at Jeongguk’s nape.

“S’bitch to do without real clippers,” Hoseok announced cheerfully, ruffling Jeongguk’s shoulder like a proud older brother. “But you know I can work my way around hand shears and a comb. Nearly took my thumb off twice though.”

Jeongguk’s mouth curved into that faint, maddening smirk, the one that always seemed aimed straight at Jimin. “Worth it, though.”

Jiwon snorted without looking up from her kit. “As long as it doesn’t get in the way of the samples, I don’t care if you’ve got a rooster’s comb glued to your head.”

Namjoon’s gaze lingered on the young alpha, clinical as ever behind his glasses. “Looks practical enough. I was wondering when you’d get rid of that mop on your head.”

Jimin felt the words bubbling up before Jeongguk could fire back with some playful jab, the air thickening around them like the mist closing in. He cut it short, his voice sharper than intended. “Just get on with it.”

Jeongguk’s smirk twitched a fraction wider at the edge in Jimin’s tone, his eyes flicking over with that knowing glint, and Jimin ignored the way it sent a jolt through him.

Jiwon set the tray down with a clatter—stoppered vials, cotton swabs, one dented scalpel lined the tray for comparison. “Claws first,” she said, snapping on her gloves. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Jeongguk flexed his hands once, knuckles cracking under Jimin's watchful stare. When he looked down again, his nails were already lengthening—smooth, silent, unnervingly natural. The dark keratin slid out in curved arcs, sharp as broken glass, catching the pale morning light in a way that made Jimin's breath hitch. He tracked the growth with an old, ingrained reflex—cataloging angle, length, speed—like it was just another threat assessment. But the precision of it pulled at him, an unwelcome itch to understand how something so lethal could emerge so flawlessly.

Jiwon leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with that researcher's hunger, close enough that Jimin caught the faint chemical tang of her antiseptics. “Hold still,” she murmured, brushing a swab along one edge to collect a trace. Then another, dragging a line against the light to watch how it refracted, her focus pulling the air taut.

“Composition’s odd,” she said, obvious interest sharpening her voice. “Keratin density’s off the charts.” 

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they could cut through sheet metal,” Namjoon added from the side, his tone measured.

Behind her, Hoseok snorted, breaking the tension like a crack in ice. “What are you, Wolverine?”

A ripple of laughter went around the ring—Taehyung, who must've slunk in just in time, barked out his amusement from the fence, leaning over it with that easy grin. Jeongguk’s mouth twitched, like he was fighting not to let the grin break free again, his claws flexing once for emphasis, the motion rippling through the muscles of his forearms in a way that dragged Jimin's gaze lower than it should. Jimin realized, abruptly, that he wanted to see how those claws retracted—how fast, whether the joints trembled afterward, if the keratin receded without a trace. The curiosity grated on him, persistent and uninvited, enough that a comment slipped out sideways, catching even him off guard.

“Sure,” he muttered, voice rougher than the gravel underfoot. “Just without the crazy sideburns.”

Every head turned his way, the laughter stalling. Hoseok clutched his chest in mock horror. “Did Jimin just… make a joke?”

Namjoon hid a smile behind his hand, glasses glinting. Jiwon shook her head, muttering, “Mark the date.”

Irritation prickled at Jimin's skin, but he stepped over the moment, cutting it dead before it could stretch. “Okay, shut up and focus.”

“Teeth next,” Namjoon said smoothly, adjusting his glasses. His tone stayed even, but his gaze lingered on Jeongguk a beat too long. “Open slowly.”

Jeongguk bared his teeth obediently, the shift coming sharp and clean—canines elongating, edges flashing pale in the morning light. Not grotesque, nor monstrous—just wrong enough to make Jimin's skin prickle, a faint unease crawling up his arms that had everything to do with the sheer anomaly of it. He couldn't look away, the transformation demanding scrutiny, stirring that same reluctant fascination from the claws.

Jiwon leaned in again with her swab, brushing along the gumline, her movements precise. “No inflammation, and there seems to be stable growth. Nothing to suggest rejection.”

Jimin hadn’t moved from the fence line, his jaw locked so tight it ached—another bad habit he couldn't shake. He told himself it was vigilance, eyes scanning for the twitch, the slip, the moment those claws and teeth turned from samples to something dangerous. The lie tasted thin, bitter on his tongue. His gaze kept snagging elsewhere: the sharpened cut of Jeongguk’s new mullet, damp strands clinging to the nape of his neck, the steady way he held himself under all this scrutiny—like nothing they asked of him could unsettle him. It made Jimin wonder, against his will, what it would take to crack that unflinching poise.

For a second, Jeongguk’s stare met his—quick, sparking like exposed wire—as if he sensed the scrutiny weighing on him. Just for a second. Enough to send a flicker across the space between them. His mouth curved, canines glinting, but it stopped short of a full smile.

Jimin’s brow lifted. That was all. A silent answer, blunt enough to say, ‘don’t think I’m impressed’.

“Alright,” Namjoon said finally, straightening. He capped the vials, voice calm. “That’s enough sampling for today. We’ll store them with the others.”

Jiwon peeled off her gloves, nodding once in approval. Hoseok slapped Jeongguk’s shoulder again, his grin wide as if the whole thing had been staged for his entertainment.

Jimin pushed off the fence, voice flat as iron. “Be back here in the ring in ten minutes.”

He didn’t look back to see if Jeongguk followed.

The air had cleared just slightly by the time they gathered again at the training ring. Mist no longer hovered low across the rows of beans and corn, and the ring behind the goat pen was all grit and sunlight. Namjoon stood with his clipboard tucked under one arm, while Jiwon snapped on a new set of gloves, her med kit already splayed open: antiseptic, gauze, a small blood-pressure cuff salvaged from an old clinic.

Jimin leaned on the fence rail, eyes fixed on Jeongguk. He noted the subtle shifts—the way the alpha planted his feet, the loose roll of his shoulders rather than a rigid brace, the faint settling of his stance like he was already calculating angles.

“Start with claws,” Namjoon said, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. His voice was calm, precise. “Measure reach, depth, and force. Jiwon, track vitals and tissue response.”

“Understood,” Jiwon said. Her gaze cut to Jeongguk, sharper than Namjoon’s, as though daring him to flinch. “Don’t strain too much or too fast. You’ll tell me if something burns, swells, or spasms.”

Jeongguk nodded once. When he flexed his hands, the claws slid free—dark crescents emerging with a smooth inevitability, like they’d always been waiting there. Jimin’s attention snagged on the motion again, tracing the seamless slide like it was a flaw in some larger design he couldn’t yet parse.

The first test was crude but effective. They used a stacked row of sand-filled sacks latched to a post. Namjoon clicked his stopwatch.

“Strike on my count. Measured swings, but no full-body momentum just yet.”

“Go.”

The claw cut through with clean precision. The burlap split without resistance, sand spilling out with a hiss. Jiwon crouched close to Jeongguk’s hands, swab pushing on the edge of his nail beds. “When used in combat,” she murmured. “it still seems like there’s no heat swelling at the cuticle. It’s all perfectly integrated.”

“Depth?” Namjoon asked.

“Six centimeters, uniform penetration.” Her eyes narrowed in concentration. “Honestly with a cut this clean, he could be a surgeon.”

Jimin adjusted his stance, still fixed on the rent in the sack. Such accuracy demanded discipline, and discipline hinted at untapped limits. Jeongguk was dialing it back—obviously, deliberately—which gnawed at Jimin, suggesting the alpha might be curbing his edge in their sparring sessions too. He shoved the notion aside, unwilling to let it burrow deeper. The next rig was tougher: leather stretched over a wood frame. Jeongguk swung again, the claw snagging the hide this time, ripping a rough line that splintered the grain beneath. Messier, less contained—more like the raw force Jimin half-expected, half-dreaded unraveling.

“Okay, so there’s variance under resistance,” Namjoon murmured, scribbling notes. His tone was as if they weren’t all staring at a living weapon. “Flexion shows in the claw bed.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened as he observed. He traced the alpha’s follow-through—the subtle wrist pivot on the next swing, the way the error disappeared. It was hard not to imagine flesh in place of where the leather sat, mapping what a less controlled arc might carve. The last stationary test was corrugated tin, rusted edges catching the light. Jeongguk’s slash grated across it, the screech piercing the air, sparks flaring vividly against the sun. Hoseok winced from the sidelines, Taehyung beside him covering his ears, and even Mira paused her distant fieldwork to glance over.

Jiwon moved in immediately, taking Jeongguk’s wrist. She checked the beds of his claws with brisk, practiced touches. “Still no fractures, no splitting, not even any swelling.” She met his eyes, a rare glint of admiration breaking through. “Remarkable.”

“Motion targets next,” Namjoon called. “Set up the rig.”

They’d fashioned torsos from weathered canvas dummies, hung on ropes that swayed like pendulums. The first pass was clean—three diagonal strikes that shredded the fabric into ribbons, ropes unscathed. But the second swing pulled Jeongguk off-balance; he lunged too far. The claw tip grazed Jimin’s cheek in a fleeting graze before he could sidestep.

The slice burned, shallow as a paper cut, but it jolted him. Jimin recoiled with a sharp inhale, palm flying to his face on reflex. Silence clamped down over the ring, thick and immediate. Jeongguk’s claws retracted in a blur, his exhale ragged, eyes wide.

“Shit—Jimin, I didn’t—”

Jiwon was at his side in seconds, tilting his jaw with firm fingers. “Hold still.” She dabbed at the cut with antiseptic-soaked gauze, frowning at the thin red streak. “Well, it’s a surface scratch only, so you’ll live.”

Hoseok spoke up, fingers rapidly tapping the fence. “Hey, he’s going to be okay, right? Like none of Jeongguk’s DNA or whatever is gonna…like, infect him or something?”

“It’s fine, you know the wound has to be much deeper than that, hyung,” Jimin replied, forcing casualness despite the warmth crawling up his neck and the bitter churn of embarrassment knotting his chest. The sting was secondary; what grated was the lapse itself—the way it had closed the gap he’d so carefully maintained, and worse, exposed his own falter to the group like some novice error.

Namjoon only noted the data, though the crease between his eyebrows gave away his clear concern. “Overreach by fifteen centimeters, resulting in collateral contact.”His pencil paused, then tapped the page. “Looks like his control at speed still needs work, Jimin.”

“I can step in if you want, Jimin-ah,” Taehyung said, moving to lift his leg over the fence. Jimin shook his head, spitting into the dirt beside him.

“I said it’s fine, Taehyung. He’ll improve anyway.” The certainty in his voice surprised him a little, even as the humiliation gnawed deeper—a public fumble that made him feel exposed, his reflexes questioned in front of the pack like he'd lost his edge overnight.

They continued with a shortened run of drills. Jimin strapped the wooden shield to his forearm and stepped into position. This time Jeongguk slowed himself deliberately, claws landing where Jimin called for them—edge, center, high. The wood split with sharp cracks, but Jimin’s skin remained unbroken that time, the impacts jarring through his arm without breaching. Each controlled strike let him dissect the motion closer: the fluid extension of those keratin blades, retracting with a whisper of tension in Jeongguk's knuckles. It was mechanical perfection wrapped in flesh, and Jimin hated how his mind cataloged it, irritation flaring at his own fixation amid the sting of that earlier lapse.

Namjoon’s ledger filled quickly with notes until they called for a break. Jiwon passed Jeongguk a canteen, fingers light on his wrist as she checked his pulse. “You steadied pretty well after the slip up with Jimin,” she said. “That counts as something, yeah?”

Hoseok clapped Jeongguk’s shoulder. “Not bad, Wolverine.”

Taehyung and Jiwon chuckled lightly at Hoseok’s second Wolverine joke of the day. Jeongguk even managed a rueful smile, though his eyes flicked once to Jimin, unreadable. Jimin thumbed the buckle of his rifle strap tighter, expression sealed shut. The sting on his cheek throbbed under Jiwon’s bandage, a persistent reminder of his momentary weakness, heat rising anew in his face as he forced his gaze away. He ignored it, watching as Jeongguk’s claws left canvas in ribbons and tin scored like paper—efficient, lethal, unnaturally seamless.

Jiwon snapped the last vial shut and peeled off her gloves, but Namjoon didn’t move away from the fence post.

“Not done yet,” he said. “Bite next.”

Jeongguk drew a slow breath, shoulders rolling as his claws slid back beneath his nails. At Namjoon’s nod, he opened his mouth. His canines lengthened cleanly, pale and precise, catching the light as if they’d always belonged there. Jimin felt it again—a low, unmistakable pull that started somewhere beneath his ribs and tightened as Jeongguk shifted. The feeling wasn’t one of panic, and it wasn’t warning. It felt like his own body wanted to be closer, like it was adjusting its bearings for Jeongguk without asking permission, even as the humiliation from his scrape fueled a sharper wariness.

Namjoon set a strip of raw hide onto the post, nodding once. “Give me a good bite on this. Half-strength first. Hold for three seconds, then release.”

Jimin watched Jeongguk lean in, the alpha's jaw working with deliberate force. The hide resisted for a heartbeat—a stubborn give that Jimin could almost feel in his own teeth—before splitting with a dull crack, edges fraying like torn cloth. Jeongguk held it steady, the muscles in his neck and shoulders locking tight as the seconds dragged, his breath even despite the strain. He released the instant Namjoon lifted his hand, the two ragged pieces dropping to the dirt with a soft thud.

Namjoon watched him for a second longer than necessary, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “Again.”

This time it was rope—incredibly thick and scavenged, meant to withstand just about anything, Jimin figured. Jeongguk braced it between his hands, the fibers coarse against his palms, and sank his teeth in. He bit through cleanly, the strands snapping apart with a sharp, whipping sound that echoed across the yard, leaving frayed ends curling in the air.

Hoseok winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay. Yeah. That’s uh, that’s a bit unsettling.”

Taehyung, leaning against the fence with his arms crossed, huffed a quiet laugh. “You know, if this whole pack member thing doesn’t work out, you’d make a terrifying police dog.”

Jeongguk glanced over, breath still coming in measured huffs, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “Do I at least get treats?”

“Only if you don’t chew through any of our equipment,” Hoseok shot back, grinning despite himself.

Laughter rippled low through the group, a brief wave that softened the raw edge of what Jeongguk had just done. But Jimin stayed silent, the snap of that rope still thrumming in his ears like a warning plucked from his own nerves. His omega answered it with a warmth he hadn’t asked for, stirring under his ribs, uninvited, tugging him toward the alpha in a way that grated against his mind. ‘Not now’, he thought, shifting his boots in the dirt to root himself, forcing his mind back to the facts: the severance was too clean, the force too measured for something that could tear through skin without a second thought.

Namjoon lifted a hand. “That’s sufficient.”

Jiwon nodded, her pen already scratching across the page. “Response was immediate, and his control seems to remain consistent across materials.”

The final test came quickly. Jimin fastened the padded bracer over his forearm, the leather straps digging in as he yanked them tight, a familiar bite that grounded him amid the haze. He stepped forward, feeling Jeongguk's gaze lock on before he even lifted his eyes—heavy, intent, pulling like gravity. When Jimin met it, he held steady, no words, just that silent thread of challenge woven with the heat they'd left unresolved, his pulse kicking up under the padding.

“Forearm only,” Namjoon instructed, voice level as ever. “Release on command.”

Jeongguk shifted closer, his breath a warm gust against the bracer's edge, the faint scent of sweat and earth clinging to him like the morning mist that hadn't fully burned off. Jimin braced, cataloging the alpha's focus: jaw set, eyes narrowed not in aggression but in that careful precision they'd drilled into him, claws retracted but the memory of their sharpness still a fresh sting on Jimin's skin.

Then, from the fence, a sharp click cut the air—Taehyung straightening, pistol lifted in a fluid motion, barrel trained steady on Jeongguk's chest. The yard went still, the group's easy chatter snuffed out like a doused lantern. Hoseok's grin faltered mid-breath, his hand twitching toward his own sidearm; Namjoon's brow furrowed behind his glasses, and even Jiwon paused her scribbling, eyes flicking up with a held breath.

“Taehyung, what—”

Taehyung's voice came low, edged with that unyielding calm he reserved for threats. “One more mark on him, and I don't care what Jimin says—you're done.”

Jeongguk froze, his shoulders tensing under the weight of the aim, a flicker of discomfort crossing his face. His nostrils flared slightly, gaze darting to the pistol before snapping back to Jimin, not defiant but wary, like a cornered animal weighing escape. The alpha's partial acceptance into the pack hung there, fragile as the frayed rope ends scattered in the dirt—trusted enough for these tests, but suspicion lingered in every guarded glance, every instinctive flinch.

A quiet warmth bloomed in Jimin's chest, steady and reassuring, chasing back the humiliation's echo from the earlier slip-up. Even if he too, was taking a liking to Jeongguk, Taehyung would always have Jimin’s back—that much was bone-deep, a loyalty forged in worse scraps than this. But mistakes born of tension could unravel everything; Jeongguk's control was the linchpin here, and Jimin wouldn't let a hair-trigger moment snap it.

“Easy, Tae,” Jimin said, voice even, lifting his free hand in a subtle gesture. “He's got this. Lower it—we need focus, yeah?”

Taehyung held the aim a beat longer, searching Jimin's face, then exhaled sharply and dropped the pistol to his side, thumb flicking the safety back on with a click that echoed the first. “Only 'cause it's you vouching,” he muttered, but the steel in his eyes softened just a fraction, aimed now at Jeongguk like a lingering warning.

The air eased, breaths releasing in unison, but the charge lingered, thickening the space between them. Jeongguk's discomfort eased too, his stance settling as he leaned in again, breath ghosting warmer now against the bracer. Jimin nodded once—permission, command, whatever it took to steady them both—and the alpha's jaws closed with measured pressure, teeth sinking into the padding without breaking through, holding firm as Namjoon's count began. The force pressed steadily against Jimin's arm, a contained power that vibrated through bone, testing not just Jeongguk's restraint but Jimin's own fraying edges.

His body chose stillness, which startled him. He should have pulled back. Instead, he stayed where he was, aware of the weight of Jeongguk’s mouth, the line of his jaw, the quiet concentration in the way he held himself. The contact didn’t hurt. Jeongguk’s eyes lifted, and they didn’t flick away. They stayed on Jimin’s face, intent and unreadable, even as his teeth remained where they were. For a brief, suspended moment, Jimin could swear he felt the pressure change, as though Jeongguk was itching to bite down harder. He held still regardless, completely unmoving. 

“Release.”

Jeongguk obeyed immediately, stepping back clean and controlled, but his breath had gone uneven. He swallowed once, tongue darting out to lick his lower lip, before looking away.

Jiwon checked the bracer, then Jimin’s arm. “No puncture of the flesh,” she said. “Redness only.” She wrote it down, voice carrying. “Immediate compliance.”

The silence that followed felt heavier for how quickly the moment had passed.

Namjoon closed his ledger. “That’s enough. He’ll be field-ready by the time we leave.”

Hoseok let out a breath. “Good to know I should never yell at him.”

Jeongguk wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes finding Jimin again. There was no grin this time—just a steady, attentive look, waiting for something Jimin refused to give. He turned away first.

Jimin rubbed at the bracer's edge as he unstrapped it, the skin beneath prickling with a dull ache that mirrored the knot in his gut. The yard hummed back to life around them—Hoseok's low chuckle cutting through the air, Jiwon's pen scraping notes with irritating finality, Taehyung holstering his pistol in that showy, lingering way that screamed 'don't test me.' But Jimin's attention hooked on Jeongguk, still hovering at the ring's perimeter, swiping sweat from his forehead, chest heaving in a rhythm that screamed anything but calm. Those dark eyes snapped to him again, probing, demanding an answer Jimin had no intention of handing over. Not with the pack's stares prickling like nettles in the air.

He turned toward the fence, snatching up the tangled ropes from prior drills and twisting them into tight loops, each coil a deliberate anchor against the flush crawling up his throat. Why the hell hadn't he jerked away during the bite? That muffled pressure, even through the padding, had pulsed through him like a warning shot, igniting something primal he crushed down with iron will. Just protocol, he snarled inwardly—assessing limits, noting compliance. Yet the ghost of Jeongguk's exhale, scorching and erratic against his flesh, clung like smoke, unraveling his composure one thread at a time. Mortification coiled tight in his ribs, not from the procedure, but from his traitorous stillness, as if he'd been daring the alpha to push further.

“Jimin-ssi,” Jeongguk's voice came low, closer than expected, the alpha stepping up beside him without a sound. Up close, the scent of him—earth and salt, edged with something wilder—cut through the damp air, making Jimin's fingers fumble the rope. “That scratch on your cheek... I didn't—”

Jimin's jaw clenched, eyes locked on the knot he was mangling. “Save it. You passed the bite test—spotless drop, zero drama.” It was true, clinically so, but saying it felt like conceding ground, like acknowledging the pull that had kept him rooted during the bite.

Jeongguk edged nearer, his arm grazing Jimin's in a brush too pointed to be chance. “Look, about Taehyung getting all trigger-happy... wasn't aiming to rile him up.” The words carried a half-hearted edge, laced with that smug undercurrent, his body angling in as if to whisper secrets. “You kept it together, though. Cool as ever.”

It hit like a barb, dredging up the curiosity Jimin had locked away. He flicked his gaze up, clashing with Jeongguk's—inky, piercing, brimming with veiled hunger that echoed his own suppressed chaos. The alpha's lip still bore a faint sheen from where his tongue had darted out, and Jimin’s mind unhelpfully flashed to how it might feel elsewhere, pressing, tasting. Shame burned hot in his veins, and he jerked his eyes away, yanking the rope tighter than needed.

“It's the job,” he muttered, he snapped, retreating a step to put distance between them, the humid air swirling in the gap like a barrier he wished was thicker. “Focus on that next time. We can't afford your little... distractions.”

Jeongguk's mouth parted, apology hanging unspoken on his lips, but Jimin was already striding away, boots crunching gravel toward the shed. The pack's chatter dissolved into white noise at his back, a prickle along his spine hinting at eyes on him—unseen, insistent—but he shoved the sensation down, refusing to glance back. Inside the dim confines, amid piled equipment and the steady plink of roof drips, Jimin sagged against the wall, exhaling raggedly. His arm pulsed with residual throb, an echo of restrained force, while deeper, an insistent warmth gathered, craving release he denied. Not now. Not to visions of Jeongguk's bite, his poise fracturing to hint at the storm coiled within.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The yard didn’t fully settle as evening deepened, the lantern light smearing tired gold across the packed dirt in uneven pools. People drifted in from the fields in their usual pairs, their boots scuffing softly as they headed toward the bathhouse for a quick rinse, the sagging porch for a smoke, or the bunks upstairs to collapse into uneasy sleep. Voices murmured low and exhausted, already thinning into the cooling air, the day's clamor from dinner—clinking bowls and half-hearted laughter—having fizzled out fast. The quiet that followed hung heavy, laced with the unspoken weight of routines that never quite let anyone rest easy.

Jimin lingered on the weathered steps of the farmhouse, his rifle propped casually against the rail beside him, its weight a familiar anchor in the dimming light. The cool evening breeze ghosted over his skin, carrying the faint tang of turned earth and distant woodsmoke, but it did little to ease the persistent throb under the bandage taped high along his cheekbone. The antiseptic's sharp bite lingered, a chemical sting that mirrored the dull heat radiating from the cut itself. It was nothing—barely more than a scratch—but it burned for the majority of the day anyway. Partly from the cut itself, a thin line that throbbed with every shift of his jaw. Partly from the humiliation of it happening in front of witnesses, their eyes on him as Jeongguk's claw had grazed too close, too uncontrolled. He'd replayed it in his mind during the endless afternoon drills: the split-second lapse, his own hesitation that let the alpha's reach extend just far enough. Failure tasted bitter on his tongue, mingling with the faint metallic tang of blood he'd wiped away earlier.

He rubbed absently at the tape's edge, fingers tracing the adhesive's sticky pull, willing the sensation to fade like everything else.

“Let me see.”

The voice cut through his thoughts, warm and edged with that familiar impatience, and Jimin barely had time to glance up before Taehyung was there, materializing out of the shadows like he always did—unannounced, unwavering. Strong fingers slipped under Jimin's jaw with the ease of years spent reading each other's silences, tilting his chin gently but firmly toward the lantern's flickering glow. The scent of cedar and faint smoke clung to Taehyung, grounding and homey, wrapping around Jimin like a blanket on a cold night. It was the smell of shared patrols, late-night watches, and too many moments when one of them had pulled the other back from the edge. Taehyung's brows furrowed tight as he leaned in close, his breath a soft huff against Jimin's skin, eyes narrowing on the bandaged mark with that protective intensity Jimin both relied on and pretended to shrug off.

“Damn it, Jimin-ah,” Taehyung muttered, his voice dropping low, rough with a mix of worry and frustration that twisted something soft in Jimin's chest. His thumb brushed the uninjured side of Jimin's cheek, a fleeting touch that lingered just a second too long—affection disguised as assessment. “You let him close enough to cut your face? What the hell were you thinking, getting in his path like that?”

Jimin felt a flush creep up his neck. He pulled back slightly, though Taehyung's hand followed for that stubborn extra beat, reluctant to let go, before finally dropping away. The absence left a cool spot on his skin, and Jimin swallowed against the lump of gratitude he rarely voiced. “It’s really nothing, Tae. I told you already,” he said, aiming for casual, but his tone came out softer than intended, laced with the quiet admission of how much he needed this—Taehyung's fussing, his unyielding loyalty. “Jiwon checked it out. Said it’ll fade in a day or two, no scar.”

“Fade, my ass.” Taehyung’s glare hardened. Then it melted, just as quickly, into something warmer, his mouth quirking in that lopsided way that always dragged a reluctant smile from Jimin. He shifted closer on the step, their shoulders brushing in easy solidarity, the heat of him seeping through Jimin's sleeve like a promise. 

“You don’t make yourself a target for him, alright? He can train without laying a claw on you. Next time, you let me handle the close quarters—I’ve got your back, always have.”

The words settled deep, chasing away the day's lingering humiliation with a rush of warmth that had nothing to do with the lantern. Taehyung's protectiveness wasn't new; it was woven into the fabric of their friendship, forged in the grit of survival where trust was rarer than clean water. Jimin leaned into the contact just a fraction, their thighs pressing together on the narrow step, a silent acknowledgment of the bond that let him breathe easier amid the chaos. He scoffed lightly, the sound more fond than dismissive, embarrassed heat still tingling under his skin but tempered now by the comfort of Taehyung's nearness. 

“You fuss more than Mrs. Han,” he teased, voice dropping to match the evening's hush, his hand bumping Taehyung's knee in playful retaliation. “What would I do without you mothering me through every scrape?”

“Mrs. Han didn’t watch you bleed—and besides, she’d likely have a heart attack seeing what happened today.” Taehyung's fingers ruffled through Jimin's hair, the motion rough but laced with that deep affection that always made Jimin's chest tighten just a little. The pull at his scalp was familiar, almost soothing, pulling him back to simpler times before the world had sharpened everything into survival's edge. Taehyung's touch lingered at the nape of his neck, thumb pressing lightly as if to anchor him there. “Just—don’t be careless. Not with him.”

The words hung between them, heavy with the unspoken name—Jeongguk—and the undercurrent of warning that twisted something uneasy in Jimin's gut. He exhaled slowly, the breath escaping in a quiet rush that stirred the cool air. There wasn’t an answer that wouldn’t sound like an excuse, or worse, a confession of the tangled mess inside him. The cut on his cheek pulsed faintly, a dull echo of the day's chaos, but it was Taehyung's concern that made it ache deeper, exposing the vulnerability Jimin tried so hard to bury. He leaned his head into the touch for just a second longer, savoring the safety it offered.

From the corner of his eye, Jimin felt it before he saw it—that same subtle awareness tugging sharp beneath his skin, like a thread pulled taut across his nerves. It prickled at the base of his spine, an instinctive pull he couldn't quite name, drawing his gaze toward the yard's shadowed edge. Jeongguk crossed the open space with a bucket slung loosely at his side, the metal glinting dully under the lantern's reach. His head was half-turned toward them, profile sharp in the low light, those dark eyes catching on Jimin for a beat too long. But there was something in the set of his shoulders, a subtle rigidity that Jimin registered only as tension from the day's trials—the way Jeongguk's grip tightened on the bucket's handle until the knuckles blanched white, or how his stride faltered just a fraction, as if the sight of Taehyung's hand in Jimin's hair had snagged on something internal. Jeongguk's jaw clenched, a muscle jumping along the line of it, his gaze lingering not just on Jimin but on the point of contact between him and Taehyung, heavy and unblinking before he forced it away. He didn’t slow his stride fully, didn’t call out or acknowledge the moment, but the air seemed to thicken with his passing, that controlled energy coiling tighter as he vanished into the deeper gloom beyond the sheds, swallowed by the night like a shadow reclaiming its own.

The intensity of that look unsettled Jimin in a way he couldn't pin down, a faint prickle that made him shift on the step, easing back from Taehyung's touch without conscious thought. His shoulder brushed the porch rail instead, the rough wood grounding him as he blinked away the odd discomfort. Taehyung's hand dropped to his side, but his expression softened, the lines of worry easing into something more confiding. “Look, I still like the kid,” he admitted, voice low and earnest, glancing toward the sheds where Jeongguk had vanished. “Jeongguk's got heart, and yeah, it's good to have him pulling some of the weight off you. I guess I got caught up in that—relieved to see you not carrying everything alone for once.” He paused, rubbing the back of his neck, the gesture betraying a flicker of guilt. “But after today, seeing you get hurt... it reminded me he's still a danger. Those claws, that strength—he's not fully under control yet. I just want to be careful. For you.”

Jimin met his gaze, the words settling like a weight he hadn't realized he was bracing for. Taehyung's protectiveness was a constant, a shield woven from years of shared scars, but hearing the nuance—the lingering fondness for Jeongguk tempered by caution—eased the knot in his chest just a fraction. It made sense, mirrored the push-pull Jimin felt himself, the alpha's raw potential both a risk and a reluctant asset to their fragile routine. Before Taehyung could press further, could voice more of the questions brewing in his friend's furrowed brow, he stood, the rifle's strap shifting against his shoulder as he moved.

 “I’ve got guard duty,” he murmured, the excuse slipping out smoother than it felt. 

He headed for the yard with no real plan beyond the need for movement, for the rhythm of patrol to grind away the edges of his thoughts. Guard duty had a way of sanding things down, of turning the raw churn of emotions into something manageable, mechanical. It kept his hands busy—fingers curling around the rifle's grip—and his mind where it belonged: on the horizon, on threats that could be seen and shot, not the ones that simmered under his skin. The air grew cooler as he walked, carrying the earthy scent of damp soil and fading daylight, the distant hum of crickets starting up like a hesitant chorus. He reached the gate, the weathered wood cool under his palm as he unlatched it, and slowed, boots sinking slightly into the soft dirt.

Jeongguk was already there, a dark silhouette leaning against the fence post as if the night itself had molded him into place, waiting for the shadows to thicken around him. The bucket sat at his feet now, empty and forgotten, his broad shoulders relaxed but alert—or so it seemed at first glance. Up close, Jimin caught the faint tension in the way Jeongguk's arms crossed over his chest, fingers drumming a restless pattern against his bicep, the motion halting abruptly as Jimin approached. He straightened when Jimin's steps registered, the motion fluid, unhurried, and fell into step beside him without a word—as if the decision to share the patrol had been made hours ago, in some silent agreement neither had voiced. The gate creaked shut behind them, a low groan that blended into the settling quiet.

The perimeter stretched out in a familiar loop, the fence line a ragged barrier against the wild beyond. It was quiet, save for the usual symphony of the wild reclaiming the edges: crickets chirping in erratic bursts, frogs croaking from the unseen ditches, the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze. The wooden posts creaked softly as they cooled from the day's lingering heat, a rhythmic complaint that matched the steady crunch of their boots in the dirt-packed path. Jimin scanned the dark out of habit more than any real concern, his eyes tracing the treeline where moonlight filtered through in silver slivers. The rifle rested easy across his back, its weight a comforting pressure between his shoulder blades, grounding him in the routine.

Jeongguk matched his stride without effort, silent and attentive, close enough that Jimin could sense the warmth radiating from him, the faint shift of air with each step, without crowding the space. It was a proximity that felt deliberate yet respectful, stirring that unwelcome awareness again—the alpha's presence like a low hum against Jimin's senses, pulling at instincts he fought to ignore. But tonight, there was an undercurrent to Jeongguk's silence, a subtle edge that Jimin attributed to the day's exhaustion: the way his gaze flicked sidelong more often than usual, not quite meeting Jimin's eyes but skimming over him as if searching for traces of the earlier moment with Taehyung; how his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides when the conversation from the porch lingered unspoken between them, a shadow crossing his features in the dim light. They'd covered half the perimeter, the repetitive motion lulling the tension just enough, before Jeongguk finally broke the silence.

“You and Taehyung,” he said, his voice quiet, almost careful, pitched low to not carry beyond the fence. There was no judgment in it, just a curiosity that edged toward something deeper, probing—though the slight hitch in his breath, the way his shoulders drew in tighter, hinted at more than idle interest. “Are you…?” He let the question hang there, unfinished, the implication clear in the pause.

Jimin didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze fixed on the shadowed underbrush ahead, the words lodging in his throat like gravel. The question scraped at the raw spot inside him. “We’re close,” he replied finally, the words clipped, a shield thrown up quick.

“How close?” Jeongguk pressed, his tone even, not pushing too hard but not backing off either. The crunch of gravel underfoot filled the brief silence, their breaths syncing in the cool night air—though Jeongguk's came a touch sharper, laced with an undernote of strain that Jimin dismissed as the chill settling in.

“Close enough.” His tone was flat, meant to shut the door on whatever this conversation was. He could feel the heat creeping up his neck again, not from embarrassment this time but from the intrusion into something sacred, something Taehyung and he had carved out amid the ruins. The rifle's strap dug into his shoulder, a distraction he clung to, willing his focus back to the patrol, to the dark shapes that might hide threats. But Jeongguk wasn’t done.

“He looked ready to tear me apart for scratching you.”

“Taehyung doesn’t mess around when it comes to protecting his loved ones,” Jimin said simply, the truth slipping out before he could temper it. He glanced sidelong then, meeting Jeongguk's eyes for the first time since they'd started—the alpha's gaze steady, searching, reflecting the faint starlight, but darkened by a flicker of something raw, his lips pressing into a thin line before he nodded once, sharply. “He never has.”

The words carried the weight of shared history, of Taehyung's hand steady on his shoulder through losses too numerous to count, his voice the anchor in storms Jimin couldn't weather alone. It was a loyalty that burned fierce, unyielding, and in that moment, with Jeongguk's quiet scrutiny, Jimin felt the familiar pull of gratitude warring with the fresh unease of the day's events—the scratch, the tension, the way Jeongguk's control both unnerved and intrigued him against his will.

Silence stretched between them, thick and unbroken, save for the faint clink of a horse's chain rattling in the barn, a restless echo in the cooling night. Jimin's boots scuffed the dirt path, each step deliberate, pulling him further from the weight of Jeongguk's gaze. But the alpha didn't let the quiet settle for long. His voice came again, laced with a hesitation that tugged at the edges of Jimin's resolve like a loose thread.

“But are you… his?”

“Don’t,” Jimin said, the word sharp and low, his gaze unwavering on the dark horizon. Jeongguk stilled beside him, the sudden halt in his stride pulling the air taut between them. Jimin could feel the alpha's eyes on him, heavy and searching, but he didn't turn, didn't give in to the urge to meet that intensity head-on.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” he added after a beat, irritation sharpening the edges of his voice, threading it thin like a wire pulled too tight. “Not like that.”

The silence that followed dragged on, heavier now, filled with the unspoken layers of what he'd just laid bare. Jimin's fingers flexed around the rifle strap, the leather biting into his palm as he fought the flush creeping up his neck. Why did it feel like a confession? Like he'd handed over a piece of himself he hadn't meant to share, especially not to this newcomer whose every word seemed designed to probe at the cracks in his armor.

“Okay,” Jeongguk said at last, the single word dropping soft, almost resigned. He didn't argue, didn't push back with that stubborn edge Jimin had come to expect. Instead, he nodded once—Jimin caught the motion from the corner of his eye—and fell back into step beside him, the boundary accepted without fanfare. But there was a shift in the air, a subtle withdrawal that made the space between them feel both wider and more charged, like static waiting to spark.

Moonlight bathed the yard in silver, the dying lanterns sputtering faint glows that pooled sporadically along the trail. Jeongguk walked alongside, posture relaxed on the surface, fingers buried in his jacket as though the patrol were effortless, devoid of stakes. Jimin wasn't fooled; he noted the slight rigidity in the alpha's stance, the controlled rhythm of his exhales betraying an underlayer of strain.

For a while, the silence between them held firm—the kind Jimin preferred, unpressured and clean. Wind whispered through the corn rows, rustling the dry stalks like distant murmurs, while the goats shifted in their pen, hooves scraping softly against the packed earth as they settled for the night. Nothing else demanded his focus, no words or glances to navigate, just the steady rhythm of patrol pulling him forward, one foot after the other.

Then, as though he couldn't quite contain it, Jeongguk broke the quiet again. Of course he did—the alpha's curiosity was like a live wire, always sparking when least expected.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, his voice casual, pitched to blend with the night's soft sounds.

Jimin sighed, the breath escaping in a quiet huff that fogged briefly in the chill. “A while.”

“Since it all started?”

“Sure. You could say that.”

Jeongguk's exhale through his nose cut through the quiet like a dismissal he wouldn't accept.

“So it was you and Taehyung who served.” His gaze flicked sideways. “The way you move—it’s not just your average kind of doomsday training. You’ve got the kind of muscle memory only the military can bring.”

Jimin hummed in confirmation. “Hoseok too, in mandatory service.”

“Right,” Jeongguk said, unconvinced. He fell silent for a beat, boots scuffing the dirt, before tossing out the next question like it was idle chatter. “And you and Taehyung—you’re not…like are you sure you’re not a thing?”

Jimin halted abruptly, the sudden stop forcing Jeongguk to pull up short to avoid colliding. Heat surged to his face as he whipped his head around, eyes narrowing into slits that pierced the shadows. “I told you no,” he snapped, breath sharp with irritation. “He’s mated to Min Yoongi.”

Jeongguk's brows shot up, surprise flickering across his features. “Yoongi-hyung?”

“Yes.” Jimin pivoted back toward the dark stretch of fencing. He stared ahead, willing the conversation to dissolve into the night sounds—the faint creak of wood, the rustle of wind through stalks. “Don’t ask again.”

Silence returned for only what seemed like a millisecond. When he spoke again—because Jeongguk couldn’t give Jimin a single moment of peace—his tone had shifted, curiosity edging out suspicion. 

“So if you did your mandatory service, then what section were you guys in?”

“I told you. Infantry.”

Jeongguk snorted, the sound rough and disbelieving in the cool night air. “Bullshit.”

Jimin’s head came around again. “Excuse me?”

“I did my two years,” Jeongguk said, unfazed, his steps matching Jimin's without missing a beat. “Three-five-nine. I know what infantry looks like.” A faint curve tugged at his mouth, visible even in the low light filtering through the branches. “You don’t move like that, and neither does Taehyung. You two move like people who were taught to kill fast and disappear faster.”

Jimin held his stare a fraction too long, instincts flaring hot—shut it down, end this now, before the past clawed its way back. But Jeongguk didn't flinch, his gaze steady as weathered timber, unyielding. A sliver of truth couldn't hurt, not in this world where old ranks meant nothing but dust and echoes. The secret had lost its weight years ago, buried under layers of survival.

“…Special ops,” Jimin muttered at last, the admission tasting like gravel on his tongue.

Jeongguk’s grin split wide, smug satisfaction lighting his features like he'd unearthed buried treasure. “I fucking knew it.”

Jimin rolled his eyes and turned forward again, pulse thudding under his ribs. “That’s enough from you. Don’t dig where you don’t belong.”

For once, Jeongguk actually let it drop, his mouth clamping shut as silence folded over them like a heavy blanket. But the quiet thrummed regardless, laced with the alpha's smug little win, prickling along Jimin's nerves like faint sparks. They swung around the north fence, moonlight washing the ground in pale silver, dragging their shadows out into lean, fractured shapes.

“…Sorry about earlier.”

Jimin glanced over. Jeongguk wasn't scanning the gloom beyond the wire. His gaze locked instead on the narrow strip of gauze riding high along Jimin's cheekbone. The scratch.

“You mean your subpar skills during training?” Jimin huffed, the words sharp as he pivoted away. He didn't care for the way those eyes drilled into him, unblinking and intent.

“I mean cutting you.” Jeongguk's lips twisted, a fleeting pout ghosting across his face before his bangs tumbled down, veiling his expression. “Didn't mean to hurt such a pretty face.”

“What—” The syllable choked halfway free. “What the hell did you just—”

Jeongguk raised a finger to his mouth, silencing him with a swift press. A hushed shh escaped before he nodded beyond Jimin. The change hit like a switch—alertness sharpening his features, any trace of levity erased. They both froze as the night thickened around them. There, beyond the fence edging the cornfield. Jeongguk cocked his head as the disturbance in the treeline stirred once more, too deliberate for mere breeze.

Jimin's rifle snapped up, the stock nestling against his shoulder, barrel trained into the shadows. Jeongguk crouched low at his flank, claws emerging with a faint snikt of keratin slicing through the air. The brief flare of tension between them incinerated, scorched away by the sharp sting of threat. Jimin's cheeks pulsed from the stubborn echo of pretty, wedged deep where it had no right to linger.

“Put those away, Jeongguk. It’s too far away for any close combat to be used.”

“Sorry, I’m still just trying to get used to them.”

The rager lurched along the treeline, emerging into view as it threaded through the pines with erratic, ravenous jerks that knotted Jimin's stomach. It hadn't caught their scent yet. Jimin adjusted his footing on instinct, rifle rising smooth, body coiling into position. He followed the shambling path through the branches, exhaled evenly, index finger hovering light off the trigger.

“I know him,” Jeongguk murmured, voice low and taut.

Jimin's gaze whipped over. “What?”

“Not like that,” Jeongguk rushed out. “Not anymore. But I knew him.” His stare remained pinned to the stumbling form. “He was with the group that stripped me bare weeks before I ended up here.”

Jimin held the rager steady in his crosshairs, ears straining without shifting his head.

“What the fuck is he doing this close to our land now?”

“I—I don’t know. Must’ve turned in the city and wandered here.”

Jimin sighed. It wasn’t an unreasonable explanation, but it still jarred him finding stragglers out this far from the city. Finding howlers here and there made sense—they could hunt whatever was in the forest with ease. But it’s been years since Day Zero, and the thought of a rager wandering around, knowing they were human not too long ago still left a sour feeling churning in the omega’s stomach. It was a solid reminder that other humans, alive and harboring terrible intentions, could still find them. Nabi flashes in his mind.

“They cornered me a ways away from where you found me. Eight men, I think.” Jeongguk muttered, pulling Jimin out of his thoughts.

“Packed with rifles and blades, while I clutched a rusty machete and a sack of dented cans. That summed up my arsenal.” His lips curled in a sour grimace. “Couldn't scrap my way out back then. So I chucked the knife, handed over the lot. They cackled and bolted, leaving me in rags—and the machete, apparently. Didn’t want to leave me too helpless.”

The rager lurched closer to the fence, a guttural sound ripping through the quiet. It must’ve finally caught their scent.

Jimin’s chest tightened. He wanted to sneer, to tell Jeongguk surrender was cowardice—but the truth lodged like a splinter. In that moment, surrender had been survival. He knew it. And the image of Jeongguk stripped and humiliated in the dirt made something sharp and ugly twist under his ribs. 

“You did the smart thing,” Jimin said at last. “You’d be dead otherwise.”

Jeongguk’s eyes flicked to him, searching, like he hadn’t expected anything but scorn. The rager’s growl dragged him back. It clawed at the fence, teeth gnashing against the wire. Jimin steadied his aim, finger taut on the trigger as he adjusted his aim a fraction. Jeongguk’s hand brushed toward the rifle in Jimin’s hands. The omega immediately stepped away, shooting him an incredulous look. Jeongguk let his claws retract completely as he stepped closer again. Then, he spoke carefully.

“Let me take the shot.”

“No.” Jimin didn’t hesitate, his answer coming out sharp and automatic.

“I can do it.”

Another slam against the fence. The wood and metal creaked.

“I said no.”

Jeongguk drew in a breath, shoulders squaring. “I put in my time,” he said, voice even. “Mandatory service. Didn’t last as long as yours, but I drilled the same—rifles, live rounds, the whole nine yards. I’m no rookie, and you know that.”

Jimin shot him a quick look, sharp and evaluating, before snapping his eyes back to the rager. “This isn’t target practice.”

“I know.” Jeongguk edged closer, hands still visible, open. “I’m not trying to take it from you. I’m just asking.”

The rager lunged once more, jaws clamping the mesh with a vicious snap.

“Please,” Jeongguk pressed. “Just once. You’re right here. If I miss the shot, you finish it.”

For a breath, Jimin held the rifle like it was welded to him, everything inside him hating the idea of lacking full control. His jaw clenched so hard it hurt. Then, with a muttered curse, he shoved the rifle into Jeongguk’s hands.

“Don’t you dare make me regret this.”

Jeongguk took it with care, grip settling fast, stance adjusting without instruction. The first shot cracked through the night, slamming the rager back away from the post. It snarled, staggering. Jeongguk fired again, clean and precise. The body collapsed, stilling the trees. Silence rushed in.

Jeongguk lowered the rifle slowly, breath breaking out of him in a sharp exhale, adrenaline shuddering through his shoulders. He turned, the faintest spark of triumph tugging at his mouth.

Jimin’s grip closed over the barrel, pulling it back. “Two shots for one rager?” His voice was low, sharp. “Wasteful.”

Jeongguk dipped his head, bracing for the scold.

“But…” Jimin hesitated, jaw working before the words scraped free. “Your aim was solid. Long distance isn’t easy.”

The comment was nothing—less than nothing. But the way Jeongguk’s face flickered—then his lashes lowered, hiding the way his mouth wanted to curve. He only nodded once, quiet, accepting the words like a secret he wouldn’t dare say out loud. Jimin turned away first, already checking the fence line again, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

They trudged back through the night's thick quiet. No words passed between them—not on the shots that still echoed faintly in Jimin's skull, not on the lingering buzz under his skin. By the time the farmhouse lanterns glowed into sight, the rush had faded, replaced by a coiled unease that gnawed at his edges. The others waited out front, heads lifting in sync as Jimin and Jeongguk hit the porch steps, like they'd sensed the weight the shadows dragged along.

The boards creaked beneath their boots. Lantern light stretched shadows long across familiar faces—Taehyung propped against a pillar, Yoongi tucked snug between his thighs in that casual sprawl of theirs, Hoseok clustered by Namjoon as they hunched over a worn map. Seokjin sat on the long crate that doubled as their table, arms crossed. Jimin stayed just outside the circle, eyes drifting back to the treeline more than once, the rifle's heft still warm in his grip. Jeongguk dropped onto the lower step beside Byungho, body coiled, eyes sharp on the group.

“We heard the shots. Everything alright?” Yoongi asked, his stare shifting from Jimin to Jeongguk and back.

“Yeah. Just a rager along the fence line. I killed it,” Jeongguk answered before Jimin could speak.

Taehyung nodded to himself, an eyebrow raising. “Makes sense why two shots were needed then.”

Laughter rippled low as Jeongguk let out a short breath. Then Namjoon cleared his throat.

“The pantry items won’t last three weeks,” he began, fixing on the map's creases.

“Our harvest is still green, and likely won’t be ready for another couple weeks. And by the looks of it, our preserves, beans, and pickled radish will run out before spring.”

“We could cover the east grid again,” Hoseok suggested. “It’s closer, so we use less fuel.”

“But it was bare last time you all went,” Seokjin shot back, voice edged with frustration

“South? Haven’t been around there in a year,” Byungho grunted.

“Anf for a good reason,” Jimin countered, shaking his head. “Too many blind and narrow alleys—we’d never get out clean.” His eyes flicked to Taehyung then, catching the alpha’s quick nod of agreement.

The silence stretched until Jeongguk spoke up. “There’s a depot.”

Everyone’s heads turned toward him.

“Farm supply,” he went on. “It’s on the far west side of the city. Last I saw, storage was full—seed, fertilizer, tools. I heard there were pallets of canned goods stacked waist-high in the front. Nobody touches it.”

Yoongi's eyes narrowed. “Why?” 

“Because it’s crawling,” Jeongguk said simply. “A shit-ton of howlers everywhere. Several packs, maybe more. I scouted from the ridge last year, though I didn't go closer. But I remember the layout of the outside.”

Namjoon’s gaze sharpened behind his glasses. “Show us.”

Jeongguk looked around briefly, then reached for the stub of charcoal Seokjin kept tucked in the ledger beside him and crouched, sketching fast across the porch boards. A long rectangle. Two smaller blocks behind it. Xs for windows, slashes for doors. The strokes jagged but sure, like he'd traced this ghost a hundred times in his head.

“Loading bays are over here,” he said, tapping the left edge. “So that has to mean that the storage rows are going to be along the back wall—I’m not exactly sure, but maybe the seeds will be on one side, cans and tools on the other. And based on the windows, the stairwell is likely here, and probably leads to offices upstairs. I did see movement there at dusk, though.”

The porch was silent but for the rasp of charcoal. Taehyung bent forward, frowning. “And the howlers?”

“Everywhere,” Jeongguk said. “Rooftop, loading bays, the treeline around it—those might've scattered by now. But last I saw, they cluster here—” He circled the far side of the lot. 

Taehyung looked over at Yoongi. “But if the season is anything to go by, they’re likely already crowding indoors, aren’t they?”

The alpha hummed in response, nodding. “Yeah. Even if their main spot is out in the lot like he says, they’ll move indoors the moment the wind turns chilly.”

“Well, if we move fast, grab and bolt—we could pull it off,” Jeongguk added, setting the charcoal aside with a soft clack.

Seokjin snorted, though softer this time. “A ‘chance’ isn’t quite worth the real risk of your deaths.”

Namjoon’s hand rested briefly on the crate. “But it’s better than starving.”

The chill seeped through Jimin’s jacket as he traced the crude sketch with his eyes. Jeongguk's lines spoke of old scouts, risks weighed and walked away from—another layer peeled from the man who kept slipping these conveniences into their laps like bait. It irked him, that easy drop of intel, the way the group leaned in without his say.

“I’m not so sure that marching our folks into a goddamn hive to get ripped apart beats dying of hunger.” Seokjin’s tone sharpened, his lips pulling into a grim scowl as he shot Namjoon a look.

“Believe me, I’m not ecstatic about this either, hyung. But we don’t have many choices. If Jeongguk is right, we could be set for a long time— which is far better than having to go out on multiple runs throughout winter.”

Seokjin fell silent under Namjoon’s measured words, but the crease between his brows lingered, broadcasting his doubts. Hoseok leaned in, his palm settling firmly on Seokjin’s leg in a gesture of solidarity. 

“We’ll be okay, hyung. We’ve done plenty of dangerous shit since this all began. Just be sure to have some delicious stew waiting for us, yeah?”

A huff escaped Seokjin, his eyes narrowing in mock exasperation, though a reluctant curve touched his mouth as he nodded his head.

“Then it comes down to who goes,” Namjoon stated with finality. “No more than six. Any more and we slow down.”

“Me,” Hoseok said immediately.

“And he needs a chaperone, so I’ll go,” Taehyung followed.

“Yoongi,” Namjoon added. “Keep watch over the vehicle—your instincts are sharp for trouble.”

“Byungho,” Seokjin said after a beat, reluctant but firm. “I think our fencing is good enough for now, anyway. You guys will definitely need someone to help with the heavy lifting.”

That was four. Every head turned toward Jimin, an invisible pressure coiling around him. He didn’t need to say it—he’d never let them step into that kind of danger without him. A quick tilt of his chin sealed it. “I’m going.”

The last slot hung there. Jeongguk stayed silent, but his involvement was set in stone. The story, the map, the night itself had already made the argument.

Jimin swallowed once. “And I’m bringing Jeongguk. He needs to show that his training wasn’t a waste of time.”

Seokjin opened his mouth, then closed it again. No one else spoke. Namjoon closed the ledger with a final snap. 

“Then it’s decided. The run will happen the dawn after tomorrow. I need you all to rest well, run a couple drills, and be ready to leave before first light.”

The lantern hissed softly in the quiet that followed, as if it, too, understood what they’d just agreed to.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The following morning, the yard carried the faint, earthy tang of boiled beans on the breeze, mingling with the crisp bite of frost that clung to the ground. Jimin watched from the shade of a tree as Hoseok trudged back across the field, something heavy slung over his shoulder—a long, dull-barreled contraption with a canister strapped awkwardly beneath it, looking more like a scavenged oddity than a proper tool.

“Paintball marker,” Hoseok announced with a grin, dropping it into Jeongguk’s waiting hands. “Carbon dioxide powered, so no real bullets, no blown eardrums. You miss, you just look stupid—perfect for practice.”

Jeongguk turned the thing over once, his fingers curling around the grip as he tested its weight. Without hesitation, he brought it up to his shoulder, the motion fluid, almost ingrained. Jimin felt a flicker of something—recognition, maybe, or wariness—at how naturally the alpha handled it.

“I’ve always wanted to play with one of these.”

He stepped in before Jeongguk could squeeze the trigger. Two fingers brushed the alpha's elbow, adjusting it upward with a brisk nudge, then his boot tapped Jeongguk’s foot back half a pace. “Don’t crowd the stock against your shoulder—it’ll bruise you on recoil. And make sure to breathe first.”

Jeongguk complied without a word, his body shifting under the corrections like it was no imposition. The first shot cracked out, hollow and sharp against the morning quiet. Blue paint exploded across the tin can nailed to the distant fence post, splattering vivid against the weathered wood.

Hoseok whooped, clapping his hands together. “Okay, yeah—he’s got it down already.”

“Again,” Jimin said, his voice level, eyes already scanning for flaws in the follow-through.

Three more shots rang out in quick succession. Two landed clean, dead center; the third veered wide, smearing paint harmlessly into the dirt. Jimin kept his expression neutral, but inside, a quiet assessment ticked through his mind—the alpha's grip was solid, but his breathing hitched on that miss, a telltale sign of overthinking. He shifted closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of Jeongguk’s sweat mingling with the marker's chemical tang, his gaze locked on the subtle sway of posture and the timing of each exhale. “Weight forward here, into your stance. Don’t lean too far back like you’re bracing for a kick.”

Jeongguk adjusted without protest, his shoulders settling as the next burst slammed tight into the target, clustering so close to the previous hits that the colors blurred into a single, messy bloom. Satisfaction curled low in Jimin’s chest, unbidden and quickly shoved aside. He gave a short nod—approval, nothing more—and stepped back, putting space between them before that proximity could stir anything unwelcome.

They pushed through the rest at a brisk pace, taking breaks in between to get some of the day’s labor done. By the time the evening arrived, they’d gone through just about everything:  moving targets dangling from ropes that swung lazy in the wind, empty bottles clinking as they spun, the marker snapping with each pull of the trigger. Jeongguk cleared a jam mid-drill without so much as glancing for help, his fingers deft on the mechanism, and followed it with a clean hit that shattered the bottle into shards of glass and paint. Namjoon snapped his stopwatch shut with a decisive click, scribbling a quick note on his pad, while Jiwon glanced up from her clipboard, her nod one of quiet satisfaction that eased the knot in Jimin’s gut just a fraction.

“That’ll do,” Namjoon called, his voice carrying the weight of finality. “You’ve still got that service training baked in deep—no need to burn through live rounds proving it.”

Jeongguk lowered the marker, barrel dipping toward the ground, and turned his gaze to Jimin. Those dark eyes held steady, unblinking, but the faint upward curve at the corner of his mouth carried a silent ‘I told you so’ that prickled under Jimin’s skin. He met it for a beat, irritation flaring hot and familiar, before looking away. Trust was one thing; smugness was another, and Jeongguk wore it like he’d earned it without the scars to back it up.

“You’ll manage,” Jimin said flatly, already pivoting on his heel. He didn’t wait for a response, striding toward the supply shed without a backward glance, the crunch of grass under his boots a steady rhythm against the chatter fading behind him. 

The shed door creaked on rusty hinges as he shoved it open, releasing a rush of cooler air thick with the acrid bite of gun oil and aged metal. It drowned out the lingering sweetness of boiled beans and distant woodsmoke from the cookfire, wrapping around him like an old coat—familiar, grounding in its sharpness. Lantern light flickered low over the workbench, casting long shadows across the rows of disassembled rifles, their components laid out with meticulous care: bolts gleaming faintly, magazines stacked in neat piles, blades polished to a dull, serviceable sheen that spoke of use without vanity.

Jimin set his own rifle down on the scarred wood surface, the clunk echoing softly in the confined space, and glanced over his shoulder. Jeongguk had followed without being called, lingering just inside the threshold like he was waiting for the next order. The alpha’s presence filled the doorway, broad and unignorable, stirring that same reluctant awareness in Jimin—the way his claws stayed retracted, his movements contained, but the potential for force hummed just beneath. 

“Strip it,” Jimin instructed, nodding toward a nearby rifle. “Check the springs for wear, then run a cloth through the barrel. Light oil only—wipe the excess clean. I don’t want anything gumming up if the temperature drops overnight.”

Jeongguk nodded once. “Got it.”

“Sharpen the knife after that,” Jimin added, his tone clipped as he turned back to his own work. “Edge only. Don’t overwork it.”

That drew a brief flicker of acknowledgment from Jeongguk—a tilt of the head, nothing more—before he rolled his sleeves to the elbows, exposing forearms corded with muscle and faint scars that caught the lantern’s glow. He got to it without fanfare, motions precise and practiced, like he’d done this a hundred times in dim-lit barracks or rain-slicked hideouts. Jimin meant to dive into his own tasks, but he found himself pausing longer than intended, his eyes tracing the steady rhythm of Jeongguk’s hands: the twist of the takedown pins, the careful slide of the cleaning rod.

It was efficient, competent—almost too much so, stirring a mix of relief and that nagging undercurrent of suspicion.

“You’re over-oiling it,” Jimin said finally, the words slipping out sharper than he’d meant, cutting through the quiet scrape of metal on cloth.

Jeongguk glanced up, surprise flashing brief in his eyes before he eased the cloth away, inspecting the sheen on the barrel. “Too much?”

“I told you, it’ll gum up in the cold.” Jimin replied, stepping forward before he could second-guess the impulse. He reached out, taking the rifle from Jeongguk's hands without a word of warning, twisting it slightly to catch the light, he dragged a fresh rag along the barrel, wiping away the excess with quick, practiced strokes. The weapon's weight settled familiar in his palms, the balance shifting just right as he adjusted the sling absentmindedly. “You want it dry enough to breathe.”

Jeongguk watched him, standing close enough that the warmth radiating from his body cut through the shed's chill, a subtle pressure against the scant space between them. Jimin could smell the faint trace of gun oil on him now, mixed with something earthier, more personal—sweat from the morning's drills, perhaps, or just the alpha's natural pine smoke  scent seeping through. 

“Is that how you like it?” Jeongguk murmured.

“That’s how it works,” Jimin said curtly, handing the rifle back. Their fingers grazed at the stock, a fleeting brush of skin that sparked sharp and electric, vanishing as quickly as it came. He pulled his hand away first, but Jeongguk lingered a beat longer, his grip adjusting slowly, eyes lifting to lock on Jimin's face rather than dropping to the weapon.

“You always step in like that.”

“Someone has to,” Jimin replied, a beat too quick. He turned to the workbench, snatching up another magazine to load, the metal cool and grounding under his fingers. Anything to widen the gap, to shake off the way Jeongguk's proximity made the air feel thicker. “Check your load again. Make sure it's seated right.”

Jeongguk did, but slower this time, as if listening for something else—the subtle hitch in Jimin's breath, the way his shoulders tensed. The lantern hummed faintly overhead, casting wavering shadows that danced across the walls. Outside, a distant shout echoed from the yard—Hoseok calling to someone, probably, but it faded into irrelevance.

“You don’t treat anyone else’s gear like this,” Jeongguk said after a moment, his tone laced with quiet curiosity rather than accusation.

Jimin slid the magazine home with a sharp click, the force echoing louder than he'd meant in the confined space. He set it down harder than necessary, the clunk vibrating through the bench. “You’re going out with me tomorrow.”

“So are half the others.” 

Jimin finally met the alpha's gaze, holding it steady despite the churn in his gut. “And you’re the only one I haven’t seen under fire yet.” 

It was the truth, plain and simple, but saying it aloud felt like laying bare the suspicion that hadn't fully eased, no matter how competently Jeongguk handled the drills.

Something shifted in Jeongguk’s expression—like something that hinted at disappointment in Jimin’s response. It vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a single, curt nod. He turned back to the knife, rolling it between his fingers before drawing the whetstone along the edge with measured strokes. The blade caught the light in brief, silvery flashes, each pass precise and unhurried.

They fell into silence after that, the shed filling with the steady sounds of their work: the whisper of cloth on steel, the soft clicks of components snapping into place. Jimin should have found it soothing, this ritual of preparation—the familiarity of it all, a bulwark against the uncertainties waiting beyond the fence. Instead, it amplified everything—the alpha's even breathing just within reach, the occasional brush of an elbow as they navigated the narrow bench, the way Jeongguk's focus never fully strayed, as if he were hyper-aware of Jimin's every shift. It set his nerves humming, a low vibration of unease and something sharper he refused to name, sharpening his senses where they had no business lingering. Tomorrow's run loomed larger in the quiet, the weight of it pressing down, laced with the enigma of the man beside him.

When Jeongguk finished, he straightened and rolled his shoulders, stretching them loose. 

“You’ll tell me if I screw up out there,” Jeongguk said, voice low and steady, turning to face him fully now, that probing stare settling in again.

Jimin didn’t hesitate. “I won’t have to. The immediate death or major injury will.” 

The words hung sharp in the dim air, a blunt edge to the caution he'd been layering all evening. He met Jeongguk's eyes without flinching, holding the line, even as a flicker of something—regret? Overkill?—twisted low in his gut.

Jeongguk’s mouth twitched, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “That’s…yeah. That’s fair.” He nodded once, short and accepting, but the way his jaw tightened afterward spoke of restraint, like he was biting back more.

Jimin broke away then, stepping back to shatter the charged closeness that had built unnoticed. The air between them cooled instantly, the shed's chill rushing in to fill the void. He swiped his hands down his pants, rubbing away the faint residue of oil and sweat, and turned toward the door before the quiet could thicken into something unbearable.

“Get some rest,” he tossed over his shoulder, voice clipped, already pushing the handle. “We move before first light.” He didn't linger for an answer, slipping out into the night without a backward glance.

Daehyun waited just beyond the threshold, arms crossed against the cold, his silhouette a solid anchor in the yard's gloom. He dipped his head in silent acknowledgment as Jimin pulled the door shut behind him, the latch clicking with finality. Jimin returned the nod, a tight jerk of relief uncoiling in his shoulders—he was done with the alpha's orbit for the night, free from that insistent pull that set his instincts scrambling.

He crossed the yard alone, boots crunching softly in the dirt as he put distance between himself and the shed's confining walls. The night's bite sliced through his shirt, crisp and unforgiving, snapping him back to the present with a shiver that rattled down his spine. He dragged in a lungful of the slowly turning autumn air, then another, letting it scour the knot in his chest until it eased to a manageable ache. By the time he hit the porch steps, the lanterns flickered low, their glow dimming under careful hands inside. A burst of laughter leaked from the house—Seokjin’s, probably, light and fleeting—before a door thudded shut, muffling it. The evening dragged on, routine and hollow, the kind of quiet that followed hard labor, leaving space for thoughts to fester.

Full darkness had claimed the farm by the time Jimin settled in, the world outside his window reduced to vague outlines under a sliver of moon. He lay on his side atop the thin mattress, blanket twisted around his legs from restless shifting, gaze locked on the shed's distant shape. In the harsh light of day, it was merely functional—a tool box of weathered wood and rusting hinges, storing tools and tension alike. But now, with its lantern extinguished and the single pane of glass glinting pale, it loomed nearer, an unwelcome intrusion on the perimeter of his mind. Jeongguk would be there, no doubt sprawled on the makeshift cot Hoseok had hammered together from salvaged planks and frayed cord, his form taking up space in the narrow confines, breath evening out against the low ceiling.

Tomorrow loomed beyond the fence, unforgiving terrain that punished errors with blood and finality. Jimin would lead him into it, eyes sharp on every move, every sign of fracture in that composed exterior.

He flipped onto his back, the springs creaking faintly under the shift, and forced his breathing to level, thoughts channeling into the old rhythms that had kept him alive through worse. Primary routes snaking through the west fields, fallback exits tucked in the treeline's shadow. Push hard on the open ground, pull tight through the choked underbrush. Contingencies for ragers shambling in loose packs or howlers screeching from the ruins—flank left, suppress fire, extract fast. The checklist rolled through him, a mechanical anchor, steadying the pulse that still echoed from the shed's confines.

But it fractured, inevitably, splintering toward the alpha. The seamless way Jeongguk had mirrored his corrections in the drills earlier, stance widening without prompt, grip tightening on cue. How he'd hung on Jimin's instructions, absorbing them with a focus that bordered on deference, ears tuned to every syllable like it carried weight beyond tactics. And that final look after, steady and searching, pinning Jimin in place as if his judgment alone could validate or condemn. Heat pricked under Jimin's skin at the memory, unwelcome and insistent—he squeezed his eyes shut against it, jaw clenching.

Of course his thoughts veered there. This was survival, pure and stripped: dissecting the man he'd be chained to in the field, mapping his limits, his tells, his breaking points. If Jeongguk faltered tomorrow—if that control slipped into recklessness, turning asset to liability—Jimin would end it all before anyone else paid the price. That certainty held.

Clutching that, sleep edged in eventually, fitful and thin, threading through the cracks of unease—but it came, dragging him under into the dark.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 : Shattered Lines

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Dawn crept in thin and pale, more a whisper of light than anything solid. Frost gripped the grass along the fence line, snapping faintly under boots as figures crossed the yard. The cold had deepened overnight, seeping into Jimin's joints like an unwelcome guest, making his fingers ache as he stepped onto the porch. His breath fogged the air for a heartbeat before he pulled it back in, squaring his shoulders against the chill that clawed at his coat, urging him to turn back inside where it was warmer, safer.

Jimin knew why. The calendar had caught his eye the night before, hanging crooked on its nail above the hallway table. Namjoon's blocky letters marked a fresh page—September, scrawled unevenly after that quiet dinner a few nights back. No fanfare, no words about it; time just pushed on, ready or not, and Jimin felt it dragging at him like the frost on his skin, marking the shift toward harder months where every trip out felt like a gamble.

The truck's engine idled by the gate, its low growl vibrating through the still air and into Jimin's chest, a steady thrum that matched the unease knotting there. Yoongi was bent under the hood, his headlamp slicing a sharp beam through the gray haze, tools clinking softly as his steady hands probed the guts of the machine. Jimin watched him for a moment, envying that focus—Yoongi's way of shutting out the world when it pressed too close. A faint whiff of oil and rust drifted over, mixing with the crisp bite of frost, turning the air thick and metallic on his tongue.

Taehyung perched on the bumper nearby, lacing his boots with quick tugs, his eyes locked on the shadowed treeline beyond, as if searching for threats already lurking in the dimness. Jimin caught the tension in his friend's jaw, the same distant stare he'd worn before every run, and it stirred a flicker of protectiveness in him—they'd lost too much to those roads not to.

They assembled like always—silent, drawn by habit and the engine's hum, everyone aware the roads demanded more than they ever returned. It grated on Jimin sometimes, this quiet inevitability, how the group moved without needing orders, eyes flicking to him not out of fear but expectation. Mrs. Han shuffled down the steps, apron tied tight, wiping her hands on it for the third time that morning, her anxiety plain in the way her fingers twisted the fabric.

He could almost feel her worry radiating, the same one that had etched lines deeper into her face since her son didn't come back on Day Zero. She pressed a wrapped rice ball into Taehyung's palm, the rice still warm against the cold, then another into Hoseok's when he emerged from the workshop. His vest was buckled firm, a coil of rope draped over his shoulder, the fibers rough and smelling faintly of pitch—Hoseok's optimism in every knot, Jimin thought, even as doubt whispered it might not hold.

Jimin descended the porch steps before the gathering could turn too solemn, his boots crunching over the frosted ground, sending tiny shards scattering. The air tasted metallic on his tongue, sharp with the promise of a long day, and he swallowed against the dryness in his throat.

"Five minutes," he called, his voice cutting through the quiet just loud enough to carry, roughened by the cold.

That snapped things into motion. Whispers hushed, steps quickened, the group tightening like a knot pulling taut. It always centered on him this way, the weight of eyes and expectations settling without a word, and Jimin bore it steadily, though part of him longed to shrug it off, to let someone else call the shots for once. Mrs. Han paused before him, her callused hands hovering at his sleeve. She smoothed the wool once, her touch firm and grounding, like she'd done a hundred times before, each one a silent plea he couldn't ignore.

"Bring back what'll carry us through winter," she said, her gaze piercing, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. Then, softer, for his ears alone, "And I trust you'll bring back everyone you take."

Jimin nodded, the motion sharp, the words lodging in his chest like stones—he'd make it true, no matter what the roads threw at them. It was the response she needed, the one that sealed the ritual and steadied his own resolve.

Hyejin approached next, a strip of cloth in her hand, dark and pungent with camphor that stung Jimin's nostrils even from a distance, sharp enough to cut through the fog of his thoughts.

“So you can keep your focus in all that nasty rot,” she murmured, snagging his wrist before he could pull away. She bound it tight, the fabric rough against his skin, and tugged the knot twice, testing its hold as if the rot out there might unravel it otherwise. Her fingers lingered, then dipped into her pocket again. She pulled out a small, carved token—smooth wood etched with faint lines—and pressed it into his palm, closing his fingers around it. The wood was cool, almost as cold as the frost underfoot, but it carried her warmth, a quiet reminder of the hands that had shaped it.

"For luck," she added, her eyes meeting his briefly, shadowed with the same unspoken worry they all carried, the kind that made Jimin want to promise more than he could. He slipped it into his pocket, the weight a small anchor against the pull of what lay ahead, grounding him as the group began to move.

“And—uh. You too,” she added, her voice dropping quieter now as she pressed a second strip into Jeongguk’s palm. She didn’t look at him when she did it, her gaze flicking down to the cloth like it held all the words she couldn't say.

Jeongguk blinked, caught off guard, his broad shoulders shifting under the sudden attention. He nodded once, short and precise.

“Thanks.” He tied it himself, fingers working the knot with that careful focus he always had, eyes downcast like he’d rather fade into the background than draw eyes to the fact that he’d been pulled into the ritual at all.

Jimin watched the exchange, a prickle of something sharp uncoiling in his gut—Hyejin's hesitation, the way her cheeks flushed faint against the pale dawn. Was she nursing some schoolgirl crush on the kid? Jeongguk, with his reserved silences and that unreadable stare, drawing her in like a moth to a flame she didn't know burned hot. It annoyed Jimin, that naivety of hers, fluttering around someone who kept the world at arm's length; out there, distractions like that could cost more than blushes.

Hyejin stepped back too fast, nearly colliding with Sooyeon, who caught her by the elbow with a steady grip and no comment, her sharp eyes scanning the yard like always. Jimin noticed the way Hyejin drifted toward the steps afterward instead of hovering where she usually did, her attention snagging on Jeongguk in brief, unguarded glances she probably thought slipped by unnoticed. He saw it anyway, the quick darts of her eyes, and it stirred a low agitation he shoved down quickly—disguised as a scoff at how she romanticized the quiet ones, blind to the shadows they carried. But he let it pass; the roads didn't care for petty heartaches, and he'd haul them all back before any of it mattered.

Others filtered in with last bits of luck—an extra lighter pressed into Taehyung's gloved hand, a couple of extra flasks of water slung over shoulders, a single glove that fit Yoongi’s left hand better than the right, its wool frayed but warm. Mira slapped a small wrench into Hoseok’s vest pocket with a sharp smack, her voice cutting low. 

“If you break the truck, I’ll break your face.”

Hoseok grinned, wide and unyielding against the cold, and kissed the air toward her, but his hand stayed pressed over the pocket, fingers curling protectively as if the tool alone could mend what the day migNamjoon finally peeled away from Hoseok’s side and crossed back over to Jimin, his steps measured on the frosted ground. The yard noise thinned naturally around them, people shifting aside without being told, the air heavy with that expectant hush. Namjoon’s glasses fogged at the edges from his breath, and he didn’t wipe them this time, leaving the world a little blurred at the corners.

“Same rules as always,” he said quietly, voice pitched for Jimin's ears alone, steady but laced with the weight of too many departures.

“Speed over pride. You know I don’t really want you guys out there, so if it all goes to shit, you haul ass and get out of there.”

Jimin inclined his head, the motion pulling at the tightness in his neck, the cold air rasping in his lungs with each shallow breath.

Namjoon hesitated then, his eyes flicking briefly toward the fence line where shadows clung stubborn in the gray light, before returning to Jimin. His voice dropped further, almost lost in the engine's distant rumble. “I know how you are,” he said, the words landing like a gentle warning.

“But I don’t need you bringing us back a win if it means a sacrifice has to be made. Especially if the sacrifice is you.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened, the muscle jumping under his skin—he hated how Namjoon could read that drive in him, the one that pushed too far sometimes, chasing the haul that kept them all breathing.

“I need you bringing everyone back, so keep an eye out for your own neck as well, yeah?” Namjoon finished, his gaze holding firm, protective in that pragmatic way of his.

Jimin looked down at the frost whitening their boots, the tiny crystals catching the first slivers of light, then back up, meeting the fogged lenses.

“We’ll be back before midnight.” The promise hung there, solid as he could make it, though the words tasted like frost on his tongue—brittle, uncertain once the sun dipped low.

Namjoon didn’t answer with a ‘good’. After the sun sets, returning home by midnight becomes merely an idea, not a guarantee, and they both knew it, the silence between them thick with the unsaid.

Yoongi slammed the hood of the truck shut, the clang echoing sharp through the yard like a final punctuation, and rolled his neck with a faint crack that Jimin felt in his own stiff joints. The headlamp slipped to Yoongi's collarbone like an afterthought, forgotten in the press of the moment.

“She’ll run just fine,” he said, wiping grease from his hands on his pants, the dark smears blending into the fabric—which was the utmost optimism by his standards—high praise from a man who trusted machines more than promises.

That was enough. The air hung heavy with farewells half-spoken, and Jimin lifted his chin toward the truck, his voice cutting clean through the hush. “Move.”

Things fell into place after that without urgency, the way they always did, a rhythm honed from too many dawns like this one. Taehyung took the passenger seat up front, his long frame folding in with a quiet slump, shoulders already carrying the weight of the empty miles ahead. Yoongi slid behind the wheel and settled his hands on it like the truck might listen if spoken to properly, fingers flexing once before gripping firm. Byungho hauled himself into the truck bed first, the metal groaning under his solid build as he checked his shotgun, thumb brushing the worn stock once in a ritual of its own before resting it across his knees, eyes scanning the horizon even from the yard. 

Hoseok followed, vaulting the side rail with a practiced motion that belied the tension in his jaw, landing light on his feet. The rope coiled on his shoulder shifted with a soft rasp, and he steadied himself against the cold metal, his usual spark dimmed but not gone, glancing back at the gate like he could memorize the faces there.

Jimin climbed in after them, his palms stinging briefly against the frost-kissed metal boards as he took his place near the front of the bed, rifle snug along his spine where it pressed a constant reminder into his back. The cold metal bit through his gloves, a sharp contrast to the warmth he'd left behind, and he fought the urge to glance at the knot of people one last time—better to face forward, into whatever the road demanded.

Jeongguk lingered a beat longer than the rest, his frame silhouetted against the paling sky. He flicked a glance at Jimin—brief, searching, the kind that asked without words if this was the right call, already answered in the set of Jimin's shoulders. Jeongguk hauled himself over the rail with easy strength, landing lightly beside him, the truck bed dipping slightly under the impact. Jimin caught the faint hitch in his breath, the way Jeongguk's eyes darted back to the yard, and felt that protective pull tighten in his gut—the kid was still finding his place among them, and out here, hesitation could snag like barbed wire. 

Seokjin and Namjoon stood at the driver’s window, shoulders nearly touching as they spoke quietly with Yoongi and Taehyung, their voices a low murmur lost to Jimin in the back. The words didn't matter; it was the ritual of it, the last thread binding them to home.

“Bring the truck back in one piece,” Seokjin said, his tone light but edged, the beta’s worry threading through like a hidden suture.

“Bring yourselves back as well,” Namjoon added, voice rougher than usual, gravelly from the cold or the unsaid fears, his gaze sweeping the bed where they sat.

Jimin knocked twice on the cab wall, the thud solid and final. “Go.” The command pulled at something deep in him, a resolve to shepherd them through whatever rot waited beyond the fence.

The gate screeched as Daehyun and Mira hauled it open, the sound grating like nails on rusted iron, and frosted grass and gravel cracked under the tires as the truck rolled through. It moved slowly at first, deliberate, until the fence fell away and the fields stretched pale and empty under the climbing light. Jimin faced forward, one hand braced against the truck wall, rifle snug along his spine, the wind already whipping at his hood and stripping the last of sleep from his eyes like an unwelcome wake-up.

Beside him, Jeongguk wound the camphor cloth around his fingers again, tight enough that Jimin could see the knuckles whiten—no one spoke, the silence a shared armor against the pull of what they'd left. In the side mirror, the pack shrank to a knot at the gate, faces blurring into indistinct shapes, and Jimin didn’t look long; lingering eyes only made the distance ache more. The road narrowed as the city rose ahead, its skeletal outlines looming like a promise of ruin.

The truck battered its way down the broken highway, each pothole shuddering through the frame and into Jimin’s ribs, jarring his teeth and settling a dull throb in his temples. Wind clawed at the open bed, sharp enough to sting his cheeks raw, carrying the faint, acrid bite of decay from the overgrown edges. The engine’s vibration settled deep in his bones until it was hard to tell where the machine ended and he began, every rut pulling at the tension coiled in his muscles.

Up front, Yoongi drove without a word, cap pulled low over his eyes, hands steady on the wheel like the road was something he could negotiate with if he kept his grip firm enough—Jimin envied that focus, the way Yoongi poured himself into the mechanical heartbeat of the truck, shutting out the rest. Taehyung stared out the passenger window, elbow braced on the sill, gaze tracking the empty stretch ahead as if he were still counting exits that no longer existed, his profile etched with that quiet intensity that made Jimin wonder what ghosts he chased in the rearview.

In the back, there was nothing to do but brace and ride it out. Metal rails bit cold into Jimin’s palms, dust worked its way into their throats with every gust, gritty and unrelenting, and the wind stole any thought that lingered too long, scattering them like leaves. Conversation tried to start and failed more than once—half-formed words swallowed by the roar—before Byungho finally raised his voice over the engine, his tone gruff but aiming for levity.

“Daehyun burned the rice again last night helping Mrs. Han. Seokjin can scold him to hell and back all he wants, but I swear that pot is cursed.”

Hoseok laughed so hard he had to grab the rail with both hands to keep from sliding, the sound bursting out bright against the gray.

“A cursed pot? Hyung, you’re way too soft on your brother. Next it’ll be ghosts when he oversleeps on watch duty.” Hoseok's grin flashed, playful even as the wind tugged at it, whipping strands of hair across his forehead and carrying the faint, salty tang of dust that clung to everything.

Even Jimin felt his mouth tug, brief and unwilling, the humor a small rebellion against the road's indifference. It eased the knot in his chest just enough to breathe deeper, eyes flicking to Jeongguk, who leaned back against the side panel, dust streaked along his pants from the truck bed, his expression unreadable but softer at the edges.

“Not wrong, though. Burnt rice does taste kind of cursed,” Jeongguk said, his voice low but carrying over the engine's growl, a quiet addition that pulled the thread of the joke tighter.

Byungho barked a laugh, sharp and deep, rumbling from his chest like distant thunder, the sound vibrating through the metal floor into Jimin's boots. “Finally, someone with sense!”

The sound carried, infectious despite the chill, Hoseok wheezed with it, fumbling to clutch the rail again as his shoulders shook, and Byungho kept chuckling, the noise a defiant bubble against the wind's howl. Jeongguk laughed hard enough that when he spoke again, something loosened in him, unguarded.

Busan satoori slipped free, thick and raw, changing the shape of his voice—younger, rougher, too real, like gravel underfoot after rain. It wasn’t exaggerated or for show; it sounded far too natural, the way words fell when he stopped paying attention to how he sounded, the dialect rolling off his tongue with the ease of forgotten summers.

Jimin felt it before he fully registered it, the words hitting like a gust that carried the sea's brine straight to his core. For half a second, he wasn’t in the truck bed anymore, the jolting ruts and biting wind fading. He was younger, barefoot on cold tile that chilled his soles, his mother’s hands warm and callused on his wrists as she spun him clumsily through the living room, laughter bubbling up unchecked.

The radio blared too loud, static-laced melodies filling the space, curtains half open to let in the slanting afternoon light, salt still crusting his hair from the beach where waves had crashed relentlessly and alive. Busan sun warming his skin, Busan air thick with fish markets and salt spray—a life that had ended faster than it should have, shattered by the world's unraveling.

Then Seoul crashed in, the city's grind sanding everything down until even his own voice had learned to behave, polished and distant, high school hallways echoing with the isolation of an equally lonely Kim Taehyung at his side. He blinked, breath catching just slightly in his throat, the metallic taste of dust grounding him as the moment snapped back into place—the truck's shudder, the wind's claw, the faces around him sharpening into focus.

Hoseok lit up immediately, eyes crinkling as he jabbed Jimin in the ribs with a gloved finger, the poke sharp through layers of fabric.

“Did you hear that? Another Busan boy spotted in the wild! What are the odds of that, Jimin?”

Jimin didn’t look at Jeongguk, keeping his gaze fixed on the blurring horizon where skeletal buildings clawed at the sky, but he felt the pull anyway—that shared echo of salt and loss, stirring a quiet defensiveness laced with something sharper, unspoken. 

“What, you want me to clap?” His tone came out drier than intended, a shield against the ache blooming in his chest.

Jeongguk was still grinning, the accent lingering like he hadn’t realized it slipped, his laughter fading into a soft huff that made the lines around his eyes soften further.

“Better than sounding like a boring Seoul news anchor.”

The wind filled the space between them, rushing in with a low whine that tugged at Jimin's collar, carrying flecks of grit that stung his cheeks. He let it sit there longer than necessary, his jaw tightening—not with anger, but with the awareness that Jeongguk had grown up near the same restless water, under the same relentless sky, chasing the same fragile dreams before it all crumbled. Somehow they’d both washed up here, in this rattling bed of steel and resolve, and the thought twisted in him, a reminder of how thin the line was between survival and erasure.

When he spoke, it came out low, rougher than he intended, the dialect threading through before he could stop it—Busan rising unbidden, warm and jagged like salt spray on skin he hadn't felt in years.

“Watch your mouth. I’ve eaten more rice than you.”

The echo of it lingered just a fraction too long, tangled in the faint hum of tires on uneven pavement.

Then the truck bed erupted, the noise crashing over him like a sudden downpour.

Hoseok doubled over, more laughter tearing out of him raw and unrestrained, one hand slapping his knee as he used the other to shove Byungho’s shoulder repeatedly in amusement, who also barked a laugh so sharp it cut clean through the wind.

Jeongguk’s grin broke wide, a flicker of astonishment lighting his features—brows lifting briefly—before settling into something bright and almost delighted, as if he'd uncovered a hidden key to a door he'd only guessed at, his posture loosening in a manner that tugged at Jimin's chest.

Jimin felt it a beat later, the realization sinking in like cold water down his back.

Shit.

He hadn’t sounded like that in years. He'd almost convinced himself it was gone, smoothed away, yet here it waited, persistent beneath the surface, awakening those instincts he restrained—the drive to bond, to safeguard—warring with the caution that had armored him through harder days. Heat crept up the back of his neck, prickling his skin beneath the collar, as he turned away, fast enough that it might have looked deliberate, jaw setting hard as he leaned back against the rail, the cold metal biting into his palms through his gloves. He fixed his gaze on the road ahead, where the asphalt cracked and buckled under the truck's tires, blurring into a gray ribbon that stretched toward nothing.

Hoseok was still laughing, bent forward as the truck jolted, dust kicking up in lazy swirls.

“There it is,” he managed, voice ragged, wiping at his eyes. “I knew you still had it in you.”

Jeongguk shifted closer as the road dipped, boots skidding briefly on the metal floor before he found his balance, the proximity brushing against Jimin's arm for a fleeting second—the warmth of him cutting through the chill like an unwelcome reminder. His grin stayed easy, the accent still threaded through his voice like he hadn’t noticed that it was still slipping out, rough and real.

“See?” he said, the word light but probing. Then, quieter, almost thoughtful, his breath visible in the cold air, “I knew there was more to you.”

The words threw Jimin off just enough that his footing faltered before he corrected it, a quick shift that pressed his boot against the rail to steady himself, the vibration humming up his leg. The sound of his own voice from seconds earlier lingered, unfamiliar in a way that bothered him more than he wanted to admit—exposing a crack in the armor he'd built, one that Jeongguk's delight only widened, stirring a mix of irritation and that stubborn pull to shield him from seeing too much. He folded his arms, the motion brisk, a habit resurfacing on instinct, fabric rustling as he crossed them tight over his chest.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can barely keep your boots on, don’t think you can talk to me like a wise man.” The retort came out clipped, Seoul-neutral snapping back into place, but the edge of it softened by the pulse still thrumming in his ears.

Jeongguk laughed, bright and unguarded, the sound bubbling up clear and free, like the comment never stood a chance of sticking, his head tipping back against the panel as the truck swayed.

Jimin turned toward the long stretch of road, letting the wind bite at his face. He let the noise wash past him, the engine's growl and fading chuckles blending into a dull roar that drowned out the echo in his head. He pretended his pulse hadn’t jumped, that the sound of his own voice hadn’t just dragged up a life he’d packed away and stopped touching a long time ago—the beach's salt, his mother's spin, the easy rhythm of home before it all fractured.

Fields gave way to sagging suburbs, the houses leaning like tired sentinels, roofs caved in and windows shattered into jagged teeth. Then to strip malls and high-rises half-swallowed by vines that crept up concrete like veins, twisting through cracks. Storefronts gaped open, glass long gone, shadows thick where aisles once bustled with life, now silent and watchful. The laughter faded on its own, replaced by the low, shared awareness that crept in when the world started looking back—the weight of empty eyes in the ruins, the road's promise of more loss ahead pressing down on them all.

Byungho leaned forward, braced on the rail, voice dropping. “Alright. We’re getting close enough. Jeongguk—show us again.”

Jeongguk nodded once, the earlier lightness stripped away, leaving a clean, focused stillness that Jimin noted with approval—the alpha knew when to lock in, and hopefully it remained that way. He dropped to one knee, pressing his palm into the dust on the truck bed, fingers tracing fast, deliberate lines: the depot’s long rectangular shape, doors slashed with hazard marks, circles for light poles jutting up like broken teeth amid the rubble.

He marked the front entrance first. “The entrance is blown wide open. First stretch looks like tools and farm gear, judging by what was left in the open. Y’know, stuff nobody bothered hauling when shit first started hitting the fan.”

His finger hesitated at the center line. “After that, it’s guesswork. Open floor, but sightlines suck—plenty of blind corners.”

Jeongguk circled the rear section. “The back wall might still have pallets. I saw stacks through a broken panel, but I didn’t stick around to confirm. If anything’s intact, it’s there.”

Then the stairwell. He tapped it once, harder. “That’s where I stopped watching, but there were shadows up top. Could be nothing, could be a howler nest.”

Jimin absorbed the layout, his mind already mapping fallback routes, the potential for echoes in those open spaces amplifying every scrape or breath. Assume ambush points everywhere. He nodded slowly. “So we assume the worst-case scenario. Howlers or not, we treat it like a trap.”

Jeongguk's gaze lifted to meet his. “Always.”

The word carried a quiet echo of their shared caution, pulling at Jimin's instinct to position himself as buffer if things turned. Byungho gave a single, decisive tilt of his head. “In and out the same way.”

“No splitting and going off on your own,” Hoseok added, his fingers tightening on the strap across his chest, the motion efficient as he scanned the horizon where the depot's outline began to haze into view.

“Not unless you’re aiming to end up howler bait,” Jimin said, tone flat and honed from too many briefings, committing the sketch's details to memory—the weak points, the chokepoints. Stay tight, or they don't come back whole.

“Jeongguk and Byungho on haul. Hoseok and I cover the flanks. Taehyung and Yoongi idle the engine, be ready to get us the hell out of there.”

“Always do,” Yoongi shot back from the cab, his voice muffled but firm, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Jimin skipped soliciting more contingencies; the plan was solid, etched in his head like a grid. He raised his eyes, sweeping over the group—Byungho's braced readiness, Hoseok's alert poise, Jeongguk wiping dust from his hands—before settling on the scout.

“If they swarm, we fall back to the truck. No heroics, no random improvising. We cut and run.”

Jeongguk held his stare, unflinching, his claws easing out against the metal rail in a brief, instinctive flex before he reined them in, fist clenching tight. The nod came sharp, and Jimin broke the eye contact, the quiet dropping over the bed like a held breath.

The truck lurched over a pothole, the jolt rattling up through Jimin's bones, kicking up dust that thickened the air and carried the faint rot of overgrown weeds from the crumbling suburbs closing in. Warehouses sagged into the earth, chain-link fences tangled in vines that whispered against the wind. The heaviness pressed on him now, the depot's walls looming in his thoughts like a cage waiting to snap shut, his heartbeat syncing to the engine's low thrum as readiness coiled in his gut.

They moved in those small, practiced shifts—sleeves tugged down over skin, tape pulled taut across denim and forearms, the bite of it sealing in what it could against teeth or claws. Not perfect, but it'll buy seconds if it comes to that. Jimin felt the strip at his own wrist dig in, a sharp reminder that kept his focus narrow.

But scent—that was the real betrayer in places like this. Howlers didn't need eyes to hunt; they followed the pull of warm blood and pheromones like a thread. They can't risk drawing them before they’re even out of the truck.

“Hold up,” Jimin said, voice cutting through the rumble as he reached for the battered tin at his feet, the one they kept stocked for runs like this. “Scent mask first. We're too close to skip it.”

The depot rose out of the haze ahead, gray and squat, its glass front blown out into jagged rows that caught the light like broken teeth—just as Jeongguk described before. Shadows slid along the edges where the walls collapsed inward, shifting too unevenly to be dismissed as wind.

He pried the lid, the sharp tang hitting him immediately—charred wood ash mixed with the greasy bind of rabbit fat, gritty dirt, and the earthy bite of dried horse manure they'd scraped from the settlement's fertilizer piles. Stinks like hell, but it works—cloaks them in something dead and forgotten. The group knew the drill. No one griped as Hoseok scooped a dollop onto his fingers, the grayish paste smearing thick as he rubbed it into his wrists first, then tilted his head to work it along the pulse at his neck where the glands thrummed.

Jimin followed suit, the cool sludge sinking into his skin with a faint burn, grounding him as it spread over his own wrists and up to the sensitive hollows of his throat. Hour tops before it fades—means they need to move fast once they’re inside, no lingering. He glanced at Jeongguk, catching the alpha's frown deepen, nostrils flaring against the odor as he eyed the tin like it might bite.

“What's this crap even do?” Jeongguk muttered, voice low but edged with that skeptical rumble, his shoulders tensing as if the smell alone offended his instincts. 

Jimin met his gaze steadily, dipping his fingers for another smear to even out his application. “Binds our scents into something neutral—ash and rot they won't track as prey. Howlers go by smell first—this muddies the trail, buys us time to haul without a welcoming party. Trust it, or we might as well ring a goddamn dinner bell.”

Jeongguk's jaw worked, the complaint clear in the set of his mouth, but he didn't push back. He extended his arm toward Hoseok, who grinned faintly and slathered the mix on without pause, working it methodically over the alpha's wrists before Jeongguk grudgingly tipped his head, exposing the strong line of his neck. The paste went on rough, Hoseok's fingers pressing firm to seal it in, and Jeongguk's nose wrinkled harder, a low huff escaping him.

From the cab, the back window slid open with a scrape, Taehyung's face popping into view, his eyes crinkling with that irrepressible spark. “Hey, there's more things to be afraid of than a little horse shit, Jeongguk. Like, say, the actual howlers waiting to turn you into lunch.”

Jeongguk shot him a flat look, but the corner of his mouth twitched, the tension easing just a fraction as Hoseok finished up and wiped his hands on his pants. Jimin capped the tin, the mask settling into his skin like a second layer, dulling his own awareness of the group's underlying scents—the faint warmth from himself, the sharper alpha notes from Jeongguk. 

Byungho taped his last strip securely over the scent glands at his neck, the adhesive pulling tight against his skin with a faint, sticky rasp. He nodded once, eyes sharp and distant, as the truck's tires bit deeper into gravel, the crunch growing louder in Jimin's ears like bones grinding underfoot.

“One minute out,” Yoongi called from the cab, his voice low and steady, the engine's rumble dipping as they eased toward the lot. Jimin felt the shift immediately—the smooth asphalt giving way to jagged gravel that jolted up through the truck's frame and into his spine, a sharp vibration that made his teeth clench. He gripped the rail harder, knuckles whitening, while beside him, Jeongguk planted his boots wider against the bed's floor, muscles coiling like a spring. No one said a word about it; the easy banter from the road had evaporated, scorched away by the final mile's weight pressing on them all.

Yoongi guided the truck into the lot with careful precision, letting it roll to a stop just short of the building's shadow. The tires crunched softly over weeds thrusting through broken gravel, each crackle amplifying in the tense quiet. He kept the engine idling low, a throaty purr that vibrated through their shoes, then twisted the wheel and crept forward again, nosing the vehicle toward the loading dock rather than the gaping, blown-out front. Jimin noted the deliberate angle—the truck's bed now aligned for a quick reverse into cover if things soured. Smart, he thought, a flicker of approval cutting through the knot in his gut. One wrong move here, and they'd be pinned.

Taehyung was already unclipping his seatbelt with a soft click, shrugging it off his shoulders. He dropped from the cab before the truck fully halted, landing light on the ground and vaulting into the bed in one fluid arc, his boots ringing dully against the metal like muffled drumbeats. Hoseok and Byungho hit the dirt next, boots thudding into the gravel without a prompt, their silhouettes blurring into motion as they fanned out low. Jeongguk swung over the side a beat later, landing with a controlled crunch, and Jimin followed right behind, his own boots slamming concrete in sync, the impact jarring up his legs as they slipped toward the shattered front entrance.

Taehyung braced his rifle against his shoulder, the stock nestling familiar into the crook of his arm, then reached up and hooked a thin wire behind his ear, tucking it neatly. Jimin caught the motion from the corner of his eye and mirrored it instinctively, his fingers dipping beneath his collar to fish out the matching wire. It snagged briefly on the rough fabric of his shirt, then slid free, the earpiece seating with a soft, familiar click against the curve of his ear—cool plastic warming quickly to his skin.

The wire trailed down to the walkie clipped at his belt, a battered thing scavenged from the old station, its solder joints rough and uneven but holding firm. It was clearly Namjoon and Mr. Park’s handiwork, the memory of their cursing over the workbench flashing unbidden—stubborn hands piecing together police relics into something that might just save their necks.

“You hear me?” Jimin murmured, his voice barely stirring the air, lips close to the mic.

A faint burst of static crackled in his ear, sharp and electric, then Taehyung’s voice filtered through, crisp and immediate, as if he were leaning in close instead of positioned twenty feet back in the bed. “Loud and clear.”

Jimin nodded once, the motion more for his own reassurance than anything, feeling the wire tug slightly against his collar. “Same plan. Front sweep first, and you stay mobile.” His eyes flicked to the building's yawning maw ahead, jagged glass teeth glinting dully in the hazy light, the air thick with rust and the underlying rot of neglect. The scent-mask on his skin itched now, drying into faint cracks at his wrists, a timer ticking in his mind—‘forty-five minutes left, push it’.

Taehyung adjusted his footing in the bed, the metal creaking faintly under his shift as he scanned the dock and the wide, exposed approach beyond, rifle barrel sweeping slow and methodical. “If you call it, I want to put the truck tight to the bay.”

“I’ll call it,” Jimin replied, keeping his tone even, though his pulse thrummed harder at the thought of committing the vehicle. “But recon first—don’t need you guys waiting in a trap.” He glanced back, catching Jeongguk's profile—tense jaw, eyes narrowed on the shadows.

Yoongi leaned just far enough out the driver's window, his face half-shadowed, eyes meeting Jimin's over the frame. “I’ll keep her pointed,” he said, voice gravel-rough but sure. “You say move, I move.”

“That’s all I need,” Jimin said, exhaling slow through his nose, the mask's earthy tang coating his throat.

He watched Yoongi dip his chin in acknowledgment, then ease the truck forward another ten feet, the engine's low growl vibrating through the gravel as the bed aligned with the dock's edge—or as close as the tangled overgrowth of weeds and rusted rebar allowed. Yoongi held back a careful gap from the dock itself, tires sinking slightly into the soft earth, the idling motor a constant hum that set Jimin's teeth on edge. The group tightened formation without a word, breaths syncing in the heavy silence, every sense straining toward the unknown inside. One step at a time, he told himself, rifle rising to ready as Byungho edged forward, the gravel whispering under their steps like a warning.

Daylight poured through in a harsh, flat wash, illuminating shattered counters and scattered debris, but it revealed nothing deeper—just shadows pooling beyond the threshold. They moved in low anyway, rifles gripped tight, barrels sweeping the air as they spaced close—near enough that Jimin could feel the heat radiating from Jeongguk's arm brushing his without actually touching. The group's boots scraped softly over the concrete lip, each step deliberate, breaths measured. Flashlights flicked on with muted clicks, narrow beams piercing the glare not because the space was pitch black, but because sunlight here couldn't be trusted to chase away every corner. Jimin swept his light along the nearest shelves, the beam carving sharp edges from dusty metal racks and toppled displays, sectioning the chaos into bite-sized threats as they advanced.

The smell hit him just inside the threshold, slamming into his nostrils like a fist—sour and heavy, rot festering in stagnant heat. It coated the back of his throat, thick and metallic, forcing him to swallow against the urge to gag. Mold and damp concrete he knew from a hundred sweeps, but this reeked deeper, fresher decay that clawed at his senses. Howlers, his mind supplied instantly, body locking before his thoughts caught up. Close—too damn close, the stink not diluted by time or wind. He drew his breath shallow, lungs burning with restraint, and lifted a hand, fingers splayed in the universal halt. The team froze behind him, the air thickening with shared tension.

“Front first,” he murmured, voice pitched low to slice through the quiet. “Move.”

Jeongguk edged ahead at his flank, his flashlight beam darting to mark the crates jammed under a collapsed counter—sealed tight with frayed bindings, lids intact despite the dust. Jimin didn't question it; the why was etched in the air's foulness, a graveyard of interrupted work. They worked fast, hands blurring in sync without a single snag—Jeongguk prying at a bundle of shears with a soft metallic scrape, Hoseok hauling a box of stiffened gloves that crackled under his grip, Byungho shouldering shovels and hoes with grunts muffled by effort. Tools light enough not to slow their rhythm went straight back toward the doors, where Taehyung waited in the truck bed, arms extending to take the load, stacking it with efficient shifts that barely disturbed the gravel.

“Dock side’s clear,” Taehyung's voice murmured through the earpiece, a faint static whisper that grounded Jimin amid the rot. “For now.”

“Copy,” Jimin replied, his eyes already pulling toward the aisles beyond the front, where shadows deepened like ink. “We’ll move to open the loading door. Stay sharp.” The words hung heavy, his pulse a steady thrum in his ears as he led them deeper, boots echoing faintly off the walls.

Past the first rows, the depot shifted—the ceiling sagged lower, pressing down like a weight, and the air chilled, carrying the smell thicker now, until it throbbed behind Jimin's eyes like a relentless ache. He raised his fist again, knuckles tight, and they halted as one, breaths syncing in the stifled space. Flashlight beams probed forward, glinting off dented signs and an EXIT placard dangling from frayed wires, swaying with a faint creak that set Jimin's nerves alight.

He sensed the trap the instant the aisle narrowed, walls closing in like a vise. Jimin was built for distance—rooftops where wind whipped free, treelines offering cover, scopes framing targets far off so shots landed clean and sounds arrived delayed, almost dreamlike. This crush of proximity gnawed at him, every shadow a potential lunge, every breath a giveaway. It was too tight for his liking, grip slicking on his rifle as his beam swept the end.

A howler crouched at the far end of the aisle.

Its back was turned, spine arched unnaturally, shoulders jerking in spasmodic twitches as if strings pulled it from within. Its head lolled as it pivoted, jaw unhinged and slack, ropes of saliva gleaming wet in the flashlight's glare. When it inhaled, the sound rasped wet and labored through Jimin's earpiece of silence, like drowning lungs straining for air. For a split second, it rose unsteadily, lifting its ruined face, milky eyes fixing on Jeongguk with a eerie pause—not the feral snap Jimin expected, but something halting, almost puzzled, as if the thing couldn't square the shapes before it.

 Jeongguk froze, breath locked in his chest. Jimin clocked it in the same instant. Why wasn’t the howler moving? Why did it look uncertain? Jimin felt it hit like ice water, his instincts surging hot and fierce. He moved on reflex, K5 rising fluid in his hands, suppressor whispering past Jeongguk's shoulder as his finger squeezed the trigger. The shot cracked sharp and muffled, a contained thunder that split bone with surgical precision. The howler's head snapped back, body folding at the knees like a puppet with severed lines, skull smacking concrete with a dull, wet thud that reverberated up Jimin's legs and twisted his gut anew.

The aisle fell silent once more, the echo fading into the heavy air, broken only by the distant purr of the truck's engine.

Jimin's grip stayed locked on the K5, barrel steady as he held the sightline a beat longer, scanning the crumpled form for any twitch, any jerk that might force his finger to curl again. The howler's blood pooled dark on the concrete, the metallic tang cutting through the rot like a fresh wound. When no movement stirred, he finally exhaled, stepping past the body with a careful sidestep, his boot scraping faintly against the grit. He nudged the earpiece back into place with his knuckle, the plastic cool against his skin.

“Truck,” he murmured, voice pitched just above a breath, low enough to blend with the warehouse's hush. “We’ve got one inside, but I dropped it. The rot smell is really fucking heavy—means it’s not alone. Stay sharp.” The words tasted sour on his tongue, the stench pressing in, making every inhale a reminder of what lurked deeper.

A brief wash of static crackled in his ear, then Taehyung's voice came back, low and steady, cutting through the tension like an anchor. “Copy. We’ve got movement skirting the lot. Nothing committing yet, but it’s close.”

Jimin shifted his grip on the rifle, the strap biting into his shoulder as he glanced down the aisle, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness that swallowed the edges of his beam. Shadows clung to the shelves like oil, every corner a potential ambush. “If you hear metal or glass crash, don’t wait on me.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Taehyung replied, and Jimin caught the faint smile threading through the words, a ghost of levity that eased the knot in his chest just a fraction. ‘Good’, he thought, appreciating the unspoken trust, the way Taehyung's calm grounded the chaos without undercutting the edge.

The line went quiet again, open and listening, a faint hum of readiness. Jimin exhaled through his nose, and lifted his fist, knuckles whitening as he motioned them forward. Farther back, the warehouse opened into a deeper bay, the ceiling vaulting up to swallow the low press of the aisles, and the air cooled another degree, brushing his skin like a chill warning. The smell shifted there too—less the sharp bite of mold, more a dry dust and the faint, musty echo of old grain, all layered under the sour rot that clung to everything like an invisible film, urging them to hurry.

Jimin slowed without meaning to, his steps faltering as instincts tightened every muscle, a prickle racing up his spine. His flashlight swept the far wall, the beam dancing over cracked concrete and forgotten pallets until it snagged on something tucked into the shadows. There. A pallet sat half-obscured, wrapped so tightly in industrial plastic that it gleamed dully under the light, throwing back glossy streaks like a sealed secret. Whoever had done the job knew their work—layer after layer cinched with tape and ties, impervious to casual prying, a fortress against the decay outside.

Jeongguk stopped beside it, his breath catching just slightly, a soft hitch that Jimin felt more than heard. “This is it,” he murmured, voice barely above the dust motes swirling in the air. “This is what I saw.” The alpha's eyes locked on it, wide with a mix of hope and wariness.

Jimin crouched low, knees protesting against the cold floor as he scanned the ground around it—scuff marks faint in the dust, no fresh tracks, no smears of blood or fluid. His light climbed the walls, probing the dark seams where shadows pooled, then up to the rafters overhead, where pipes dripped with a distant plink. Nothing disturbed. Nothing waiting to lunge. But his pulse ticked faster anyway, a drumbeat urging caution, Jimin's senses screaming that fortune like this came laced with teeth.

“Open it,” he said, the command quiet but firm, his free hand hovering near his knife just in case.

Jeongguk dropped to one knee beside him, machete already drawn, the blade's edge catching the light in a cold gleam. He braced it flat against the plastic and drew carefully, keeping the cut shallow to avoid a tear that might snag. The wrap stretched with a thin, strained whine, like fabric protesting before splitting open with a soft rip. The group went still, breaths held in unison, the sound carrying farther than Jimin liked—skating up the walls, echoing faintly into the rafters and the unseen corners beyond. He held his breath, rifle half-raised, eyes tracking the stairwell's rusted railing, the catwalks suspended like skeletal ribs, every dark seam a potential birthplace for noise.

Nothing answered. No guttural rasp, no shuffling drag. Just the settling dust and the truck's far-off hum.

Jeongguk didn’t hesitate after that. He cut again, faster now, the blade slicing through layers with precise sweeps, peeling the plastic back in wide, crinkling strips that pooled at their feet. Dust lifted into the air as the seal fully broke, dry and sharp, carrying the faint, almost comforting sweetness of grain stored too long but shielded from ruin—untouched, promising. Beneath the wrap, thick industrial sacks emerged, stacked clean and tight, their fabric coarse under the beam. Jeongguk angled his light closer, illuminating the faded but legible print stamped across the top.

WHITE RICE (SHORT GRAIN) Airtight / Pest-Protected

For a moment, no one spoke, the discovery hanging in the air like a held breath, the weight of it sinking into Jimin's bones—salvation wrapped in plastic, hidden amid the death that pressed against every shadow. His chest tightened, a flicker of hope warring with the caution that had kept him alive this long. This could change things, he thought, the faint sweetness of the grain still teasing his nostrils, cutting through the rot like a promise he didn't dare fully trust yet.

Then Hoseok let out a breath that sounded like a laugh he hadn’t meant to make, a soft puff escaping despite the tension, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that irrepressible way  that always seemed to pierce the gloom. “You weren’t kidding,” he whispered, the words laced with awe and a spark of relief that cut through the rot like sunlight piercing fog, warming the chill in Jimin's veins just a touch.

Byungho crouched beside the pallet, his gloved fingers testing one of the bags, lifting it just enough to feel the solid heft before setting it down again with a controlled thud. His mouth curved, slow and impressed, the lines of his face softening in the dim beam. “Sealed tight,” he said quietly, voice rough but threaded with something like respect. “This is a fucking jackpot.” 

The alpha's words hung there, grounding the moment, and Jimin nodded faintly, his own grip loosening on the rifle strap as the reality settled—food, real food, not the scraps they'd been rationing.

Jeongguk straightened up from his kneel, breathing a little faster now, his chest rising and falling in quick rhythm, eyes bright in the harsh beam of his flashlight that danced over the sacks. He didn’t say anything, but the pride was there anyway—contained, almost disbelieving, like he hadn’t expected his hunch to pay off this big, the alpha's shoulders squaring just a fraction under the weight of validation.

“Good call,” Hoseok murmured, lightly clapping Jeongguk’s shoulder once with a wide grin that split his face, the touch brief but solid, passing on the shared triumph without words.

As they shifted the sacks aside to clear space, Jeongguk’s flashlight snagged on a crate tucked tight against the pallet’s shadow, smaller and unassuming, its wooden edges splintered but intact amid the dust. He crouched again, the machete's handle creaking in his grip as he pried the lid with careful leverage, the wood groaning softly under the pressure. He stilled then, breath catching sharp, and Jimin felt the shift in the air before he even turned.

Inside were vacuum-sealed packets, stacked neat and careful like someone had once believed they’d still matter in a world gone to ruin—corn kernels in translucent pouches, beans dried and flat, winter squash seeds etched with tiny ridges, fruits preserved in their potential, and leafy greens with faded photos still printed on the fronts, bright and impossible against the warehouse's decay. The sight hit Jimin like a gut punch, not for the hunger it couldn't sate now, but for what it whispered: growth, renewal, a future beyond scavenging and shooting.

Jeongguk swallowed hard, the sound audible in the hush, his fingers hovering over the packets without touching. “Jimin.”

Jimin stepped in beside him, boots scuffing the concrete as he leaned close, one glance enough to understand what they were looking at. Not food now—nothing that would fill a stomach tonight amid the cold dawn creeping in—but food that meant time. Rows turned by hand in thawed soil, water measured carefully from barrels, and dirt under nails instead of blood on them. It’ll be the kind of work that asks for patience instead of violence, a rhythm to rebuild what the world had torn down. Jimin's throat tightened, his mind flashing to barren fields back home, the ache of what they'd lost mingling with this fragile hope.

“Seeds,” Hoseok said softly, the word slipping out before he could stop it, reverent almost. Then, louder, disbelief breaking through in a hushed rush, “Holy shit.” The beta's voice cracked just at the edge, his light trembling slightly as it swept over the crate, illuminating the promise in stark relief.

Jimin closed the lid gently, his palm pressing down with care, like the box might spook if handled wrong, the wood cool and rough under his touch. “Take all of it,” he said, already adjusting the plan in his head, recalculating loads and routes to safeguard this more than the grain. “That crate doesn’t leave your sight.”

Jeongguk ducked his head, a grin flashing quick and boyish before he could school it away, the expression lighting his features in the low light. “Told you all that it was worth the risk.” There was a lilt to his words, quiet triumph bubbling under the surface, and Jimin felt a reluctant pull of warmth toward it, the alpha's confidence infectious despite the danger still lurking.

Jimin caught the expression and looked away before it lingered, forcing his focus back to the shadows, the distant hum of the truck a reminder that relief was a luxury they couldn't afford yet. Satisfaction was dangerous—relief before the mission was over, even more so, a slip that could dull senses when they needed them sharpest.

“Alright,” he said, rising to his feet with a creak of joints, the rifle swinging back into ready position. “This is our win, but let’s not claim full victory yet.” His voice cut through the moment, reining them in, Jimin’s instincts urging haste as the rot-scent seemed to thicken, a warning that the warehouse wasn't done with them.

They shifted the first few sacks forward, passing them hand to hand toward the front in a chain of effort—Jeongguk heaving one to Hoseok, who grunted under the weight before sliding it to Byungho at the aisle's end. The sacks pulled hard at their shoulders, coarse fabric dragging against skin, but it was the kind that meant they survived through the next winter, bellies full and strength renewed. Their movements settled into a rhythm—quiet, efficient, confident in a way they hadn’t been when they first stepped inside, boots scraping in sync, breaths measured against the dust. Jimin’s gaze drifted back toward the loading bay door, the faint outline visible in his peripheral, rusted metal promising quicker escape than the breached front.

He tapped his earpiece once, the click sharp in his ear. “Dock’s closer than the back door,” he said under his breath, pitching low to avoid carrying. “We’ve got sealed grain. Let’s go ahead and open the loading dock so the transfer goes faster.” The words felt like a pivot, shifting from hunt to haul, but his free hand stayed near his knife, senses attuned to every creak overhead.

There was a brief stretch of static, a hiss that set his teeth on edge, then Taehyung’s voice came in, calm and clipped through the line. “Copy. Bring it to the dock—the truck is already waiting.”

He cut the line with a quick press, the click echoing faintly in his earpiece, and motioned them toward the wall with a subtle flick of his fingers. The loading dock door loomed there ahead, a hulking barrier of metal ribs streaked with rust that flaked under the flashlight's beam, the chain slack but still threaded through its guide like a forgotten restraint. Someone had tried to force it once—bent the edge inward with brute desperation, failed, left it sealed half out of stubbornness, half out of neglect that had let the decay seep deeper. Jimin's gaze traced the damage, mind already mapping contingencies: if it stuck, they'd pivot, no hesitation, back door it was, supplies be damned if it meant getting out alive.

The smell was stronger here, pressing in like a warning—old grain dust layered thick over the sour, heavy rot of howlers that had passed through and lingered too long in the summer months, their foul residue baked into the concrete. It coated the back of Jimin's throat, a bitter tang that made his stomach twist, reminding him of the nests they'd torched last spring, the acrid smoke that had choked the settlement for days. ‘Stay sharp’, he told himself, his scent glands still tingling under the masking paste, a greasy shield against the world's sharper noses.

Jimin crouched beside it, knees protesting the cold floor, and ran his light along the track, the beam picking out grime-caked rollers and warped metal that could snag at the worst moment. “If this jams,” he said quietly. “We abandon it and head to the back door.”

Jeongguk nodded, already stepping in without being asked. He wiped his hands on his vest, the fabric rasping softly, then took the chain, testing its weight with a careful tug that made the links whisper. It shifted an inch and groaned like it hadn’t moved in years, a low metallic keen that sliced the silence. Too loud, too revealing in this tomb of echoes.

Jimin lifted two fingers—stop—his signal cutting the air like a blade. 

They waited, breaths held shallow, the seconds stretching thin as spider silk, Jimin's ears straining for any answering shuffle or rasp from the shadows. Ten heartbeats passed, then more, and thankfully, the warehouse answered with nothing but the drip of water somewhere deep in the walls, a steady plink that mocked their tension.

“Again,” Jimin murmured, the word barely a breath, his rifle balanced across his thighs, finger hovering near the guard.

This time Jeongguk leaned his shoulder into it, muscles coiling under his jacket as he pulled steady instead of hard, the chain rattling softly like muffled bones. The rollers shrieking under their breath rather than screaming outright, a grating whine that set Jimin's jaw tight. The metal complained, then yielded, inch by stubborn inch, the gap widening just enough to tease fresh air. Before Jimin could move to stop Jeongguk again, the alpha was already shrugging out of his jacket, the zipper's quiet rasp swallowed by the tension.

He balled the thick fabric—worn canvas lined with faded insulation—and draped it over the chain where it looped through the guide, pressing it firm to deaden the clinks as he eased the tension loose link by link. His movements were careful, controlled, shoulders tight with focus now bare under his thin undershirt, the chill raising faint goosebumps on his arms, but he didn't flinch, eyes locked on the task like it was the only thing anchoring him.

“Easy,” Hoseok breathed, more to himself than anyone else, his eyes fixed on the door, body poised to brace if it slipped.

Byungho moved in to help without being told, his bulk shifting forward as he braced the door with his weight, gloved hands pressing firm against the frame to guide its rise. Hoseok slid in on the other side, quick and seamless, hands wrapped in an old, discarded rag scavenged from a nearby shelf to keep his skin from slipping against the steel's bite. Together they eased it up just high enough to slip beneath, the trio's efforts syncing into a tense harmony—pull, brace, steady.

The door protested anyway, a low groan rolling through the metal as it continued to shift, the sound vibrating up Jimin’s arms and into his teeth like a distant thunder. He froze instantly, one knee pressed to the concrete, rifle half-raised, waiting for the echo to die down, his breath caught as he scanned the rafters above, the dark swallowing any hint of movement.

“Halfway,” Jimin whispered, the update slipping out to keep them anchored, his light sweeping the widening gap for threats beyond.

They raised it another foot, then another, muscles straining in controlled bursts, stopping before it cleared enough to clang back down and betray them all. Hoseok slid a wooden wedge under the lip—splintered from some forgotten crate—and eased it in with slow pressure, his fingers white-knuckled until the door settled against it with a dull, contained thud that barely registered. Air rushed in through the gap then, cold and sharp, carrying the outside with it—dead leaves crunching under unseen wind, oil from the truck's underbelly, damp earth from the frost-kissed yard.

It felt like relief and exposure all at once, the fresh bite chasing the rot from Jimin's lungs, but it also peeled back their cover, inviting the dawn's pale light to finger the edges of the warehouse. ‘Almost out’, he thought, the weight of the sacks already calling from the pallet, a burden that promised life if they could just haul it free.

Jimin pressed his earpiece, the plastic cool against his skin, and spoke into the void. “Dock’s open. Line up slowly.” His voice came out steady, but inside, his nerves hummed like overtaxed wires, every sense stretched thin across the warehouse's cavernous maw.

Static whispered back, a brief crackle that made him flinch inwardly, then Taehyung’s voice filtered through, low and focused, laced with the gravel of restraint. “On it. Give me thirty seconds.”

Jimin kept one hand firm on the rifle's grip, the stock pressing into his shoulder like an anchor, while his eyes flicked between the half-raised dock door, the shadowed stairwell twisting up into the gloom, and the dark ceiling above them, where rafters sagged like broken ribs. The beam from his flashlight cut erratic paths, chasing phantoms in the corners, but it was the sound that clawed at him now—a slow, heavy drag from somewhere upstairs, like fabric rasping over concrete, then an abrupt halt that left the silence thicker, more accusing.

Hoseok felt it too; Jimin caught the subtle tightening of his jaw from the corner of his vision, the way his fingers flexed around the handle of the last sack they'd hauled from the grain pallet. “We’ve got company waking up,” Hoseok said, the words barely more than a thread of air, his eyes darting upward without moving his head.

“I know,” Jimin replied, keeping his tone even, a quiet command wrapped in calm. “We’re almost done.” But the words tasted like a lie on his tongue. Almost done meant loaded and gone, not lingering in this trap of temptation. 

His instincts prickled sharper, urging retreat, protection for the pack scattered in the dim light—Jeongguk wiping sweat from his brow, Byungho scanning the aisles with that analytical squint, Hoseok poised like a coiled spring. The masking paste on his wrists itched like hell now, its hour ticking down, and the thought of fresh howler scent bleeding through made his pulse stutter.

Outside, the truck shifted into view through the dock opening, its nose creeping forward like a wary beast that knew the price of haste. The headlights were killed, leaving only the pale seep of clouded sunlight to outline its bulk, but Jimin heard the crunch of gravel under tires, muted by distance and the driver's skill. Taehyung hopped down before it fully settled, boots hitting the ground with a soft thud that echoed too loudly in Jimin's ears. His eyes already scanned the perimeter, one hand lifted in a silent signal—fist closed, then two fingers extended toward the upper shadows. He'd seen it too, the unnatural stir where stillness should reign.

They worked faster without tipping into chaos, a rhythm born of runs like this, where hesitation killed quicker than noise. Sacks slid across the concrete, scraped once against a rough edge before hands caught them, lifted them high. Jeongguk and Byungho took the heaviest, their shoulders rolling with the strain, veins standing out on forearms as they passed the burlap loads into the truck bed. Taehyung stacked them tight and secure, knees bent, body absorbing the weight without a grunt, his focus a blade that cut through the rising tension.

Hoseok followed with the smaller crates, lighter but awkward in shape, counting under his breath like a mantra—“One, two, three”—his steps measured to avoid kicking up loose debris. 

Jimin stayed half-turned the whole time, rifle up and steady, light sweeping the upper levels in slow, deliberate arcs that painted the catwalks in fleeting white. Every sound amplified in the vaulted space now—the muffled thud of grain settling in sacks, the scrape of rough fabric against metal edges, the faint click of buckles securing the load. Another sack landed in the truck with a solid thump that vibrated through the floor, and Jimin’s grip tightened, his breath shallow as he listened for any echo from above.

“One more,” Byungho muttered, voice pitched low, already eyeing the final pallet they'd cracked open earlier, its contents stripped to the essentials.

Jimin nodded, the motion sharp. “Then we reassess.” His mind raced ahead: wedge the door, signal Yoongi to reverse, melt back into the frost before the drag upstairs turned to footsteps. But even as he said it, the air shifted, a collective pause rippling through the group like heat haze.

That was when Jeongguk’s gaze drifted sideways, catching on something deeper in the bay, half-swallowed by the warehouse's encroaching dark. Something extra, glinting faintly under the edge of his flashlight—a shape that didn't belong to their plan. Jimin saw the shift in his posture immediately, the subtle lean forward, eyes narrowing with that scout's curiosity that bordered on recklessness. His stomach tightened, a cold knot forming as he tracked Jeongguk's line of sight.

“Don’t,” Jimin warned, the word slipping out low and urgent, already knowing it was too late to pull them back fully. The rice pallet sat open behind them, its bounty already claimed and stacked, but the depot whispered of more, hoarding secrets in its decay if you dared to probe.

Jeongguk didn’t move right away, his chest still heaving from the lift, breath fogging faintly in the chill. Neither did Hoseok, who froze mid-step with a crate balanced on his hip, nor Byungho, whose analytical gaze followed the same path, calculating risks in silent fractions. They stood in the broken aisle, shoulders brushing in the tight space, eyes drawn inexorably toward what remained half-hidden in shadow. A rain barrel wedged behind a collapsed shelving unit, its metal sides dented but intact, promising clean water if the seal held. A second stack of dented corn sacks slumped against the far wall, burlap stained but bulging with potential. Two propane tanks tucked so far back they only caught the edge of the flashlight beam, their valves capped and dusty, fuel for stoves or lamps that could stretch their winter stores.

Jimin felt the shift before anyone voiced it, that familiar undercurrent pulling at them all—the quiet recalibration that crept in on every successful run, when the edge of relief blurred into the sharp edge of opportunity. Nobody ever wanted to leave while there was still something worth saving, something that could mean one less ration denied, one more night without hunger gnawing at the edges of the settlement. His own pulse betrayed him, a flicker of want amid the caution, but he crushed it down, instincts screaming that greed here was a siren's call.

“We’ve got room,” Byungho murmured at last, eyes flicking toward the open bay. There was no hunger in his tone, no thrill—just cold math, weighing bulk against speed, value against the drag from upstairs that hadn't resumed but loomed like a promise.

Hoseok nodded once, already stepping sideways to test the footing around the debris, his boot nudging a loose board that skittered softly. “If we can drag it clean.”

Jimin lifted his fist, the signal cutting through the air like a whip, and they stopped immediately, bodies going still as statues in the dim. The warehouse seemed to hold its breath with them, the drip from earlier now a distant memory drowned by the pounding in his ears. He pressed the earpiece again, voice dropping to a thread. “Taehyung.”

“I’m watching,” Taehyung replied instantly, his tone edged with the same wariness that clawed at Jimin’s gut. “I don’t like how quiet it feels right now.” The words hung in Jimin’s ear, amplifying the unnatural hush that had settled over the depot, as if the building itself sensed their greed and coiled tighter.

Jimin’s eyes swept the stairwell once more, the beam from his rifle-mounted light tracing the rusted railing and the black void beyond. The air had grown denser here, pressing against his chest, carrying a sharper tang of mildew and something metallic, like blood long dried. It felt closer, more intimate, than the open floor they'd crossed earlier—like the walls were leaning in, eavesdropping on their hesitation.

“One fucking minute,” he said, the curse slipping out low and final, a concession to the pull of survival that warred with his instincts. 

That was all it took. The tension snapped like a frayed rope, and they moved as one, a fluid unit honed by too many runs like this. Byungho and Hoseok lunged for the dented corn sacks first, their hands wrapping around the coarse burlap, muscles bunching under jackets as they dragged the loads free from the wall's embrace. Dust puffed up in faint clouds, tickling Jimin's nose, but they hauled quickly, boots whispering over the grit-strewn concrete, adjusting grips to keep the weight balanced and silent. 

Jeongguk dropped into a crouch beside the rain barrel, his fingers splaying against the curved plastic, testing its heft with a subtle rock. His face was set in that focused mask, eyes narrowed in concentration. He handled it the way he handled everything else so far—like someone who understood exactly what this would buy them later.

“I can roll it,” he murmured, voice barely stirring the air. “It’ll be faster.”

Jimin paused for a split second, his rifle still trained upward, the crosshairs dancing over a suspicious smudge on the catwalk. The risk gnawed at him—noise, exposure—but speed was their ally now, with the masking paste's scent shield fading. He nodded, sharp and decisive. “Hurry up.”

Jeongguk tipped the barrel with a controlled push, easing it onto its rim where it balanced precariously before settling into a roll. He guided it forward with steady pressure from his palms, the plastic murmuring softly against the floor, a hushed glide that mocked the peril around them. For those fleeting seconds, it worked seamlessly, the barrel obeying like an old friend, inching toward the truck's waiting maw without a betraying screech.

Then Byungho shifted to assist, his boot sliding half a step to brace the barrel's side and share the load—

Metal shrieked as a buried sheet of tin, hidden under a tumble of rubble, wrenched free and skittered wildly across the concrete. It clanged sharp and unforgiving, the echo ricocheting off the high walls like a gunshot in a canyon, amplifying into a cacophony that pierced the depot's fragile quiet. Everything locked in place, the world narrowing to that dying ring. 

Byungho stared at the offending scrap, his face twisting in disbelief, and let out a dry, incredulous huff. “Of all the things to wake these fuckers up, this is what did it?”

The words barely landed before the air shifted, a palpable pressure wave rolling down from above, snapping the stillness into frenzy. Jimin felt it hit him first—a chill ripple across his skin, instincts screaming as the warehouse exhaled its hidden rage. From the upper levels came the wet, guttural scrape of movement, like meat dragging over stone, followed by a ragged breath that rasped through the vents, inhuman and hungry. Then another, closer, multiplying into a chorus of low snarls.

“Howlers are stirring,” Jimin barked into the earpiece, his rifle snapping up in one fluid motion, the stock jamming firm against his shoulder as his finger hovered over the trigger. His voice stayed level, even as adrenaline surged hot through his veins. “Upper level. I can hear multiple.”

“Fuck,” Taehyung hissed back, the static crackling with urgency. “You’ve got seconds to get the hell out of there.”

Jimin opened his mouth to reply, but the response died as the onslaught crashed over them—wet feet slapping against concrete, claws raking metal railings in frantic scrabbles. The stairwell exploded into chaos, howlers tumbling over each other in a writhing mass of limbs and open mouths, bodies slamming down the steps with the brutal crack of bone on bone, momentum turning them into an avalanche of teeth and fury.

“Move! I’ll hold them off!” Jimin shouted, the words ripping from his throat as he swung his rifle up, sighting down the barrel toward the stairwell's shadowed maw where the first howlers were already spilling out like ink from a ruptured vein.

Byungho and Hoseok didn't waste breath on debate. They dropped the final corn sack mid-haul, its thud swallowed by the growing roar, and bolted for the loading dock, their boots pounding the concrete in frantic rhythm. Jeongguk gave the rain barrel one last desperate shove, the plastic thudding over the threshold and into the truck's bed with a hollow bounce, securing their prize just as the lead howler smashed onto the floor below. The crack of its bones splitting echoed up Jimin's spine, a visceral jolt that set his teeth on edge.

Instinct locked in, Jimin planted his feet, the rifle's stock wedging firm against his shoulder. Jimin exhaled steadily, squeezed the trigger—the round cracked out, slamming into the creature's throat, severing the jugular in a gush of blackened blood that sprayed the stairwell wall. It staggered, claws scraping concrete as it clutched the wound, collapsing in a twitching heap before it could fully descend.

Another surged behind it, leaping over the body with unnatural speed, limbs flailing. Jimin tracked it smooth, the sights aligning on its forehead; the shot punched through bone, exploding the back of its skull in a wet burst that sent fragments scattering across the floor. The howler dropped limp mid-leap, skidding to a halt inches from his boots.

Growls multiplied from the shadows above, a third one clawing into view, its neck exposed as it twisted to lunge. Jimin fired low, the bullet ripping through the major artery at its collarbone, blood jetting in an arc that painted the railing dark. It howled silently, staggering forward a step before knees buckled, body folding into the pile below.

But the pack pressed, more shapes blotting the dim light from the upper levels. The next howler charged straight at him, too close now, jagged teeth bared. No time for another clean shot—Jimin twisted sideways, shoulder slamming into a rusted shelving unit that wobbled but held, racks of forgotten tools clattering faintly. He hit the ground rolling, sharp chunks of debris grinding into his side through his jacket, stealing his breath in a ragged gasp. Pain flared hot along his ribs, but his fingers were already questing for the rifle strap, yanking it close as he surged up onto one knee. The depot blurred at the edges, his vision tunneling to the threats surging forward, the acrid bite of gunpowder already lingering in the air from his earlier shots.

He squeezed the trigger. The first round tore through the howler's torso, but it didn't drop—body shots barely slowed them. Jimin cursed inwardly, adjusting aim upward; the follow-up cracked into its jaw, shattering bone and tearing through the throat in a spray that finally sent it crumpling. Without pause, he pivoted, the rifle's muzzle tracking the next one clawing from the shadows—a hulking form with half its face sloughed away. The bullet struck high, shearing off the side of its skull in a burst of dark fluid that splattered the graffiti-scarred wall behind it, the body pitching sideways into a heap.

The air thickened with the stench—putrid rot mingling with the copper tang of fresh blood, an acidic undercurrent searing his nostrils and throat, threatening to heave up the bile rising in his gut. He fought it down, focusing on the chaos: Hoseok's barked orders fading toward the dock, Taehyung's urgent crackle in his earpiece yelling coordinates, the truck's engine growling louder as Yoongi throttled it, poised for extraction.

One howler tripped over the growing pile of corpses, its limbs flailing, and Jimin dropped it with a precise headshot, the skull exploding in a mist that dotted his sleeve. Another leaped from the railing above, airborne and feral; he winged its thigh first, the impact spinning it mid-air to crash in a tangle of limbs. It scrabbled forward on elbows and knees, jaws working silently, and he ended it with a shot to the neck, the artery rupturing in a dark fountain before it could close the gap.

The rifle hammered against his shoulder—one shot, two, three—each ejection sending brass spinning across the floor with metallic pings that cut through the snarls. Adrenaline surged, sharpening every sense: the wet slaps of feet on concrete, the ragged inhales of the pack, the distant grind of the truck's tires shifting gravel outside. But the magazine ran dry too soon, the slide locking back with a mocking click that echoed in his skull.

“Shit—” The curse escaped under his breath, his mind racing through options—pistol at his hip, knife on his belt—but the horde pressed in, a writhing wall of hunger too dense for finesse.

“Leave!” he bellowed, retreating step by step toward the bay doors, rifle raised like a futile ward despite its emptiness. “Get out—now!” His voice cracked with the strain, protective fury boiling over; he couldn't let them wait, not for him, not when the settlement needed every one of them whole.

The impact blindsided him—a howler barreling from a blind corner, slamming into his flank with the force of a battering ram. He crumpled, shoulder driving into the unyielding concrete first, the jolt exploding pain up his arm and forcing the air from his lungs in a wheeze. The world tilted, his cheek scraping the cold, grit-laced floor as the creature's weight pinned him, its fetid breath washing over his face in hot, foul gusts. Teeth gnashed inches from his neck, claws raking at his jacket, tearing fabric with a rip that exposed skin to the chill.

Too close. Panic clawed at the edges of his focus—this wasn't the calculated risks of patrols or the distant threats of scouts; this was intimate, visceral, the rot-stinking bulk grinding him down where years of drills and drills had forged him to stand. 

Claws raked across his vest, tearing fabric, scraping skin in fiery lines that burned through the haze of adrenaline. Jimin kicked blindly, boot connecting with something solid and yielding—a howler's knee buckling under the impact—but he rolled, shoved with everything he had, muscles straining against the dead weight pinning him. Another body hit him from the side, slamming his shoulder into the concrete, then another piled on, the reek of decay choking him as teeth snapped inches from his face, hot and rancid breath blasting his cheek. His hand fumbled for the sidearm, fingers numb and trembling, as the howler's maw descended, and in that frozen heartbeat, Jimin's mind flashed to the faces waiting back home—the ones counting on him to return, unbroken.

Jimin braced for the bite, every instinct screaming to twist away, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the slick floor—but then the weight vanished in a blur of motion and fury.

Jeongguk came through them like a wrecking ball, his claws sliding free before he’d even reached Jimin, bone-deep and automatic, extending with a wet, ripping sound from his knuckles. He didn’t shout, or hesitate to move. One second the howlers were on Jimin, crushing him down, the next Jeongguk was there, slamming into the pile with a feral snarl ripped straight from his chest, eyes wild and unseeing, locked on the threats. 

His claws tore free completely now, full length, gleaming dark with his own blood as they ripped through the first howler’s neck—slicing deep into the jugular in a single, savage swipe that sent black ichor fountaining across Jimin’s vision. The creature gurgled silently, claws twitching as it collapsed off him, throat laid open to the spine, body shuddering in death throes.

He dragged one howler off Jimin and split it open from throat to sternum. Another lunged from the side, decayed arms flailing, and Jeongguk caught it mid-leap, his fist driving upward into its exposed throat first, claws puncturing the major artery at the base of the jaw with a crunch of cartilage. Blood jetted in pulsing arcs, soaking Jeongguk’s arm to the elbow as the howler’s momentum carried it forward; he twisted his grip, shredding through the windpipe and into the base of the skull, the head lolling loose as it dropped in a boneless heap.

Blood sprayed in hot sheets, splattering Jimin’s face and arms, the metallic tang mixing with the ever-present rot to coat his tongue. Howler bodies began to hit the floor in shredded pieces, limbs twitching amid the growing pool of gore that made the concrete treacherously slick.

“Truck!” Hoseok screamed so hard from the bay that his voice broke, raw and desperate over the cacophony. “Get the fuck out!”

Jimin scrambled backward, hands slipping on the warm, viscous mess as he reached for his pistol, yanking it free and firing blind shots toward the shadows—cracks echoing as bullets punched into torsos that barely slowed the advance, but one grazed a neck, tearing open an artery that dropped its target in a crumpling spray. He kept firing to cover Jeongguk’s back, the recoil jarring his wrist, but Jeongguk didn’t retreat. He surged forward, tearing into anything that moved, snarls ripping out of him low and brutal, something primal and not human breaking loose behind his eyes—pupils blown wide, teeth clenched in a grimace that bared fangs.

“Jeongguk!” Jimin shouted, panic cutting sharp through his voice, heart hammering as he saw the alpha wade deeper into the fray. “That’s enough—pull back!”

The alpha kept moving as if he didn’t hear him, claws flashing in the dim light. Another howler crested the stairs, leaping down with a skid of claws on metal, and Jeongguk met it head-on—his hand lancing out to clamp around its throat mid-descent, claws piercing the jugular and carotid in a vise that crushed windpipe and arteries alike. He yanked it down, slamming the body into the ground while his other set of claws slashed across the temple, carving through the skull to expose gray matter in a pulpy ruin. The howler spasmed, legs kicking futilely, before going still. 

Yet more poured from the upper levels, a writhing mass of hunger, and Jeongguk pivoted into them without pause.

The mission protocol shattered completely—and Jimin couldn’t even quite blame it on recklessness or pride. It was more so refusal—Jeongguk’s refusal to leave someone behind, that alpha drive overriding everything, turning him into a whirlwind of violence amid the chaos. Jimin fired until the pistol clicked empty, the slide locking back with finality, then bolted for the truck as Byungho hauled the last crate over the rail, muscles bulging under the strain.

Howlers spilled through the bay doors after them, shrieking in that eerie, soundless way, arms clawing at air, decayed fingers scraping sparks from the metal frame.

Jeongguk tore one howler down by the shoulder, then another, momentum carrying him forward until the truck surged beneath his feet. He caught the rail as the ground fell away, half his body hanging off the side as gravel sprayed up in white arcs, tires churning the lot into a storm of dust and stones. His claws raked anything that reached for the metal—ripping through grasping fingers that snapped like dry twigs, mutilated faces that pulped under the force, and bone that cracked audibly as he severed arms at the joints. Snarls tore out of him—low, shredded sounds that didn’t belong to any spoken language at all, echoing over the din as the truck peeled out, leaving the horde clawing at empty air.

The truck lurched forward with a guttural roar from the engine, gravel spitting out in furious bursts that pelted the undercarriage like hail. Jimin gripped the side rail tighter, knuckles whitening against the cold metal, his heart still slamming against his ribs from the warehouse chaos. The wind whipped through the bed, carrying the sharp bite of frost and the lingering stench of blood and rot that clung to his clothes like a second skin. Every jolt sent fresh pain lancing through his scraped arms and the bruises blooming across his back where the howlers had pinned him down.

“Hang on!” Yoongi bellowed from the cab, his voice gravel-rough and strained over the howl of the tires. He gunned the engine harder, the vehicle fishtailing with enough force to slam Jimin’s shoulder into the crate beside him, the impact jarring his teeth. Tires screamed as they clawed for purchase on the loose gravel, kicking up clouds of dust that stung his eyes and coated his tongue with grit.

Howlers kept coming, a ragged pack surging from the depot’s shadows, their decayed limbs pumping in unnatural bursts. They hurled themselves at the moving steel, bodies crashing against the sides with meaty thuds that vibrated through the frame—fingers scraping along the panels, nails gouging shallow furrows before the momentum flung them away. 

One particularly stubborn one latched onto the rear bumper, its jaw unhinging in a silent screech as it dragged itself closer, but Jeongguk was already there. His hand shot out, clamping around its skull with a crack of bone, and he wrenched—twisting the neck until vertebrae snapped like dry branches. The body tumbled under the wheels, crushed with a wet crunch that Jimin felt more than heard, the truck bucking slightly over the obstacle.

But Jeongguk didn’t stop. Even as the horde thinned, the last stragglers falling back into the distance as smears of pulp on the road, he remained half-draped over the rail, claws extended and slashing at phantom threats. His chest heaved in ragged pulls, shoulders rolling with each exhale, the muscles in his arms corded tight as if the fight still raged inside his veins. Blood—his own mixed with the howlers’—dripped from his knuckles, pattering onto the wooden boards in dark spots that soaked in immediately.

Jimin watched him, a knot twisting in his gut that had nothing to do with the truck’s wild path. Jeongguk’s eyes were still distant, pupils dilated to black pits, his breaths coming in low rumbles that bordered on growls. This wasn’t the quiet scout who sketched maps by firelight; this was the alpha unhinged, the one who’d torn through the warehouse like a storm, refusing to leave Jimin behind even as protocol screamed to run. Gratitude warred with fear in Jimin’s chest—fear for what that refusal might cost them all, what it was costing Jeongguk now, as he chased ghosts in the empty air.

“Jeongguk—hey, that’s enough,” Hoseok said, his voice cracking despite the forced steadiness, like he was talking down a cornered animal. He edged closer on his knees, the truck’s sway making him brace against a crate, one hand lifted palm-out in a hesitant placate. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the chill, and his eyes flicked between Jeongguk’s claws and his face, weighing the risk. “They’re gone. You hear me? They’re gone.”

Jeongguk didn’t respond, didn’t even twitch toward the words. His claws scraped along the rail again, digging furrows into the rust-flaked metal with a high-pitched whine that set Jimin’s teeth on edge.

Byungho swore under his breath, a sharp hiss lost to the wind, and shifted his shotgun across his lap—not leveling it, but angling the barrel just enough to cover the space between them, his grip loose but ready. His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing in that tactical assessment Jimin knew too well, calculating trajectories and threats. 

“He’s not hearing us,” Byungho said flatly, voice cutting through the noise without inflection. “He’s still in it. Adrenaline’s got him locked.”

Another snarl tore out of Jeongguk, deep and guttural, rumbling up from his chest like thunder trapped in a bottle. His body jolted with the truck’s next bump, claws biting deeper into the rail, sparks flickering briefly in the gray dawn light.

“Fuck,” Hoseok breathed, his hand dropping as he glanced toward the cab. “Yoongi, slow down—give us a second to—”

“I can’t,” Yoongi barked back, the words clipped and unyielding, his focus glued to the rearview. “You want them back on us? Keep your heads down and sort it.”

Jeongguk lunged again at empty air, his arm whipping out in a savage arc that whistled through the wind, as if another howler had leaped from the roadside scrub. The motion nearly unbalanced him, boots scraping for hold on the slick boards, and that was when something in Jimin snapped—fear spiking hot and urgent, overriding the ache in his limbs.

“Jeongguk!”

His voice cut clean through the wind, sharp and furious, laced with the raw edge of a survivor's command born from too many close calls. It wasn’t soothing, wasn’t gentle—it was a whip-crack, demanding attention. Jimin shoved forward against the truck’s pitch, ignoring the burn in his thighs as he closed the distance in two strides. His fingers closed around a fistful of Jeongguk’s vest, the fabric sodden and stiff with drying blood, and he yanked—hard, using his body weight to haul the alpha back into the bed.

Jeongguk hit the boards on all fours with a thud that reverberated up Jimin’s arms, the impact shuddering through both of them. Wood creaked under the force, and for a heartbeat, Jimin’s pulse thundered in his ears, every sense zeroed in on the alpha beneath him: the heat radiating off his skin, the metallic reek of gore clinging to him, the way his claws flexed against the planks, gouging shallow lines that splintered the grain.

“You’re done,” Jimin snarled, leaning in close, his face inches from Jeongguk’s, breath mingling in the cold rush. Anger and relief tangled in his throat, making the words come out rougher than intended. 

“You want to get us killed, keep swinging around like you’ve lost your goddamned mind. You want to live—you stop. Right. Now.”

Jeongguk blinked, the haze in his eyes fracturing like ice under pressure, his breath hitching in a sharp, uneven gasp—as if Jimin’s words had slapped the feral edge right out of him. The violence drained from his features in an instant, replaced by something raw and panicked, his brows knitting as awareness flooded back. He turned fully to Jimin then, gaze locking on with desperate intensity, and his hands moved without thought—gripping Jimin’s arms first, fingers digging in just enough to bruise through the torn sleeves, then sliding up to press flat against his chest, feeling for the rise and fall of breaths, for any hitch that might signal hidden damage.

Jimin held still, the alpha’s touch grounding him even as it sent a shiver down his spine—not from fear, but from the vulnerability cracking through Jeongguk’s guard. Those hands dragged him closer, insistent, one palm shoving at his collar to expose the skin beneath, searching for bites or gashes amid the scrapes. Claws retracted halfway with a faint, fleshy slide, still sharp enough to snag on fabric as Jeongguk hauled Jimin’s sleeve back fully, twisting his arm into the pale light filtering through the dust clouds. 

Jeongguk’s thumb pressed harder against the cut on Jimin’s forearm, smearing the blood in a thin streak that burned under the scrutiny. His eyes, still wild around the edges, flicked up to meet Jimin’s for a split second before dropping again, scanning with frantic urgency. The alpha’s breaths came in hot bursts against Jimin’s skin, carrying the faint, acrid tang of sweat and adrenaline that mixed with the ever-present rot from the road.

“Jimin—your jacket,” Jeongguk muttered, voice thick and edged, the words tumbling out like he couldn’t hold them back. 

His hands moved before Jimin could protest, fingers hooking into the collar of the worn tactical jacket, yanking at the zipper with a sharp rasp that cut through the truck’s rumble. The metal teeth parted unevenly, snagging on frayed fabric, but Jeongguk didn’t pause— he shrugged the shoulders down roughly, peeling the sleeves off Jimin’s arms in jerky pulls that made the material bunch and drag against his scraped skin.

Jimin sucked in a breath, the cold air hitting him like a slap as the jacket came away, leaving him exposed in just his longsleeved compression shirt. The thin, black fabric clung to his torso, damp with sweat and streaked with grime, outlining every ridge of muscle and the rapid heave of his chest. Goosebumps prickled across his arms instantly, the dawn chill seeping in through the weave, raising the fine hairs on his neck. He felt vulnerable under Jeongguk’s gaze, the alpha’s hands now free to roam without the barrier, palms pressing flat against his sides, thumbs hooking under the hem of the shirt to lift it just enough to check for wounds beneath.

“Stop— I’m fine,” Jimin hissed, but his voice lacked conviction, the words catching as Jeongguk’s fingers brushed over a fresh bruise blooming purple along his ribs. 

The touch was insistent, almost possessive, sending a jolt through Jimin that had nothing to do with pain— warmth spreading from the contact, warring with the embarrassment of being stripped down in front of the team. Hoseok averted his eyes politely, busying himself with securing a loose crate, while Byungho kept his focus on the horizon, shotgun steady in his lap. The wind howled louder now, whipping at Jimin’s arms, making him shiver as Jeongguk’s inspection turned thorough, hands sliding up to probe his collarbone, then down to tug at the waistband of his pants, searching for any tear or bite hidden there.

“You’re hurt,” Jeongguk rasped, the words breaking apart as they left him. His thumb found the gash along Jimin’s bicep, red and angry against the skin. “Let me see—fuck, I should’ve been faster.”

The alpha’s scent—musk and earth, sharpened by the fight—flooded Jimin’s senses, stirring that instinctive pull in his gut, the omega response he always fought to bury. Jeongguk’s claws, half-retracted, grazed lightly over the compression shirt’s fabric, not breaking skin but leaving faint trails of pressure that made Jimin’s pulse stutter. “I smelled it earlier— why didn’t you say anything? Let me see all of it.”

“Scratch,” Jimin ground out through clenched teeth, his voice tight as he fought the urge to yank away. The pain was sharp but manageable, a graze from a howler’s claw that hadn’t broken deep. “They didn’t bite. It’s not bad.”

Jeongguk didn’t hear him, or didn’t care—his body was still wired from the fight, chest heaving like he was chasing shadows only he could sense. His hands shook as they gripped Jimin’s arms, heat seeping through the layers, caught somewhere between the warehouse bloodbath and the truck’s jolting reality. Then a low rumble built in his throat, raw and animal, and his fingers shifted. 

“Hold still,” he muttered, more plea than command.

The proximity sent a jolt through Jimin, heat warring with the embarrassment of being bared like this, stripped down in the open truck bed while the dead city blurred past. His pulse thrummed under Jeongguk’s grip, that instinctive response coiling tighter in his gut, urging him to lean in despite the chaos of it all. Jeongguk’s claws grazed the shirt’s sleeve again, lighter now, but the pressure lingered, making Jimin’s breath hitch.

Jeongguk didn’t wait for permission. With a frustrated snarl, he grabbed at his own shirt next, claws raking through the fabric in a swift tear that echoed over the engine’s roar. The sound was sharp, final, as he ripped a long strip free from the hem, the edges fraying white against his tanned skin. He pressed it hard against the gash on Jimin’s bicep, the makeshift bandage soaking through instantly, his fingers wrapping it tight with trembling focus. The pressure burned, forcing a sharp inhale from Jimin, but Jeongguk tied it off with clumsy knots, checking the hold twice—three times—his breaths slowing only as his hands found purpose.

Only then did the alpha’s tension crack. His forehead dipped, brushing Jimin’s shoulder through the thin shirt, the contact warm and heavy. Jeongguk’s grip stayed locked on the bandaged arm, claws retracting fully as his body sagged, weight leaning into Jimin like an anchor pulling them both down.

Byungho shifted closer, his hand landing firm on Jimin’s other shoulder, a steady clamp that grounded the moment. 

“Keep him close,” he said low, eyes fixed unblinking on Jeongguk, shotgun balanced ready in his lap. “If he tips again, I’ll drop him before he gets to you. But right now—it’s you he seems to be hearing.”

Jimin swallowed hard, throat dry against the cold. Jeongguk’s fingers dug into his sleeve, pulse racing wild under the skin. Every fiber in him screamed to push back, to reclaim the space and control he’d fought for in the depot. But the alpha’s heat bled through, chasing away the chill on his bare arms, and something in Jimin softened—just enough.

He moved deliberately, closing the gap instead of widening it. His shoulder pressed firmer against Jeongguk’s forehead, the compression shirt no barrier to the shared warmth. The change rippled through the alpha instantly—the chest growl fading to a rumble, then silence. Breaths evened out against Jimin’s arm, hot and steadying, the tremors in Jeongguk’s hands easing as exhaustion crashed in. Claws gone, fingers curled loose now, Jeongguk slumped heavier, head nestling into the crook of Jimin’s neck, his body finally remembering it was safe.

Jimin held still, nerves firing under the weight, the wind tugging at his exposed skin and making him acutely aware of every inch left uncovered. Byungho eased the shotgun down a notch, though his stare remained vigilant, flicking between them and the receding road. Hoseok slumped back against the rail, sweat matting his hair despite the bite in the air, rifle heavy across his thighs. He dragged a hand over his face, exhaling a long, shaky breath that cut through the quiet.

The truck barreled on, Yoongi gunning it through the skeletal streets of the dead city, frost-glazed ruins whipping by in smears of gray and shadow. Howler cries had faded to nothing, devoured by distance and the relentless wind. Left were the engine’s guttural growl, the slap of air against metal, and Jeongguk’s solid presence forcing Jimin to stay in place—warm, unyielding, a silent tether in the aftermath.

Jimin didn’t pull away. Hoseok’s fingers worked the rifle bolt with mechanical precision, each shell sliding into the chamber with a sharp, metallic click that pierced the fragile hush like a warning. The sound echoed off the rusted side panels, too abrupt in the wake of the depot’s screams, making Jimin’s shoulders tense further. Byungho followed suit across from them, his movements fluid and exact—ejecting empties with a flick of his wrist, thumbing fresh rounds home one by one. But his dark eyes kept drifting to Jeongguk, lingering with that calculated scrutiny, like he was mapping every shallow rise of the alpha’s chest, every subtle shift in posture, waiting for the frenzy to resurface.

The dawn chill clawed at Jimin’s exposed arms, frost-kissed wind whipping through gaps in the truck’s tarp, raising fresh goosebumps along his skin and turning the sweat from the fight into a clammy film. His compression shirt offered little shield, the thin fabric doing nothing to blunt the bite, but Jeongguk’s body heat pushed back against it—a radiating warmth that seeped from the alpha’s torso into Jimin’s side, chasing the cold from his muscles even as it stirred something deeper, more insistent. 

It was a quiet war inside him—the urge to yield, to let that heat wrap around him fully, battling the sharp edge of caution honed from years of holding the line. His bandaged bicep throbbed under the tight wrap, a dull pulse syncing with the engine’s growl, but it was nothing compared to the heavier press in his chest—the unspoken risk of what Jeongguk’s proximity meant, how it blurred the boundaries he’d drawn so carefully.

Jeongguk hadn’t stirred, not fully. His head remained nestled against Jimin’s shoulder, the dark strands of his hair tickling the edge of Jimin’s jaw with each bump in the road, heavy with the bone-deep exhaustion that had finally claimed him. His breaths came in warm, damp puffs against the shirt’s sleeve, carrying the faint, lingering tang of blood and exertion that mixed with his natural scent—rich earth and pine, now undercut by the raw edge of spent adrenaline.

Every few seconds, a muscle in Jeongguk’s frame would twitch, a faint ripple under his skin like the last sparks of that feral haze firing off in his nerves. Jimin felt it each time, the subtle jerk against his ribs, and without thinking, his free hand tightened on Jeongguk’s forearm—fingers pressing firm into the corded muscle until the tremor faded, soothed by the contact. It was instinctive, that grounding hold, born from the same protective core that had kept him steady through the howler swarm, but admitting it even to himself felt like cracking open a door he’d bolted shut.

Jimin fixed his gaze on the road unspooling ahead, the highway a shadowed vein cutting through the skeletal husks of the dead city—crumbling high-rises looming like forgotten sentinels, their windows shattered eyes staring blankly into the gray light. Yoongi pushed the truck harder, tires humming over debris, the speed blurring the ruins into streaks of decay and frost. Jimin’s jaw locked tight, the ache spreading up to his temples, a grind of teeth against the whirlwind in his mind. He chalked it up to the wound at first—the shallow rake of claws that still wept a faint warmth under the bandage—but the lie crumbled under scrutiny. 

Jeongguk’s heartbeat drummed steady against his side, a rhythmic thud that echoed his own, refusing to quiet no matter how many miles they devoured. The alpha’s scent wrapped around him thicker now, invasive in the close quarters, tugging at that buried pull in Jimin’s gut, the one that whispered of safety in surrender even as his instincts screamed for distance. How long could he fight it? How long before the depot’s chaos forced his hand?

Across the truck bed, Hoseok lifted his head from where he’d been staring at his boots, sweat-slick hair falling into his eyes. He took them in slowly—Jimin rigid under Jeongguk’s slump, the alpha’s claws fully sheathed now but fingers still loosely curled into Jimin’s sleeve. Hoseok’s expression didn’t shift much, just a subtle arch of his brows. 

You good? Or is this about to complicate things? Jimin met his look for a beat, then flicked his eyes away, jaw ticking tighter. No words, no answers—he wasn’t ready to unpack the knot twisting in his chest, not with the adrenaline crash still buzzing in his veins.

Byungho shattered the quiet first, his voice low and even, cutting through the wind’s howl like a blade. “Losing control like that isn’t good,” he said, nodding toward the alpha draped over Jimin’s shoulder, his tone carrying the weight of someone who’d seen too many close calls turn fatal. “Could’ve gone real bad, real fast—ripped through us all if he’d turned fully.”

His gaze sharpened, flicking from Jeongguk’s lax form back to Jimin’s face, reading the tension there. “But he calmed down around you. Pulled back from the edge because of it. That gives us something—at least a thread of hope he’s not completely gone.”

Jeongguk mumbled something incoherent against Jimin’s shoulder, the sound muffled and raw, vibrating through the layers of fabric like a distant rumble of thunder trapped in his chest. It carried no shape, just a guttural edge honed by the fight’s aftermath—half-growl, half-sigh—that sent a fresh shiver racing down Jimin’s spine, not from the cold but from the raw vulnerability it exposed. Byungho paused mid-breath, his hand freezing inches from the reloaded shotgun propped between his knees, fingers splayed wide as if ready to snatch it up at the first wrong twitch. The metal gleamed dully in the faint light filtering through the tarp’s tears, a silent sentinel in the cramped space. He held there for a beat, eyes narrowing on the alpha’s form, before exhaling slowly and pressing on, his voice threading through the engine’s drone with that unflinching directness.

“Means he can be worked with, integrated. If someone keeps him sane—keeps that tether tight when the crazy shit hits.” 

His gaze locked onto Jimin’s, unblinking and heavy with the weight of what he wasn’t saying outright, the implication slicing through the chill air as cleanly as the frost glazing the roadside weeds. You’re the one he latched onto back there. You’re the anchor he needs. Jimin felt it settle in his gut like a stone, stirring the feelings he’d spent years burying under layers of strategy and steel— the pull to protect, to yield just enough to steady the storm beside him. But yielding meant risk, meant cracking the walls he’d built to survive this world, and the thought clawed at him fiercer than any howler.

Jimin’s grip on his rifle strap tightened until the leather creaked. He didn’t respond. Stray locks of his dark hair brushed against Jimin’s jaw, soft despite the grit of dust and sweat clinging to them, carrying that persistent alpha scent—deep musk laced with the metallic bite of blood and the earthy residue of the scent mask long faded.

Instinct screamed at him to shove him away, to reclaim the space and the control that came with it, to remind himself that alphas like Jeongguk were wildfires, beautiful until they burned everything down. Another, louder instinct urged him to pull Jeongguk in tighter, to wrap an arm around that solid frame and let the heat chase away the lingering ache in his bones, the doubt gnawing at his resolve. He did neither, caught in the crossfire of his own divided nature, the instinctual pull warring with the survivor’s caution that had kept him alive through worse than this.

He stayed still, rigid as stone under the alpha’s weight, every muscle locked against the urge to move, to react. Only his eyes betrayed the storm under his skin—flicking to the horizon, to the team, to Jeongguk’s lax face pressed close—dark lashes fanned against pale cheeks, lips parted slightly in the rhythm of sleep. Wind tore past them in relentless gusts as Yoongi pushed the truck onward, the speed whipping through the open flaps of the tarp with a sharp, biting cold that nipped at Jimin’s exposed neck and arms, turning the sweat-damp fabric of his shirt into a second skin of ice.

The city finally fell away behind them, its jagged skyline shrinking into the haze, swallowed by the miles and the gathering dusk. What remained was the engine’s relentless roar, a throaty growl that vibrated through the floorboards, and Jeongguk’s breathing, slow and even now, deepening into the unmistakable cadence of true sleep—chest rising and falling in sync with Jimin’s own, an unwitting harmony that only amplified the knot in his throat.

They stopped once—halfway between the depot’s ruin and the farm’s distant promise—where the road dipped into a dry culvert lined with scraggly trees, their branches skeletal and clawing at the overcast sky, dead brush crunching under the tires as Yoongi eased the truck to a halt. The engine idled low, a subdued rumble that ticked faintly under the hood, heat radiating from the block in lazy waves that did little to pierce the deepening chill seeping into the air. Shadows stretched long across the barren field beyond, the ground cracked and frosted, whispering of winters that never fully thawed in this broken world.

Taehyung jumped down with the jerry can first, his boots hitting the gravel with a sharp crunch that echoed off the culvert walls, the sound too loud in the sudden quiet. The acrid tang of diesel cut through the cold as he tipped the can into the tank, the liquid glugging steadily, shoulders steady under the weight despite the exhaustion etching lines around his eyes. His movements were quick, efficient—fingers gripping the spout with practiced ease, eyes darting to the treeline every few seconds, rifle slung across his back like an extension of himself. 

Hoseok followed suit, dropping to the ground with his rifle already braced against his shoulder, sweeping the open field and the sparse treeline with methodical precision, the barrel tracking shadows that might not be empty. Daylight had taught him not to trust the emptiness, not after too many ambushes hidden in plain sight, and the tension in his stance said he hadn’t forgotten a single lesson.

In the truck bed, no one moved.

Byungho checked his shells again, fingers prying open the shotgun’s chamber with a soft click, jaw tight as he tallied the brass casings one by one, the faint scent of gun oil mingling with the diesel fumes wafting up.  Jeongguk shifted once against Jimin’s shoulder in response to the stop’s jolt, a subtle roll of his hips that pressed him closer, but he didn’t wake—his breath still warm where it bled through the layers at Jimin’s arm, a steady puff that grounded him even as it unsettled. Jimin’s bandaged bicep throbbed faintly under the pressure, a reminder of the claws that had come too close, but he didn’t shift away, didn’t dare disrupt the fragile peace.

Taehyung straightened up after a minute, wiping his hands on his pants, and glanced back toward the bed. His eyes lingered there—on Jeongguk slumped heavy against Jimin, dark head bowed in exhaustion; on Jimin’s rigid posture, spine straight as a rod, knuckles white on the rifle strap; on the way neither of them had budged, like they were fused by more than just necessity. The look he leveled at Jimin carried everything at once: concern etched in the furrow of his brow, a warning glint in the way his gaze sharpened, and something gentler folded underneath, a quiet plea born from years of watching each other’s backs.  Are you alright with this? Are you going to admit it? Don’t be reckless.

Jimin held the stare a second too long, the weight of it pressing against the walls he’d thrown up, before breaking it with a deliberate drag of his gaze back to the road ahead—the endless black ribbon unspooling into the gloom. His fingers flexed once on the rifle strap, the leather warming under his grip, a small concession to the tension coiling in his chest. That was the only answer he gave, silent and stubborn, refusing to voice the fear that Jeongguk’s nearness was unraveling him thread by thread. Taehyung’s mouth pressed into a thin line, disappointment flickering briefly before he schooled it away, capping the jerry can with a decisive twist and stowing it in the truck’s side rack. He climbed back into the cab without a word, the door slamming shut with a metallic thud that jolted through the frame.

The truck rolled forward again, engine picking up its growl as Yoongi shifted gears, the road stretching open before them—black and endless, flanked by frost-rimed fields that blurred into the encroaching night. The farm was still miles away, a beacon of fragile safety in the distance, but for now, it was just the hum of tires on asphalt, the wind’s persistent bite, and Jeongguk’s weight against his side. Jimin kept pretending he wasn’t terrified—of the alpha’s unpredictability, of the instincts it awakened in him, of how close they’d all come to losing everything back at the depot. But in the quiet spaces between heartbeats, the truth pressed in— pretending wouldn’t hold forever.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The farm was quiet in the way it only ever was during the colder nights, a hush that wrapped around the buildings like a fragile truce with the dark—no one bothering to linger in the chilly air unless it was worth it, unless the stars demanded a moment of awe or the wind carried a warning too faint to ignore. Lanterns still burned low along the fence line, their flames flickering in glass jars hung from nails, more habit than hope now, casting pools of amber that barely pushed back the encroaching frost. Most of the yard had settled into sleep, the main house's windows dark save for the faint glow from the kitchen where someone always kept vigil. The night insects had taken over, their chirring steady and insistent in the tall grass edging the paths, a sound that grounded Jimin even as it reminded him how thin the line was between peace and predation. The air bit at exposed skin, sharp and unrelenting, turning every breath into a visible puff that hung for a second before dissolving into the gloom.

The truck’s engine cut through the dark like a wound reopening, low and strained, coughing raggedly as Yoongi eased it through the gate with deliberate slowness, tires crunching over the gravel in a rhythm that felt too loud, too announcing after the miles of tense silence. The headlights swept the yard once, broad beams carving through the night and catching two startled faces in flashes of pale—eyes wide, sleep dragged from them too fast to be graceful, bodies half-risen from chairs or doorways. Hana gasped from the porch, her hand flying to her mouth before she knocked lightly on the window beside her, the sound urgent but controlled, alerting the rest of the pack without shattering the quiet entirely. 

Areum answered the door a beat later, pulling it open with a creak of hinges, and gasped out very softly, “They’re back.”

Doors opened in quick succession, footsteps hurrying out in a scatter of bare feet and boots, the thud of them uneven on the packed earth. Lanterns lifted higher, light wobbling as people spilled out half-dressed, hair loose and tangled from restless pillows, shawls thrown on crooked over nightshirts or undershirts that did little against the cold. 

Mrs. Han appeared first from the side door of the kitchen, her apron still tied at her waist like she’d never taken it off, the fabric stained with the day’s labors, one hand pressed to her chest as if she didn’t trust her heart to behave under the sudden rush of emotion. The truck rolled to a complete stop near the barn, the engine ticking down to silence, the frame settling with a faint groan that echoed the exhaustion in Jimin’s bones.

For a second—just one—no one moved, the yard holding its breath in that suspended moment between arrival and reality. Jimin sat there in the bed, Jeongguk’s weight still heavy against his shoulder, the alpha’s breath a warm anchor in the chill that had seeped through the tarp. His own body ached from the jolt of the drive, the bandage on his bicep pulling tight with every subtle shift, but he didn’t dare move first—didn’t want to wake Jeongguk, not yet, not when the farm’s safety felt like the first real exhale they’d had since the depot. The scent of the haul mingled with the night air: the clean, plastic-wrapped promise of preserved goods, the metallic tang of tools, the faint chemical whiff from the propane tanks. It grounded him, a tangible win against the rot of the world outside.

Then the sound broke loose, crashing over the stillness like a dam giving way. It was relief first—ragged, breathless, almost ugly in how hard it came out, voices overlapping in a cacophony that drowned the insects’ chirr. People talking over each other, pitching too loud because they didn’t know where to put the fear now that it had somewhere to go, the words tumbling free in fragments of joy and disbelief.

“You’re alive, oh thank the god—” someone choked out, the voice cracking mid-sentence.

“I told you they’d make it—stubborn as they are,” another laughed, the sound wet with unshed tears.

“Is that—wait, is that rice?” A whisper turned sharp, heads turning toward the bed as the revelation spread.

Hana was already moving, pushing through the knot of bodies clustering at the tailgate with Areum right on her heels, her eyes fixed on Jimin like she was afraid he might vanish if she blinked too long. The omega’s face was a map of worry smoothed into relief, her shawl slipping off one shoulder as she reached up. Areum’s hand was fisted in the back of Jimin’s jacket before he could even get both feet off the truck, her grip fierce and trembling, pulling him down with a strength born of too many nights waiting. 

“Jimin-oppa,” she breathed, voice thick, her free hand hovering near his face as if checking for wounds she couldn’t see. Behind them, the rest of the yard was slowly waking into awe, figures emerging from the shadows—Seokjin with a lantern held high, Mira rubbing sleep from her eyes, Daehyun pausing mid-stride with a blanket draped over his arm.

Lantern light crept over the truck bed, illuminating the haul in pieces that drew gasps and murmurs—tools stacked tight against the sides, their handles worn but solid; propane tanks knocking softly as Hoseok steadied them with a tired hand, the metal cool under his palm; crates wrapped in industrial plastic that caught the light like ice, translucent and unyielding. And then the rice, stacked in sealed bags that gleamed under the glow, white and pristine against the grime of the journey. Mrs. Han froze at the edge of the group, her steps halting as recognition hit. She stepped closer, slow and deliberate, like she was afraid it might be a hallucination if she rushed it, and laid both hands flat against one of the sealed bags, fingers splaying wide over the plastic. The material crinkled faintly under her touch, real and solid. Her shoulders shook once, then again, a quiet tremor that betrayed the flood she held back.

“Oh,” she breathed, voice breaking completely, raw and unguarded. “Oh, thank god.”

The words hung there, a prayer answered in the dead of night, and Jimin felt a pang in his chest—protectiveness for her, for all of them, sharpened by the memory of how close they’d come to returning empty-handed.

Someone laughed then, a sharp burst from the back of the crowd that rippled outward, someone else cried outright, the sob muffled into a sleeve but no less real. A murmur rolled through the crowd, disbelief softening into something warmer, something almost giddy, hands reaching out to touch the supplies as if to confirm they weren’t a dream spun from hunger.

Namjoon stood just off to the side, arms folded tight across his chest, his broad frame a steady presence amid the chaos, eyes locked on Hoseok like he was counting the alpha’s breaths to make sure they were even. Hoseok finally glanced over from where he was helping Byungho unload a crate, exhaustion written into every line of him—the slump of his shoulders, the shadows under his eyes—but there was a spark there, relief mirroring Namjoon’s. 

When their gazes met, Namjoon crossed the distance in two strides, pulling Hoseok in without a word, his hand firm on the back of the alpha’s neck. Forehead pressing briefly to Hoseok’s temple, a quick, grounding kiss hidden behind the angle of his shoulder—lips brushing skin in a silent claim, a reassurance that cut through the noise. He let go again after a heartbeat, stepping back but staying close, his presence a shield as Hoseok shook his head with a weary grin.

“You,” Mrs. Han snapped suddenly, rounding on Taehyung and Yoongi with the fire of a woman who had been worrying for hours, her hands on her hips now, apron strings whipping as she gestured. The two had just climbed down from the cab, Yoongi wiping grease from his hands on a rag, Taehyung stretching his back with a wince. 

“Do you know what time it is? Cutting it this close—you couldn’t drive any faster? You wanted to give me a heart attack before winter even sets in proper?” Her voice cracked on the edge of scold and sob, but there was no real heat in it, just the outpouring of a mother hen who’d paced the floors imagining the worst.

Yoongi raised his hands in mock surrender, a tired smirk tugging at his lips. “Blame the road, Mrs. Han—not us. And the howlers. We brought the goods, didn’t we?” 

Taehyung nodded beside him, rubbing his neck, but his eyes flicked to Jimin, checking in silently amid the bustle. The yard hummed with activity now—hands reaching up to haul crates down from the bed, voices weaving plans for storage and rationing in low, excited bursts that cut through the night's chill like sparks from flint. Footsteps scuffed the dirt, lanterns swung in arcs that painted the supplies in shifting gold, and the air filled with the scents of earth and oil and the faint, hopeful tang of the rice bags being stacked carefully on the porch.

Jimin lingered a moment longer by the truck, one boot braced on the running board, his gaze fixed on Jeongguk where the alpha still slept curled against a folded blanket in the bed. The farm’s light painted soft shadows across his face, easing the hard lines of exhaustion into something almost peaceful, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm despite the faint hitch that spoke of lingering strain.

Jimin’s fingers tightened on the tailgate’s edge, the metal cool and rough under his palm, a quiet resolve settling in his chest like the first frost: they’d made it back, whole if not unbroken, the haul a fragile victory clutched against the dark, and tomorrow—with its reckonings and repairs—could wait its turn until the sun dragged him from this fragile calm.

“Oppa—wait—don’t move yet,” Hana blurted, her words tumbling out in a rush as she reached for Jimin, her small hands scanning his face, his shoulders, his arms all at once with frantic efficiency, eyes wide in the lantern glow. Her shawl had slipped further, pooling at her elbows, and her breath came quickly, visible in the cold air. 

“You’re bleeding—no, wait—are you bleeding? I can’t tell, there’s blood stains everywhere. Are you hurt?” Her fingers brushed his sleeve, light but insistent, and Jimin felt the pull of the fabric against his skin, the dull throb in his bicep flaring sharper under her touch.

“Jimin-oppa, seriously—what is that?” Before he could deflect, her hand closed around his sleeve, tugging the fabric back with quick, clumsy urgency that made the makeshift wrap shift. The lantern light caught the edge of dried blood crusted along the edge, dark and flaking, and her breath hitched hard enough to be audible, a sharp intake that sliced through the yard’s murmur.

“It’s nothing,” Jimin said, the words automatic, lodged in his throat like they’d lived there for years, a reflex honed from too many close calls where admitting weakness meant inviting collapse. 

He shifted his weight, trying to ease his arm away without drawing more eyes, but the movement only tugged the wrap tighter, sending a fresh sting radiating up his shoulder. Internally, he cursed the slip—Jeongguk’s hasty bandaging had held through the drive, but the blood had seeped through in stubborn patches, a betrayal he couldn’t hide in this light.

Areum made a distressed, high sound from his other side, something between a whine and a gasp, and immediately crowded closer, her body heat a brief buffer against the night’s bite. “You’re bleeding. You’re bleeding. You said you were fine—” Her voice cracked, hands hovering as if afraid to touch, her face paling under the lantern’s flicker.

“I am fine.” Jimin met her eyes, forcing steadiness into his tone, but the lie sat heavy, his pulse quickening at the edge of panic in her expression. He could feel the eyes turning now, fragments of conversations faltering as the group’s attention snagged on the unfolding worry.

“You are literally not fine,” Hana snapped, her voice breaking as she peeled the makeshift wrap back just enough to expose the gash, the fabric sticking briefly before giving way. 

Her hands trembled despite her trying to keep them steady, fingers pale against the reddened skin, and when she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth—hissing at the sight of the jagged tear, the bruising blooming purple around it—Areum flinched like she felt it too, her own hand flying to her mouth.

“Oh no—no no no,” Areum said, already digging through her pockets with frantic motions, pulling out a crumpled cloth that smelled faintly of herbs from earlier chores.

“Jiminie-oppa, this is bad, this is—Hana, we need Jiwon noona. We need—” Her words blurred into urgency, eyes darting toward the house as if willing the healer to appear.

“Hana,” Jimin said quietly, reaching out with his good hand to still her, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a bid for calm.

She looked up at him, eyes shining and furious all at once, tears catching the light like shards. “Oppa, how could you let yourself get hurt like this,” she demanded, voice pitching up in a way that was pure panic, pure affection, her grip tightening on his arm despite the wince it drew from him.

“You can’t just—what if—what if it was deeper? What if you’d—” She cut off, swallowing hard, the unspoken losses of the world hanging between them.

“It wasn’t.”

Jimin kept his voice even, but inside, his stomach twisted—protect them, don’t burden them, hold the line even as it frays. The injury was a scratch in the grand tally of survival, but seeing it reflected in her face made it real, a crack in the armor he’d worn since the depot’s chaos.

“That’s not the point!” Hana’s retort came fierce, but her touch softened as she pressed the cloth back, her thumb lingering at his wrist, seeking the reassurance of a steady pulse beneath the skin.

Areum thrust a clean cloth into Hana’s hands, her own fingers shaking as she straightened, resolve hardening her features. “Sit. Please just sit before you fall over. You always do this—pushing until you break.” There was no accusation, just weary knowing, the kind forged from watching him lead too many runs.

Jimin let himself be guided down onto the tailgate, the wood creaking under his weight, mostly because resisting would only make it worse—would draw more fuss, more eyes on the vulnerability he preferred to bury. The cold seeped through his pants immediately, grounding him as Hana knelt to press the cloth firmer, her movements gentler now, though her breath came in shallow bursts.

“I’m calling Jiwon noona,” Areum announced, already turning toward the house, her voice loud and cracking over the bustle. “She’s going to yell at you and you’re going to deserve it.” She took two steps before pausing, casting a worried look back, her shawl clutched tight against the chill.

“I heard my name,” Jiwon said dryly, appearing at her elbow like she’d been summoned by tone alone, her presence cutting through the night with the quiet authority of someone who’d stitched more wounds than words. She was bundled in a wool coat over her nightdress, hair pulled back haphazardly, a small kit already slung over her shoulder—ever prepared, the farm’s steady hand in crises.

“Noona—look—he—” She gestured helplessly at the arm, words clearly failing under the weight of it all.

Jiwon crouched immediately in front of Jimin, her knees cracking faintly on the gravel, eyes flicking once over his face—assessing pallor, the faint sheen of sweat despite the cold—before settling on the wound with clinical focus. She peeled the cloth back with professional efficiency, fingers steady and sure, exposing the gash fully: the edges ragged from claws, the flesh torn but not to the bone, blood dried in dark rivulets that had soaked through Jeongguk’s hasty wrapping. The alpha’s work was visible in the tight knots of fabric, the padding of torn shirt pressed against it—rough but effective enough to staunch the flow on the road.

She paused, tilting her head as she traced the edge with a gloved finger, not pressing but probing the wrap’s construction. Her brow lifted, a subtle arch that spoke volumes in the dim light.

“…This wrap,” she said slowly, voice measured, glancing up at Jimin with eyes that missed nothing. “Who did this?” 

The question hung there, laced with curiosity and a hint of approval, but Jimin felt the heat rise in his neck—Jeongguk’s hands on him in the truck’s dim cab flashing unbidden, the alpha’s urgency a memory that tangled with the pain.

Jimin hesitated for half a second too long, the name catching in his throat like gravel under boot soles, the weight of it pulling at the edges of his resolve.

Hana noticed. Of course she did, ever the observant one when it came to him, her instincts sharpened by years of watching for cracks in the facade that kept them all afloat. Her head snapped up from where she knelt, eyes locking onto Jimin's with that piercing clarity that always made him feel exposed, like she could see the tangle of exhaustion and unspoken burdens coiled in his chest. “Jiminie oppa?” Her voice was soft but insistent, laced with the kind of worry that demanded truth, her fingers stilling on the cloth pressed to his skin.

Jimin sighed, the sound heavy and resigned, escaping through parted lips as he rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand, the motion pulling at the stitches of fatigue. “Jeongguk.” The name dropped into the air like a stone into still water, rippling outward, simple and stark against the night's hush.

That earned him three different reactions at once, fracturing the tension like glass under pressure. Hana blinked, her surprise cutting through the veil of panic like a blade, her brows lifting as she processed it, mouth forming a silent 'oh' that hung there. Areum’s mouth fell open, a soft gasp escaping as she leaned in closer, her eyes darting between Jimin and the truck bed where Jeongguk lay, the implication sinking in with wide-eyed wonder. Jiwon hummed quietly, a low, thoughtful sound from the back of her throat, her expression shifting to something contemplative as she traced the knot in the wrap with a careful finger, the fabric rough and improvised under her touch.

“Well,” she said after a moment, her voice steady and measured, drawing out the word as she tugged gently at the edges, testing the hold without disturbing the wound beneath. “It’s clean. Pressure’s good. Not too sloppy for some improvised care.” 

She worked methodically, her hands callused from years of mending flesh and fabric alike, the faint scent of antiseptic from her kit cutting through the night's chill. Jimin felt the pull and release as she adjusted it, the pressure easing just enough to dull the ache without letting go entirely. Her gaze flicked up then, sharp and curious now, pinning him with that healer’s insight that saw more than wounds—saw the flickers of connection, the unspoken alliances forged in blood and shadow. 

“He really did this? Interesting…” The word trailed off, laced with a subtle intrigue that made Jimin's stomach twist, memories of Jeongguk's hands—rough, urgent, pressing cloth to torn skin in the truck's swaying dark—flashing unbidden, hot and immediate.

Jimin didn’t answer, nor did he have to; the silence was answer enough, thick and telling in the circle of their attention. Jiwon retied the wrap more securely, her fingers deft and sure, looping the fabric with practiced knots that bit just right into the padding. She gave Jimin a look then—half warning, half knowing, her eyes narrowing slightly under the lantern's glow. 

“You’re lucky. And you’re not getting out of rest just because you think you’re indestructible.” Her tone brooked no argument, the authority of someone who'd patched him up one too many times, who knew the cost of pushing through when the body screamed stop.

“I don’t—” Jimin started, the protest automatic.

“Please,” Hana cut in immediately, her eyes narrowing as she straightened, wiping her hands on her skirt with a decisive motion, the fabric whispering against her legs. “Do not argue with her.”

Jimin closed his mouth, the click of his teeth audible in the quiet that followed, letting his gaze drift instead to Jeongguk, awake now, seemed to be the only one standing off to the side, a shadow detached from the knot of concern. The alpha lingered near the back of the truck, shoulders slumped under the weight of whatever storm still raged inside him, his face pale under the dim lantern glow, skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones. 

His eyes flicked once toward Jimin—and then away again, quick as a flinch, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to look too long, wasn't sure of his place in this fragile aftermath. The avoidance stung, a fresh cut amid the ache, and Jimin couldn’t even muster the energy to say anything, anger washing over him the moment his lips parted just a fraction—hot, irrational, born of the chaos they'd clawed through together, the alpha's hands on him now feeling like a ghost that wouldn't fade. He swallowed it down, the bitterness coating his throat, focusing instead on the steady rise and fall of his own breath, the distant clatter of crates being stowed.

Minji then burst out of the farmhouse with her jacket half-buttoned, the wool flapping open to reveal the thin nightshirt beneath, and one braid coming loose, dark strands whipping in the breeze as she skidded to a stop on the gravel, boots crunching sharp. For half a second she just stared, her eyes—wide and bright even in the late hour—fixing on Jimin where he sat on the edge of the truck bed, the proof of his return sinking in like dawn after endless night. Then she was moving again, a whirlwind of energy cutting through the yard's tension, voice pitching up as she ran, arms outstretched.

“Jimin—samcheon—!” The endearment tumbled out, affectionate and urgent, her small frame closing the distance in a rush that scattered pebbles underfoot.

Hana barely had time to say her name—“Minji, careful—” before the girl grabbed Jimin’s hand in both of hers, tugging like she meant to pull him clear off the tailgate, her grip warm and insistent despite the cold nipping at her fingers. 

“You’re back! You’re really back!” she said, breathless, words tumbling over each other in a cascade of relief and excitement, her cheeks flushed from the run. “Come on, you have to come see—Mr. Park and Minseok caught two rabbits, two! And Mrs. Han said it’s special and that nobody’s allowed to skip dinner even though it’s really late, and—”

She leaned closer then, dropping her voice into something conspiratorial and delighted, her breath warm against his ear, carrying the faint, comforting scent of woodsmoke from the house. “She’s making real stew.”

That did it. The yard, which had been wound tight since the truck rolled in, finally loosened. People started to move again, flowing toward the farmhouse and the fire like water finding its course after a dam's breach: Hoseok slinging his rifle over his shoulder with a tired grin, directing Taehyung to grab the last of the medical kit; Yoongi wiping grease from his hands on his pants before joining the stream, his steps measured but quicker now. Lanterns were lifted from their hooks on the porch posts and shuffled closer to the fire pit, where flames crackled low and inviting, casting a warmer glow that pushed back the night's edge. Bowls appeared from the kitchen—earthenware chipped but sturdy—clinking softly as they were passed hand to hand, steam rising in lazy curls.

The smell of broth, rich and unmistakably celebratory, drifted out into the cold and wrapped itself around the lingering fear: savory notes of herbs and meat mingling with the deeper earthiness of roots simmered long, a balm against the metallic bite of blood and gunpowder that still clung to their clothes. It pulled at Jimin, stirring a hollow ache in his gut that went beyond hunger, a reminder of the life they fought to reclaim in these stolen moments.

Mrs. Han, who now stood in the doorway with a ladle in one hand, the wooden handle worn smooth from use, her eyes full of relief and damp all at once, glistening in the firelight as she scanned the group—counting heads, assessing the toll. “If you can stand, you can eat,” she announced, her voice carrying firm and maternal over the murmur, cutting through like a bell. “And if you’re injured, you eat more.” There was no room for debate in her tone, just the unyielding care of someone who'd fed them through worse, her apron dusted with flour and flecks of carrot, a quiet testament to the normalcy she wove from chaos.

Minji beamed like she’d won something precious, her face splitting into a grin that lit up the shadows under her eyes, the kind of unfiltered joy that cut through the night's chill like a blade. She tugged again, her small hands insistent around his, pulling with that relentless energy only a child could muster after holding her breath for hours. 

Jimin let himself be pulled this time, the resistance melting away as he slipped down from the truck's tailgate, his boots hitting the packed earth with a dull thud that jarred his arm just enough to draw a faint wince. He followed her toward the fire, the gravel shifting underfoot, each step pulling him deeper into the circle of warmth and flickering light.

Hands brushed his arm, his shoulder, his back—light touches from the others as they passed, small, quiet checks disguised as nothing at all, just the graze of knuckles or the press of a palm that lingered a second too long. Relief showed itself in those gestures, in the way people said his name just to hear it answered, voices soft with the kind of gratitude that came after holding your breath for too long. Jimin felt it settle over him like a worn blanket, heavy with the unspoken fears they'd all carried since the truck had rumbled away hours ago. His own breath came easier now, though the ache in his bicep pulsed with every step, a sharp reminder wrapped tight under Jiwon's bandage.

Sooyeon caught up to him near the edge of the firelight, where the noise softened to a hum and the flames' glow thinned into shadow, painting the yard in flickers of orange and black. She didn’t touch him at first—just walked beside him long enough to make her presence known, her steps measured on the uneven ground, the faint scent of woodsmoke clinging to her clothes like a second skin. Jimin glanced at her sidelong, taking in the lines of worry etched deeper around her eyes, the way her hair had escaped its braid in wispy strands that caught the light.

“Are you alright?” she asked quietly, her voice pitched low to keep it between them, eyes scanning his face with that steady gaze she'd honed over years of holding the farm together. “You gave Minji quite a scare, coming back that late.”

Jimin let out a long, exasperated breath, the vapor clouding briefly in the chill before dissipating, his free hand rubbing at the back of his neck where tension knotted the muscles. The weight of her concern pressed in, familiar and steady, like the noona she'd always been—fierce in her protectiveness, unyielding in the face of the world's cruelties. “I’m sorry, noona. Things went sideways fast. Real fast.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue, laced with the echo of howls and the metallic snap of gunfire, memories that still clung to his skin like sweat-soaked grime.

She glanced at the bandage on his arm, her eyes tracing the fresh white fabric stained faintly at the edges, then at the way he favored it even while trying not to—his elbow tucked close, steps shifting to avoid the pull. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, disapproval flickering there, but softened by the relief that underlay it. “I can see that.”

“It’s really nothing,” he said automatically, the denial rising like reflex, already lifting his hand like he could wave it away into the shadows, dismiss the gash that had nearly cost him more than blood. The motion tugged at the wound, sending a fresh sting up his shoulder, and he winced despite himself, the fire's warmth doing little to chase the chill that had seeped into his bones during the drive back.

“So,” Sooyeon cut in, her voice stern but loving, the edge of it wrapping around him like a scolding from better days, “that’s your version of nothing.” She stopped walking then, turning slightly to face him, her silhouette sharp against the glow, arms crossing over her chest in that habitual way that brooked no evasion.

He let out a short breath, running a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the sweat-damp strands that stuck up at odd angles, the gesture more habit than necessity. The fire popped nearby, sending a spark skittering across the dirt, and he felt the heat lick at his face, contrasting the cool draft whispering up from the ground. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone.” The admission hung there, quieter than he'd intended, laced with the guilt that always followed close on the heels of survival—the knowledge that his choices rippled out, touching lives he'd sworn to shield.

She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted back toward the fire, where Mrs. Han was stirring the pot with slow, deliberate motions, the ladle scraping against the iron sides as steam rolled up into the slight chill of the night, carrying the rich, savory promise of the stew. The scent wrapped around them, grounding and warm, a rare anchor in the uncertainty. When Sooyeon spoke again, it was slower, like she was choosing each word with care, weighing them against the fragile peace they'd clawed back.

“Nothing or not,” she said, her tone softening just a fraction, “I’m glad—”

She stopped, lips parting like the words surprised her as much as they would him, a rare crack in her composed front. Then she shook her head once, a quick, decisive motion that scattered a loose strand across her cheek, and went on, voice steadying. 

“God, I can’t believe I’m saying this. But I’m glad Jeongguk was there, and I’m glad he patched you up.”

Jimin’s chest tightened, a sudden vise squeezing around his ribs, hot and immediate, the mention of the alpha stirring the tangle of emotions he'd been shoving down since the truck.

“Noona—”

“I owe you an apology,” she continued, finally turning to look at him fully, her eyes locking onto his with that unwavering intensity, the fire reflecting in their depths like embers. “Both of you. I was hard on Taehyung, and I was especially hard on you when you brought him back.” Her gaze didn’t waver, holding him there in the moment, forcing him to confront the echoes of those tense days—the raised voices, the suspicions that had festered like untreated wounds. 

“You know I trust you more than anyone here.”

Jimin looked away, the weight of it too much, his eyes finding the packed dirt near his boots, scuffed and shadowed, then lifting to the fire again—bright and ordinary and wrong in its normalcy, flames dancing over faces turned toward the pot, laughter threading through the steam. He thought of Taehyung standing his ground amid the accusations, boxy smile unwavering; of Namjoon arguing calmly when others raised their voices, his deep timbre cutting through the noise like reason itself; of how easily Jimin had framed Jeongguk in his mind as a risk that wasn’t worth managing instead of a person worth trusting—an alpha whose instincts had saved him tonight, whose touch had lingered like a brand even after the bandage was tied.

“I didn’t know,” he admitted, the words quiet and stripped bare, slipping out before he could cage them, his voice rough against the night's hush. "Not like I should have."

The rest stayed locked inside, but it echoed in his chest, a confession to the doubts he'd harbored. He wants to hide it all, pretend that life simply moves on, but he knows there's no masking the wariness born of too many losses, too many betrayals in a world that chewed up trust and spat out bones.

Sooyeon studied him for a beat, her expression softening in the firelight, lines easing as she took in the raw edge to his posture, the way his good hand clenched at his side. Then she reached out and gave his sleeve a brief, firm squeeze—approval and warning all at once, her grip steady through the fabric, grounding him in the shared history that bound them. 

“You do now,” she said simply, the words carrying the finality of absolution. “That’s what matters.”

She stepped away before he could answer, her boots scraping softly on the dirt as she disappeared back into the cluster of light and voices, swallowed by the group's warmth like she belonged there, leaving Jimin standing at the edge of it. The heat of the fire washed over his face, chasing the chill from his cheeks, but something tight and unsettled sat low in his chest, a coil of unresolved tension that the stew's aroma couldn't quite unravel. He watched her go, the flicker of lanterns catching on her retreating form, and felt the yard pulse around him—alive with the quiet victory of return, yet shadowed by the what-ifs that always trailed in the wake.

The stew had started circulating properly now, bowls passing from hand to hand with murmured thanks, steam curling up into the cold air like fragile offerings, carrying the deep, earthy notes of rabbit and roots that made his stomach twist with sudden, sharp hunger. People settled wherever there was space—on overturned crates that creaked under weight, along the fence rail where frost rimed the wood, cross-legged in the dirt that still held the day's faint warmth. 

Someone nudged another log onto the fire and it caught with a soft crackle, fresh flames leaping up to devour the bark, sparks lifting briefly into the dark before fading like fleeting hopes. The tension that had followed the truck through the gate didn’t vanish, exactly— it lingered in the careful way eyes scanned the shadows, in the rifle propped nearby—but it thinned enough to breathe around, allowing the low hum of conversation to rise, fragments of recounting the raid mingling with the clink of spoons against bowls.

Jimin lingered a moment longer at the periphery, the fire's edge warming his front while the night nipped at his back, his gaze drifting inevitably to where Jeongguk had moved closer to the group, accepting a bowl with a nod, his shoulders still carrying that subtle hunch of exhaustion. The alpha's eyes met his across the flames for a split second—dark, unreadable—before flicking away, and Jimin felt that tightness shift, not easing but transforming, into something he wasn't ready to name. He pushed off the fence, stepping fully into the light, the gravel shifting underfoot as he moved toward the circle, ready to let the warmth pull him in, if only for tonight.

Hoseok glanced up from his food, the spoon pausing midway to his mouth as he chewed slowly, the stew's warmth still steaming faintly from the bowl balanced on his knee. The firelight caught the sharp lines of his face, casting shadows that softened the exhaustion etched into his features, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the motion rough and habitual, leaving a faint smear of broth on his skin. 

He leaned back against the crate with a creak of wood under his weight, letting out a breath that fogged in the chill before curling into a crooked grin that tugged at the corners of his lips, unbidden but genuine, chasing away the last dregs of the day's tension. With his bowl cradled in one hand like an anchor and the other gesturing loosely into the air, the alpha began talking to no one in particular and somehow everyone at once, his voice carrying over the low crackle of flames and the distant hoot of an owl in the treeline.

“Alright, alright—before this turns into six different versions tomorrow,” he said, glancing around with that tired grin that didn’t quite hide how wrung out he still was, his eyes sweeping the circle of faces—some half-shadowed, others lit warm and open. “Here’s what actually happened.”

Jimin felt the pull of it immediately, the way Hoseok's words hooked into the group's frayed nerves, drawing them in like a tether in the dark. He shifted on the log he'd claimed, the rough bark pressing into his thighs through his pants, the bandage on his arm pulling tight as he adjusted his grip on his own bowl, the stew inside gone lukewarm but still savory on his tongue from the last bite.

That drew people in without effort, the murmur of spoons against bowls quieting as heads turned. Kyungho leaned closer to Hana where she sat cross-legged on a folded blanket, his shoulder brushing hers in a casual press that spoke of quiet comfort, his breath visible in the cooling air as he tilted his head to listen. Old Man Cho shifted his weight near the edge of the fire, the gravel scraping under his boots, arms folded tight across his chest but attention unwavering, his lined face reflecting the flames like weathered stone catching light.

“Now,” Hoseok said, lifting a hand palm-up as if to steady the night itself, “before anyone panics—yeah, it was bad. But also?” He shook his head, a soft laugh escaping him, low and disbelieving, rumbling from his chest like distant thunder. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

A few people glanced up from their meals, eyes flickering with a mix of curiosity and the lingering ache of worry. Someone scooted closer to the fire, the drag of boots on dirt breaking the hush, pulling their knees in toward the heat that licked at the air, chasing the frost that nipped at exposed skin. Jimin watched it all from his spot, the warmth seeping into his side but doing little to thaw the knot of replayed chaos in his gut—the snarls, the blood, the way the depot's shadows had come alive. Hoseok's grin anchored him, a reminder that they were here, whole, the supplies stacked safe in the barn behind them.

“We were already loaded heavier than planned,” Hoseok went on, his voice warming as he spoke, energy creeping back into him now that the danger was well behind them, miles of empty road separating the farm from the horde's echoes. 

“Rice, seeds, tools—the good stuff,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair, fingers raking back the sweat-stiffened strands that stuck up at the crown. The motion was familiar, a tic Jimin knew from planning sessions, when Hoseok paced the yard mapping routes on scavenged maps.

“But we got a little too ambitious as we were pulling back,” he continued, hands starting to move like they always did when he got going—palms slicing the air, fingers curling to mimic the truck's sway. 

“Pretty sure we accidentally made some noise, and holy shit did we set things off—which makes no sense, because how was Jimin’s suppressor not loud, but a piece of metal on the floor can set the damn thing off—anyways, digress.” Hoseok waved it off with a flick of his wrist, the fire popping in agreement, sending a shower of sparks upward that died quickly in the dark.

“The depot went loud, howlers were everywhere, and we’re doing that fun little dance where everyone is screaming and nobody’s moving fast enough.” Hoseok's eyes danced with the retelling, the alpha's natural charisma weaving the terror into something almost survivable, shared.

“That’s my favorite kind,” Yoongi muttered from his perch on a low stool, voice gravel-rough and dry as old leaves, not looking up from where he scraped the last of his stew, the spoon clinking against the bowl's edge.

Hoseok shot him a look, sharp but fond, eyebrows arching in mock offense. “You say that now.”

A ripple of tired laughter moved through the group, soft and ragged, breaking like waves on the fire's edge—Hana's giggle muffled behind her hand, Kyungho's chuckle deep and brief, even Old Man Cho's lips twitching in a rare half-smile. Jimin let it pull a quiet huff from him, the sound lost in the chorus, easing the tightness in his chest just a fraction. The laughter felt like medicine, bitter but necessary, stitching over the raw edges of what they'd lived through. He glanced across the flames, catching Jeongguk's profile—still and watchful, the alpha's jaw set as if weighing every word. Their eyes didn't meet this time, but the awareness hummed between them, unspoken.

He then pointed vaguely toward the dark beyond the fence, the gesture broad and emphatic, his arm cutting through the smoke that hazed the air. “And when I say there were howlers,” he said, eyes widening for emphasis, voice dropping to that conspiratorial timbre that held them all, “I mean a fuck-ton.”

“Hoseok,” Mrs. Han snapped from the stew pot without even turning around, her voice cutting through the haze like a knife through cloth, the ladle clanging against the iron rim as she stirred with brisk efficiency. “Language.”

“Sorry—sorry,” he said automatically, holding up a hand in surrender, palm out and fingers splayed, not even slowing down as his words tumbled on, the apology light but sincere. “Anyway. A ridiculous number. Like, they were spilling out of everywhere on the upper floor, screeching and howling and just—barreling at us. I swear to god, I almost peed myself a little.”

Byungho huffed from his spot near the fire, the sound rough and amused, his broad frame casting a long shadow that danced with the licking heat. He poked at the embers with a stick, sending a fresh burst of sparks skyward, his eyes glinting with the memory's edge. “You did trip, though.”

“I did not—”

“You absolutely did.”

“—okay, maybe once,” Hoseok conceded with a dramatic eye roll, then barreled on, his energy undimmed, hands gesturing wildly as if reenacting the chaos. “But listen. We’re hauling rice, right? Actual rice. Jimin gets knocked over, everything gets crazy, and suddenly it’s teeth and claws and that awful smell—you know the one.”

A few people grimaced instinctively, faces twisting in shared revulsion—the sour, heavy rot that clung to howlers like a second skin, metallic and decaying, invading nostrils even now in memory. Jimin swallowed against the phantom taste, the bile rising faint in his throat, his bandaged arm throbbing in echo of the impact that had sent him sprawling across cold concrete.

“And I’m yelling to pull back, because obviously,” Hoseok said, voice sharpening as the memory caught up to him, the warmth fading into something rawer, his gaze flicking to Jimin for a split second before darting away. “But Jimin goes down hard enough that for half a second I genuinely thought—”

Hoseok stopped mid-thought. Not for some kind of storytelling effect—he just ran out of air, his chest heaving as if the depot's dust still choked him. For a moment, the only sound was the fire popping softly, a log shifting as it burned down further, collapsing into glowing coals with a hiss. Someone cleared their throat and didn’t say anything after all, the silence stretching taut, heavy with the unsaid weight of what could have been.

“I thought we were about to lose him,” he finished, quieter, the words dropping like stones into still water, rippling through the group.

Hana’s hands curled into the fabric of her skirt, knuckles whitening against the worn cloth, her breath hitching soft in the quiet. Kyungho’s knee bounced once, then stilled, the restless energy bleeding out as he pressed his shoulder firmer against hers. Minseok exhaled slowly through his nose and stared into the fire like he could see the depot reflected there, flames mirroring the flicker of old regrets in his eyes. 

Jimin felt it all settle on him, the concern a tangible press, warming and suffocating in equal measure. His own pulse quickened, the scar of the fall itching under his skin, but he kept his expression steady, spoon scraping idly against his bowl to mask the tremor in his fingers. They didn't need to see his fear; they'd carried enough for one night.

Byungho was the one who broke the silence, his voice even, gravelly from years of barked orders. “He went down hard,” he repeated after Hoseok, nodding once, the motion deliberate. “And they were already moving before we could do anything.”

Someone muttered a curse under their breath, low and fervent, the word swallowed by the night but echoing in Jimin's ears like a distant snarl.

“And then,” Hoseok continued, breath picking up again, the rhythm returning as he leaned into the tale, “this one—” he tipped his chin toward Jeongguk now, the gesture casual but pointed, drawing every eye across the fire. Jeongguk startled, blinking as he looked up from where he was hunched over, shoving spoonfuls of rabbit stew in his mouth like it was the most gourmet meal he’d had in his life, broth dripping from the corner of his lips before he swiped it away with his thumb. 

“Jeongguk just loses his damn mind.”

“I mean that in the best way,” Hoseok added quickly, scrubbing a hand through his hair again as if the image was still stuck there, vivid and unrelenting—the blur of motion, the spray of dark blood. “One second he’s hauling stuff like the rest of us, next second—” He shook his head, half-laughing, the sound edged with awe. “I don’t even know how to describe it. He just moved? Like, he was absolutely tearing through those howlers—no hesitation or anything—just straight in, teeth out, claws slashing everywhere.”

“Wait,” Kyungho cut in, leaning forward where he sat near Hana, eyes bright with disbelief. “No-fucking-way.”

“Yes-fucking-way,” Taehyung countered from his spot on the ground, grinning wide, teeth flashing white against the shadows, his bowl balanced on one knee as he gestured with his free hand. “You would’ve thought those howlers had insulted his mother with the way he was moving.”

“Did you make your claws go super long like Wolverine, Jeongguk-hyung? I saw them when you were training—god they were already scary then.”

Jeongguk let out a surprised noise, clearly still caught off guard with all of the newfound attention on him, his cheeks flushing faint under the grime of the day. He set his bowl aside, wiping his hands on his pants, the fabric rasping soft. “Uh. I don’t—maybe? I didn’t really look at them because everything was so hectic.”

“That’s insane,” Hyejin said, impressed, her voice carrying a lilt of admiration that twisted something sharp in Jimin's chest. “Also, what is with the wolverine jokes guys?”

“Oh relax, we’ve barely gotten started with them—”

“And your teeth,” Areum cut in, still hovering close to Jimin but staring openly now, her presence a steady anchor at his side, the faint scent of herbs from her earlier work clinging to her clothes. “When I saw them, they were—sorry—scary-sharp. Like, really sharp. I can only imagine how those howlers looked after you were done.”

Jeongguk lifted a hand to his mouth on instinct, fingers brushing his lips, then laughed awkwardly, the sound rumbling low, self-conscious under the scrutiny. “I guess, uh, not so good.”

Byungho huffed a breath, shaking his head, the motion sending his hair falling forward. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said, voice steady, carrying the weight of experience like a well-worn rifle. “I’ve seen alphas panic, I’ve seen them freeze—the whole nine yards. You didn’t do either.” He glanced at Jimin, then back, the look brief but loaded. “You went with your gut instinct, especially when it mattered the most.” 

That quieted things a notch, the group's energy shifting from awe to something deeper, respectful, the fire's crackle filling the pause as nods rippled around the circle.

Mrs. Han set yet another nearly overflowing bowl into his hands, the steam rising in lazy curls that carried the scent of thyme and fat, carefully prying the empty one out of his grasp with fingers callused from years of tending hearths and wounds. Her eyes, lined with the faint crow's feet of survival's toll, met his for a beat longer than necessary, conveying what words might falter on.

“Eat well,” she said firmly, her voice a steady anchor in the murmur of the group, the ladle in her other hand dripping a single bead of broth onto the dirt that sizzled faintly on a stray ember. Then, softer, almost a whisper against the crackle of flames, “Thank you. For bringing him back to us.”

A few more voices chimed in—not loud or performative, just honest murmurs that wove into the night's fabric like threads in a worn blanket. Hana leaned forward from her spot beside Kyungho, her skirt pooling around her knees, fingers twisting the hem as she spoke. “Really. Thank you.”

Kyungho nodded beside her, his knee no longer bouncing, voice low and rough from the cold. “We owe you.”

From the edge of the circle, where the shadows deepened, Taehyung added his piece, bowl balanced on his thigh, the fire reflecting in his eyes like distant stars. “I don’t know how you did that, but—yeah.” The words trailed off, laced with that easy sincerity that made the group feel smaller, safer.

Jeongguk’s shoulders drew in a little under the attention, the bowl warm against his palms but his grip tightening as if to steady himself. His ears went pink, visible even in the flickering light, the flush creeping up from his collar where sweat and grime still marked his skin. He ducked his head, spoon hovering unused, the steam brushing his face. “I just—” He stopped, exhaled through his nose, the breath visible and shaky in the cooling air. “I didn’t think about it.”

Jimin felt a pang at that, the simplicity of it cutting through his own swirling thoughts. No heroics, no grand declarations—just instinct, raw and unfiltered, the kind that had slashed through howlers without pause. He wondered if Jeongguk replayed it the same way he did: the blur of claws, the spray of ichor, the moment their eyes had locked amid the snarls. Jimin's pulse quickened at the memory, not from fear now, but from the electric pull of it, the alpha's protectiveness wrapping around him like an invisible shield.

“That’s the scary part,” Daehyun muttered from his seat near the stew pot, his voice carrying that familiar edge of teasing, though his eyes held genuine respect. He leaned back on his elbows, the ground crunching under his shifting weight, then grinned to take the edge off it, teeth flashing white. “But also…kind of impressive, honestly.”

A soft ripple of agreement moved through the group, heads nodding in the firelight—Old Man Cho's slow incline, Hyejin's quick bob, even Yoongi's subtle tilt from his stool, where he nursed his own bowl with quiet focus. Jimin let his gaze drift back to Jeongguk, catching the way the alpha's fingers flexed around the bowl's edge, knuckles whitening briefly before relaxing. Impressive, yes—but Jimin knew the cost, the frenzy that had left Jeongguk drained, leaning heavy in the truck on the ride back, his breath ragged against Jimin's side.

Mr. Park squinted at Jeongguk over the rim of his cup, the tin glinting as he took a measured sip of water, his lined face creased deeper in the shadows. The elder's posture was straight despite the years, back against a crate, but his eyes were sharp, assessing. “You always fight like that?”

Jeongguk hesitated, spoon finally dipping into the stew with a soft plop, the motion deliberate as he gathered his thoughts. He chewed slowly, swallowing before answering, voice low and even, carrying over the fire's pop. “No. I mean—sometimes? I haven’t exactly had a reason to, until now.”

His eyes flickered briefly to Jimin, the glance quick but dark and intent, holding just long enough to send a shiver down Jimin's spine

“Well,” Mr. Park said solemnly, the cup lowering with a faint clink against his knee, then tipped it slightly in Jeongguk's direction, the gesture a quiet toast amid the informality. “I’m glad you did tonight.”

Jihoon chose that moment to climb into Jeongguk’s lap like he’d been waiting for permission no one needed to give, the boy's small hands gripping the alpha's knee for leverage, sneakers scuffing the dirt. Jeongguk let out a confused sound, a soft huff of surprise, his body tensing for a split second before relaxing into the unexpected weight. Then he laughed, the sound rumbling deep from his chest, warm and unguarded, automatically shifting to support the boy with one arm curling securely around his waist while balancing his bowl with the other, stew sloshing but not spilling.

“That okay?” Jeongguk asked, voice gentle now, pitched low as he glanced down at the child, his free hand steadying the bowl against the jostle.

Jihoon nodded, already settled, knees tucked up as he leaned back against Jeongguk's chest, the alpha's warmth enveloping him like a living blanket. “You’re warm.”

That got a few soft chuckles rippling through the group—Hana's light and breathy, Kyungho's deeper rumble, even Mrs. Han's quiet smile as she stirred the pot one last time. The sound eased the lingering tension, like a valve releasing, the questions fading into the background as bowls clinked against knees and lips, bodies relaxing back into familiar shapes—shoulders dropping, legs stretching toward the fire's embrace. The talk turned quieter after that, fragments of conversation drifting like smoke.

“So yeah,” Hoseok finally concludes, rolling his shoulders like he was shedding the last of it, the motion cracking the joints with a soft pop that blended into the night's sounds. He set his empty bowl aside, wiping his hands on his thighs, the fabric of his pants rasping dry. “Was it messy? Absolutely. Did it scare the shit out of me?” He laughed once, sharp and relieved, the sound cutting through the hush like a release. “Yeah. But if we’re talking results—”

Hoseok tipped his chin toward the truck, toward the stacked rice sacks that sagged under their own bulk, pale in the lantern light like ghosts of abundance. The quiet fact of everyone still sitting there breathing hung in the air, a fragile miracle amid the night's chill that nipped at exposed skin and carried the faint, acrid tang of smoke from the dying embers. Hoseok's voice dropped a notch, laced with that bone-deep exhaustion that roughened its edges.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head with a tired grin. “Feels like we got lucky as hell today.”

Jimin watched from the edge of it all, his stew cooling in his hands, the metal bowl growing slick and tepid against his palms, the broth's surface congealing slightly in the dropping temperature. He spooned a bite absently, the flavors muted now, swallowed without tasting as his gaze drifted over the circle.

No one was studying Jeongguk with eyes full of suspicion and hesitation, no sidelong glances or whispered doubts threading through the conversation like they had in the truck's tense confines. They were thanking him outright, voices steady and warm, asking him questions that invited rather than interrogated—nudging more food into his hands with gentle insistence, laughing when he answered awkwardly, his responses stumbling but earnest, drawing them closer instead of pushing away.

Jimin hated how much that rattled him, a low churn in his gut that twisted sharper than the pull of his bandage when he shifted. It wasn't just acceptance; it was belonging, seamless and unearned in his eyes, the pack weaving Jeongguk into their folds without a second thought. Because it meant this wasn’t something he could write off as panic or spectacle, some fleeting adrenaline-fueled anomaly to dissect later under the harsh light of dawn. It meant the pack had seen what happened—the alpha's claws rending flesh, teeth bared in a snarl that echoed through the warehouse's gloom, the way he'd barreled through the horde like a force of nature—and accepted it without needing permission from him anymore.

Jimin's role as the one who weighed risks, who decided trust like portions of rations, felt undermined, slipping from his grasp like sand through clenched fingers.

Jimin shifted on the edge of the log, the wood rough and splintered under his thighs, biting into the fabric of his pants as he adjusted to ease the throb in his arm. The bandage tugged when he moved, a sticky pull against the scabbed gash beneath, sending a fresh lance of heat up his bicep that he swallowed down with gritted teeth. He pressed his jaw tight, the muscle jumping under his skin, and stared into the fire, the flames dancing in erratic patterns that blurred at the edges of his vision. 

Refusing to touch the thought that kept circling back, relentless as a howler's shadow—needing help had always been his fracture point, the crack in his armor he patched over with plans and precision. Needing help meant failure, an admission that his calculations had faltered, that the weight he'd shouldered alone had finally buckled. And with Jeongguk being here, solid and unyielding amid the group's easy camaraderie, the pack making him out to be some kind of hero with their nods and smiles, Jimin’s failure now had a face—sharp-jawed, dark-eyed, and impossibly close.

Across the fire, Jeongguk laughed again—softer now, more easily in a way he hadn’t been before, the sound rolling out low and genuine, vibrating through his chest as Jihoon shifted in his lap, the boy's head lolling against the alpha's shoulder in sleepy contentment. Jimin watched him smile, the expression cracking the tension from Jeongguk's features, softening the hard lines around his mouth and eyes, the firelight catching the faint sheen of sweat still drying on his brow. The way no one hesitated anymore, bodies angling toward him in the circle's loose formation, voices overlapping in light queries about the depot's layout or the tools they'd hauled back—it all painted a picture of integration, effortless and complete.

Whatever questions had followed Jeongguk into this place—the wary stares when he'd first arrived, the murmurs about his scent marking him as an outsider, the alpha's restrained power that set nerves on edge—were gone, burned off somewhere between the depot's blood-slicked concrete and the farm's weathered gate. The truck's jolting ride had shaken them loose, the shared silence broken only by ragged breaths and the occasional check-in, forging something unspoken in the dark. And Jimin was the only one still standing on the wrong side of that certainty, isolated by his own reservations, the fire's warmth doing little to thaw the chill of doubt coiling in his chest. He set his bowl aside with a soft clink, the sound lost in the group's murmur, and rubbed at his temple, the night's cold seeping deeper as the flames dipped lower.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jimin lay back on the infirmary's worn cot, the thin mattress dipping under his weight, springs creaking faintly in protest against the night's chill that seeped through the walls.

“Hold still,” Jiwon said, already leaning in, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the wind outside, her breath warm against his arm as she positioned the needle.

Jimin went rigid on instinct, shoulders locking as the needle pierced his skin—a sharp, burning prick that radiated outward like fire licking along his nerves. He hissed through his teeth, the sound escaping before he could clamp it down, his jaw clenching hard enough to ache. Then he bit it back when she shot him a look, her eyes narrowing over the rim of her glasses, sharp and unyielding in the dim light. The pain throbbed in time with his pulse, an insistent reminder of the gash's depth, the way it had split open during the chaos at the depot, blood soaking through his sleeve before Jeongguk's frantic hands had peeled it away.

“I said still, not tense like a statue,” she muttered, her tone laced with that familiar edge of exasperation, the kind honed from too many nights patching up the reckless and the unlucky. “You’re making it worse.” Her fingers were deft, callused from years of this grim work, guiding the needle with a precision

“I’m not moving.”Jimin replied, his voice tight, gravelly from the effort of keeping it even. He focused on the ceiling, the faint cracks spiderwebbing across it like veins, anything to distract from the invasion of his flesh.

“You absolutely are, you just think you’re not.” She didn’t look up as she worked, hands steady, the needle dipping in and out with rhythmic pulls that tugged at the edges of the wound, sealing it layer by layer. The sting built, layering over the dull ache beneath, and Jimin swallowed against the metallic tang rising in his mouth from biting his tongue. “And if you tense like that again, I’m going to take my time out of spite.”

“You’re sewing a wound with not a drop of anesthetic,” he ground out, the words scraping past his teeth as another stitch pulled taut, sending a fresh jolt up his arm. His free hand gripped the cot's edge, knuckles whitening against the rough wood, splinters threatening to bite if he squeezed harder. “Cut me some fucking slack, will you?”

The infirmary smelled like antiseptic—harsh and chemical, mixed with the faint, starchy scent of boiled cloth from the sterilizing pot still steaming on the stove—and his own blood, sharp and coppery, clinging to the air like an accusation. Someone—probably Areum, always fussing over drafts—had cracked the window earlier, and the brisk wind drifted in, carrying the night's bite, brushing his exposed skin and making everything ache just a little more, goosebumps rising along his uninjured arm.

She gave a small shrug as she drew the thread through, practiced enough that he barely registered the pull until it tightened, the skin resisting before yielding with a subtle give that made his stomach twist. He exhaled through his nose, a slow, controlled breath that did little to ease the fire, his fingers curling against the edge of the table—cold metal under his palm, grounding him as the room tilted at the edges of his vision. Sweat beaded at his temple, cool against the flush of pain, and he blinked it away, refusing to let it show more than it already had.

After a moment, Jiwon let out a quiet huff of amusement, the sound light amid the tension, her shoulders relaxing just a fraction as she tied off the next knot. “You know,” she said, her voice softening into something almost conversational, “this is actually kind of nice.”

Jimin flicked his eyes toward her, catching the curve of her mouth in profile, the way the lantern light hollowed her cheeks and highlighted the faint lines of fatigue around her eyes. She was focused, brows furrowed in concentration, but there was a spark there, a rare ease that the night's ordeals hadn't fully extinguished. 

“What, you getting to stab me over and over with a needle?”

“No,” she said, her tone dry but fond, as she prepped the next stitch, the needle glinting briefly before vanishing into his skin again. “Having someone in here who isn’t Namjoon or Mr. Park.”

That pulled a reluctant breath of a laugh from him, rough and short, easing the knot in his chest for a fleeting second. The sound echoed oddly in the small space, swallowed by the wind's low whistle through the window. Namjoon and Mr. Park—both fixtures here, their injuries as predictable as the seasons. “They’re not that bad,” Jimin managed, though he could picture it: Namjoon's furrowed brow, overanalyzing every twinge.

“They’re both a nightmare,” she replied cheerfully, the cheer a deliberate contrast to the grim task, her hands never faltering as she worked the thread. “Namjoon overthinks every single step he takes, gets hurt, and then worries more, like the wound might sue him afterward. And when Mr. Park gets in that barn, he just does whatever he wants with no hesitation and no protective wear—just vibes.”

She lets out a long, exasperated sigh. “I swear, Namjoon worries too much, and Mr. Park doesn’t worry enough.” Her words painted the scenes vividly in Jimin's mind—Namjoon's anxious questions, Mr. Park's stubborn independence—and for a moment, the pain receded, replaced by the absurd normalcy of it all.

“That tracks.”

“Mm.” She snipped the thread with a small pair of shears, the metallic snick sharp in the quiet, then leaned back to inspect her work, the wound now a neat row of black Xs against his skin, angry red edges held firm. The cool air kissed the fresh closure, a sting that was almost welcome after the needle's bite. “So this is nice. You sit down when I tell you to. You don’t grab my hands and beg me to put the needles away. You only complain a normal amount.”

“I feel honored,” Jimin said, the words laced with dry humor.

“You should.” Another stitch. The needle's point dimpled his skin before sinking in. “But don’t get used to it.”

She worked quietly as Jimin watched for a bit, the easy kind that only came from years of doing this together, from knowing when the other didn’t need to talk. The rhythm of her hands—dip, pull, tie—settled into the background, a counterpoint to the distant creak of the farmhouse settling in the cold, the occasional muffled voice from the yard filtering through like echoes of normalcy. 

His mind wandered unbidden to the truck's jolt over gravel, Jeongguk's heat pressed close in the cab, the alpha's claws retracted but the feral edge still humming beneath his skin. Jimin shifted his gaze to the ceiling, tracing the water stains that bloomed like old bruises, pushing away the knot of unease that twisted in his gut—not just from the wound, but from the way trust felt like a fraying rope, one pull from snapping.

Jiwon tied off the stitch, the small knot bumping against his skin like a pebble underfoot, then trimmed the thread with a quick snip of shears that rang sharp in the quiet space. She leaned back to look at her work, her chair scraping faintly against the worn floorboards, eyes scanning the row of black marks now marching across his bicep, holding the ragged edges together in uneasy truce.

She nodded once, satisfied, the motion brisk, and pressed gauze down over the finished stitches, firm enough that Jimin winced, the pressure igniting a fresh spark along the nerves, compressing the heat of inflammation beneath layers of white. Her hand stayed there a second longer, fingers warm and grounding through the thin barrier, a steady weight that anchored him against the drift of exhaustion pulling at his edges.

“It’s not pretty, and we really should’ve taken care of this earlier,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact, pulling back to retrieve tape from the nearby tray, the adhesive strip rasping as she tore it free. The words landed with a quiet sting, not accusation but truth, echoing Jimin's own regrets. 

“But it’ll hold.”

He rolled his shoulder carefully, testing the boundaries of the new seal. Fabric of his shirt tugged against the bandage, and the pull burned, a deep, contained fire that radiated into his chest, but it was clean pain—contained, no longer the wild tear that had threatened to unravel him mid-fight. 

“Thanks,” he murmured, the gratitude simple, stripped of excess, his free hand flexing open and closed to chase away the numbness creeping in from disuse.

She crossed to the shelf, her footsteps soft on the threadbare rug, boots leaving faint imprints in the dust that had gathered despite Areum's best efforts. The wood groaned under her touch as she rummaged, vials clinking like distant wind chimes, before she shook two tablets into her palm—small, chalky ovals scavenged from some long-abandoned pharmacy, their edges rough from age. Then she pressed them into his hand, the contact brief but solid, her skin dry and cool against his clammy palm, along with a cup of water, the ceramic still holding a trace of warmth from the stove. 

“Take these. They won’t knock you out, but they’ll keep you from pacing holes into the floor once all that adrenaline wears off.”

Jimin swallowed the tablets dry first, the bitter coating lingering on his tongue like regret, then chased them with the water, gulping it down in steady pulls that cooled the rawness in his throat. He leaned back against the cot, the metal frame cool through the thin pillow, staring at the ceiling as she cleaned up—the clatter of tools into a basin, the splash of water as she rinsed the needle, steam rising in faint curls that carried the scent of soap and herbs. 

His arm ached in slow, steady pulses now—dulled by the promise of medication, but still persistent, a rhythmic drumbeat that synced with his heartbeat, keeping his body from relaxing fully. 

At the door, Jiwon paused, hand resting against the frame, the wood splintered slightly under her fingers, worn smooth in places from countless leans. The lantern's light caught the edge of her profile, softening the sharp lines of worry that had etched deeper since the last run Jimin had done.

“Try to sleep, even if it’s shitty sleep,” she said. “And if you can’t, don’t reopen that wound doing something stupid.”

He didn’t answer, his throat tight with the unsaid—the gnawing sense that rest was a luxury he couldn't afford, not with the farm's fragile peace hanging by threads, not with Jeongguk's integration stirring ripples he couldn't predict. The silence stretched, filled only by the wind's sigh and the faint crackle of the lantern wick.

She smiled faintly anyway, a curve of her lips that didn't reach her eyes fully, born of familiarity rather than mirth. “If you end up back in here tomorrow, I’m charging you a fee.”

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

The door closed behind her with a soft click, the latch engaging like a full stop, leaving the room to settle into deeper quiet. Jimin stayed where he was, bandaging warm against his skin, the adhesive pulling faintly with each breath, pulse still loud in his ears—a thunderous echo of the chase, the shots, the close calls that had etched themselves into his nerves. 

The medication helped, a slow seep dulling the edges of the pain, but it didn’t touch the rest of it—the agitation under his skin, like ants marching in his veins, the weight of the day finally pressing down now that there was nothing left to hold it back. He closed his eyes, the darkness behind his lids swirling with fragments—the truck's rumble, Hoseok's relieved laugh around the fire, Jeongguk's steady breathing against his shoulder on the drive home. Sleep tugged at him, elusive and ragged, but the farm's safety wrapped around him like a thin blanket, fragile against the night's unknowns.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The clock on the wall ticked over with a dry little click, the second hand slipping past the four like it didn’t care what kind of night he’d had. Its face loomed in the dimness of Jimin's room, the faint glow from the lantern outside seeping under the door to outline the numbers in ghostly white—4:03 a.m., etched into the quiet like a taunt.

Jimin didn’t move at first. He lay there staring up at it, the thin blanket twisted around his legs from restless shifting, watching the second hand crawl with agonizing slowness, each tick a deliberate scrape against his fraying patience. He waited for irritation to sharpen into something useful, something that could cut through the fog of exhaustion clinging to him like damp fog. The number sat there instead—4:05 a.m.—unimpressive and deeply annoying, like a fact that refused to justify itself, mocking the ache in his bones and the hollow pit in his stomach.

He lay there a few seconds longer, breathing through it, the inhale sharp and measured, chest rising against the cool fabric of his shirt, waiting for sleep to come back out of sheer stubbornness. It didn’t. The darkness pressed in, broken only by the occasional creak of the house settling, the distant low of a cow in the barn filtering through like a half-remembered dream. Oh well. Two hours of sleep wasn’t even too little to be mad about—not in this world, where nights stretched long and mornings came too soon, laced with the threat of decay just beyond the fences.

His arm throbbed beneath the bandage in a slow, persistent way that felt less like pain and more like commentary, a reminder every time he shifted that his body had not forgotten what happened, even if the rest of the compound had decided to move on within hours. He rolled onto his side, then onto his back again, then gave up on the pretense entirely.

His arm throbbed beneath the bandage in a slow, persistent way that felt less like pain and more like commentary, a nagging whisper every time he shifted, the pull of stitches tugging at the edges of the gash like insistent fingers. It reminded him that his body had not forgotten what happened, even if the rest of the compound had decided to move on within hours—the laughter around the fire, the easy distribution of rice into communal pots, the way gratitude had woven itself into the fabric of the evening like it belonged there. He rolled onto his side, the cot groaning under the shift, the mattress dipping unevenly, then onto his back again, the cool air brushing his exposed neck and raising faint prickles along his skin. Then he gave up on the pretense entirely, the sheets tangling as he pushed them aside with a frustrated exhale.

His brain kept replaying the depot anyway—Hoseok’s voice getting animated as he talked, rising over the crackle of flames, gesturing with hands still dusted in flour from helping unload the sacks, the way people had laughed and leaned in, shoulders brushing in that casual intimacy born of shared survival. The way Jeongguk had gone pink under the attention, cheeks flushing against the firelight, like he hadn’t just torn through a swarm of howlers to drag him out, claws extended and teeth bared in a snarl that echoed in Jimin's ears even now.

Gratitude had flowed easy, unchecked, settling somewhere Jimin hadn’t approved—a warm undercurrent in the group's dynamics that left him on the outside, watching as barriers crumbled without his say.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the wooden floor cold against his bare feet, grains of dust sticking to his soles as he planted them firm. Rubbing a hand down his face, he felt the stubble rasp under his palm, the edge of irritation sharpening into something usable, a spark that cut through the numbness. The pills Jiwon gave him took the worst of the ache, muting the fire to a dull ember, but they did nothing for the restless heat crawling under his skin, an itch that demanded motion, release. Staying in that room—staying still—felt impossible, the walls closing in with their scuffed paint and the faint scent of mildew from the corner where rain had seeped in last season.

He stood, the cot springs sighing in relief, and pulled on his boots without bothering to lace them properly, the leather creaking as he tugged them over his socks, soles scuffing the floor. He shrugged into a sweatshirt, the fabric heavy and worn, hanging loose over his bandaged arm, the hood brushing his jaw as he moved. Pausing at the door, he glanced at the rifle hanging beside it, its strap looped over a hook, barrel pointed down in silent readiness, the metal catching a sliver of light from the hall. After a moment, he left it where it was, the weight of it a temptation he pushed aside—this wasn’t that kind of problem, not one solved by lead and recoil. Stepping into the early dark, the door clicked shut behind him, the hallway stretching empty and shadowed, the air cooler out here, laced with the earthy tang of soil from the open window at the end.

The compound lay hushed under the pre-dawn sky, stars fading against the encroaching gray, the frost-glazed ground crunching faintly under his boots as he crossed the yard. His breath fogged in front of him, visible puffs that dissipated quickly in the still air, carrying the distant scent of woodsmoke from the dying embers of the fire pit. Past the supply shed, its door secured with a heavy padlock that glinted dully, and the armory’s reinforced door, bolted tight with no flicker of lantern light from within, the quarantine building sat dark and unguarded.

That stopped him short, his steps faltering on the packed dirt path, the cold seeping through his boots. No shadow posted nearby the shed, no silhouette leaning against the wall with rifle in hand, eyes scanning the perimeter. No one was stationed between Jeongguk and the rest of the compound like there had been every night before, a vigilant barrier that had kept the alpha's space isolated, a reminder of the risks.

Jimin’s mouth went dry, the saliva thickening in his throat as he swallowed against it, a bitter taste rising. So that really was it, then. The decision was officially, unanimously made without him—the quiet consensus around the fire, nods exchanged over bowls of stew, Hoseok's clap on Jeongguk's back sealing it like a pact. Their protocols loosened because it was convenient, because gratitude felt better than caution, warmer than the chill of doubt. Because everyone had decided that saving him counted as proof enough, one act erasing layers of wariness built over weeks of watching, waiting, scents cataloged and behaviors noted. 

His hands curled once at his sides, fingers flexing into fists that pressed against his thighs, nails biting into palms before he forced them open, the tension easing with deliberate breaths. He kept walking, boots thudding softly now, the path winding toward the edge of the yard where the training ring waited, its posts weathered and scarred from countless sessions, the packed earth inside bearing the imprints of feet long gone.

Jimin stepped inside, the wodden fence brushing his knee as he hopped over, the air here sharper, carrying the faint musk of sweat-soaked dirt from daytime drills. He rolled his shoulders carefully, the motion pulling at the bandage, a fresh twinge radiating down his arm, testing his range before settling into motion. He started slowly—footwork, angles, the kind of controlled patterns his body remembered even when his head refused to cooperate, muscles shifting under his skin with familiar precision. Pivot left, step forward, fist chambered low. The cold bit at his knuckles as he extended, air whistling faintly, but it grounded him, pulling focus from the whirl in his mind.

His arm protested when he threw a sharper strike at the post than he meant to, the wrapped wood thudding under his fist, the impact shuddering up into his shoulder like a jolt from rusted wire. Skin split faintly against the rough surface, a sting that bloomed warm, but he welcomed it—good, let it hurt, let it drown out the echo of voices, the easy acceptance that grated like sand in a wound. 

He hit again, harder this time, teeth bared as he drove through the motion, breath coming faster now, fogging in bursts that matched the rhythm. The memory of voices crowded in anyway—people thanking Jeongguk, hands clasping his forearm in solidarity, offering him food like he’d always belonged there, a place at the table without question. Like Jimin hadn’t been the one arguing for restraint, for caution, for time to let scents settle and instincts prove true, his warnings dismissed now in the glow of heroism.

Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cold, trickling down his temple as he chained strikes—jab, cross, hook—the post creaking under the assault, splinters catching on his knuckles. He was midway through a sequence, body coiling for the next pivot, when that familiar prickle crept up his spine—the sense of being watched that had kept him alive longer than most, a survival instinct honed in ruins and shadows. The air shifted subtly, carrying a new note— the clean, resinous bite of pine smoke, undercut with something warmer, earthier, invading his senses like an uninvited claim. Footsteps crunched softly on the frost beyond the ring, deliberate but light, pausing at the edge.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Jimin said, not turning, his voice steady despite the hitch in his breath, fist still raised mid-motion, the cold air cooling the sweat on his skin.

“I could say the same thing,” Jeongguk answered, the words low and even, laced with that quiet edge, the pine scent strengthening as he lingered just outside the ropes.

Jimin scoffed under his breath, the sound rough and edged with the scrape of unshed frustration, barely audible over the faint rustle of wind through the distant trees. His chest tightened with the exhale, muscles still humming from the strikes against the post, sweat cooling on his skin in the pre-dawn chill. Finally, he looked over his shoulder, pivoting just enough to catch the figure lingering at the ring's edge. 

Jeongguk stood just outside the ropes, hands loose at his sides, fingers flexing idly against the fabric of his pants, no tension coiled there yet. No escort shadowed him, no rifle slung across his back or holster visible at his hip—just a sweatshirt pulled on crooked, the collar tugged askew over one shoulder, exposing a sliver of collarbone pale in the dim light. 

His hair hung damp and tousled, strands clinging to his forehead like he'd splashed water on his face in the sink and then thought better of crawling back into whatever cot they'd assigned him, the faint scent of clean water and faint soap drifting on the air between them. His posture was careful, not hesitant exactly, but aware—eyes locking onto Jimin's with that steady intensity, tracking the subtle shift in his stance, the way his bandaged arm hung a fraction lower now, the uneven rise and fall of his breathing after the exertion.

“You don’t get to say shit for me,” Jimin said, the words coming out sharper than intended, slicing through the quiet like a blade nicking skin, his voice low but carrying in the still yard.

Jeongguk blinked, dark lashes fluttering once against the faint shadows under his eyes, then nodded once, the motion deliberate, chin dipping in acknowledgment without a trace of defensiveness. 

“Okay.” A pause hung there, heavy as the frost settling on the grass beyond the fence, before he added, “Then tell me, is me being out here really that much of a problem for you?” His tone stayed even, probing without pushing, the pine edge of his scent sharpening subtly, mingling with the earthy dampness of the ground.

The low rope fence pressed cool against his back, its weathered fibers rough through the sweatshirt, grounding him as the world narrowed to the space between them—the uneven divots in the earth from yesterday’s drills still visible under the thin layer of frost, shadows pooling in the hollows like unspoken doubts. 

“You think that’s what this is about?” he shot back, his gaze narrowing, the throb in his arm flaring with the twist of his torso, a dull pulse that echoed the irritation coiling in his gut.

Jeongguk held his ground, feet planted shoulder-width apart on the frost-kissed grass just beyond the ropes, eyes steady and unblinking, reflecting the first hints of gray light creeping over the horizon.

“Then what is it about?” The question landed soft but insistent, pulling at the threads of Jimin's resolve like a hook snagging fabric.

The answer crowded Jimin’s throat all at once, a tangle of words—betrayal, recklessness, the fragile order he'd fought to maintain—hot and pressing against his tongue. He swallowed it down, the motion dry and forced, tasting the faint metallic tang of adrenaline lingering from his workout, and took a step forward instead, boots crunching over the dirt as he closed the space. The air between them thickened.

“You broke protocol,” Jimin said, voice low but firm, each word measured against the pounding in his temples. “You went against a direct order and did whatever the hell you wanted.” The words hung heavy, echoing the arguments he'd had in his head all night, replaying the depot's chaos—the snarls, the blood, the moment Jeongguk had lunged without hesitation.

“Jimin—” Jeongguk started, his tone softening at the edges, but Jimin cut him off, the interruption fueled by the heat rising in his chest.

“And they loved you for it,” he continued, throat tightening around the words, making them come out strained, like forcing air through a constricted pipe. The firelight from earlier flickered in his mind, the group's faces illuminated, smiles breaking through the exhaustion as they clapped Jeongguk's back. “

They thank you, praise you, and take the guard off your door like it was nothing.” His hand curled once at his side, fingers flexing into a fist that pressed against his thigh, nails digging crescents into his palm through the fabric, the sting a distraction from the ache blooming deeper. He forced it open, shaking out the tension, the cold air cooling the flush creeping up his arm. “So clearly it wasn’t a problem for them.”

Jeongguk shook his head, frustration edging in, his jaw tightening just enough to shadow the line of it, brows drawing together in the dimness. “I wasn’t thinking about how it’d look. I wasn’t thinking about guards or—”

“And that’s the fucking problem,” Jimin snapped, the curse bursting out like a strike he couldn't hold back, his breath hitching as it echoed faintly off the posts. The dirt felt unsteady under him now, like the ground itself mirrored the shift in his balance, the bandage pulling tighter with the surge of adrenaline.

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” Jeongguk said, voice firm now, dropping lower, carrying the weight of certainty that made Jimin's stomach twist.

Jimin’s laugh came harsher this time, a short, bitter bark that cut through the quiet, his chest heaving with it, the sound foreign even to his own ears. “You don’t get to decide that.”

The words tasted like ash, laced with the vulnerability he hated admitting—the way he'd gone down, the howler's claws raking fire across his arm, the world blurring until Jeongguk's grip had yanked him back.

“Do you seriously think it’s fair to expect that of me?” Jeongguk pressed, his stance unchanging, but his eyes searched Jimin's face, probing the cracks in his armor.

Jimin exhaled hard through his nose, the air rushing out in a sharp burst that fogged the space between them, his gaze drifting past Jeongguk to the fence line, the dark stretch beyond it where shadows pooled like threats waiting to stir. The wire glinted faintly, frost-kissed and silent, a reminder of the world that didn't forgive mistakes. 

“It’s not about fairness. It never is. People die when we get sloppy. When someone decides their feelings matter more than the plan.” The truth of it settled heavy in his gut, the memories of lost faces flashing unbidden—comrades in his unit who'd paid for impulsiveness, their absence a hollow in the pack that no amount of caution could fill.

Jeongguk stepped closer, boots crunching softly on the grass just outside the ring, close enough now that Jimin could smell the lye soap clinging to his skin—clean and sharp, undercut by the warmth of his body heat cutting through the cold air. It invaded Jimin's space, stirring that restless itch under his skin, making his pulse kick up a notch. “Not everyone can shut it off the way you do.”

Jimin’s mouth twitched, a wry twist that didn't reach his eyes, the corner of his lip pulling in a grimace against the chill nipping at his face. “You think I shut it off?” 

The question came out quieter, laced with the exhaustion that clawed at the edges of his resolve, his injured arm throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeat, a persistent reminder of his own limits.

“I think you pretend you have,” Jeongguk said, his voice steady, unflinching, the words landing like a punch Jimin hadn't braced for. “And I think you’re lying to yourself.”

Silence stretched, brittle as thin ice underfoot, the only sounds the distant creak of the compound settling and the soft rhythm of their breathing, out of sync. Jimin stared at the ground between them, the uneven dirt blurring slightly as his jaw worked, muscles clenching and releasing in a futile bid for control. Heat crawled up his neck, flushing his skin despite the cold, a mix of anger and shame twisting in his chest. 

He hated that Jeongguk had seen him fall—the vulnerability of it, the way his body had betrayed him in the swarm, blood soaking through his sleeve before he could even shout a warning. Hated that the pack had seen it too, their eyes on him later around the fire, concern masked as casual glances, but he felt it like a weight. Hated that Jeongguk was right, the admission burning hotter than the wound. Jimin absolutely would risk his life for this pack—he had, in raids and watches and moments too numerous to count, and he’d do it many times over. If there was a chance to save someone, he would do so in a heartbeat, protocol be damned in the heat of it. 

It’s textbook hypocrisy, sure, the kind that gnawed at him in quiet hours, but Jimin knew the others wouldn’t quite understand. It was his duty to protect them, the role he'd carved out through scars and sleepless nights, therefore his risk was a lot more reasonable, calculated in the balance of the whole—compared to a regular pack member charging in on instinct alone.

“Either go back to bed,” Jimin said finally, voice flat as the packed earth under his feet, the words scraping out past the lump in his throat that refused to budge. The cold nipped at his exposed skin where the sweatshirt sleeve rode up, a sharp contrast to the heat still simmering in his chest from the argument. 

“Or be useful and get in the ring.”

Jeongguk’s gaze dropped—just for a second—to Jimin’s arm, the motion pulling Jimin's attention there too, the white bandage stark against his skin in the low light, edges frayed from the night's restless movements. It yanked on his skin when Jimin shifted his weight, a fresh pull that radiated like fire under the layers, a reminder he hadn’t asked for and didn't want hovering between them like an accusation.

“You’re hurt.” Jeongguk's voice came low, steady, but laced with that edge of concern that made Jimin's jaw clench tighter.

“Oh, don’t,” Jimin said, irritation flaring hot and sudden, flooding his veins like the adrenaline from the depot all over again. He could taste it on his tongue, bitter and metallic, mixing with the faint residue of the stew from hours ago. “Don’t start that.” The words snapped out, sharper than the frost on the fence wires, his good hand flexing at his side, fingers itching to curl into something solid.

“I’m not,” Jeongguk replied, his tone even, but his eyes stayed fixed on the bandage a beat too long before lifting back to Jimin's face. “I’m saying I’m not fighting you like that.” The refusal hung there, simple and unyielding.

Jimin stopped pacing, his boots grinding to a halt on the uneven dirt, small pebbles shifting under the soles with a faint crunch that echoed in the quiet. The rhythm he'd fallen into—back and forth along the rope boundary—had been a way to burn off the tension coiling in his gut, but now it left him exposed, the chill seeping through his clothes to settle against his spine. Slowly, he looked back up, meeting Jeongguk's gaze head-on, the intensity of it like a physical push, forcing him to confront the flicker of protectiveness there that mirrored his own buried instincts.

“So now you’re careful.” The sarcasm dripped from the words, but underneath it lurked the raw edge of his frustration, the way Jeongguk's caution now felt like a spotlight on his own vulnerability, the arm that throbbed with every heartbeat.

“Yes.” Jeongguk didn't flinch, his stance unchanging, breath steady in the cold air, visible as faint clouds that dissipated before reaching Jimin.

“You weren’t careful at the depot.”

“That was different.” Jeongguk's response was quiet, but firm, his eyes narrowing slightly, the line of his shoulders tensing as if bracing for the next strike in their verbal spar.

Jimin stepped in close enough that he had to lift his chin to meet Jeongguk’s eyes, the proximity invading the space with the warmth radiating off Jeongguk's body, cutting through the night's bite like an unwelcome comfort. His own pulse kicked up, thudding against his temples, the bandage pulling tighter with the motion. 

“Why,” he asked quietly, the word barely above a whisper, laced with the demand he'd been holding back all night, “because back there you didn’t give a fuck what I had to say?”

Jeongguk sucked in a breath, chest rising sharply under the crooked sweatshirt, the fabric shifting to reveal more of the taut line of his neck. His eyes darkened, holding Jimin's without wavering, the silence stretching taut as a bowstring.

“Because by the grace of whatever fucking god there is, you’re standing in front of me,” he said, the words deliberate, each one landing with the weight of truth that made Jimin's chest flutter irritatingly so. 

“And I won’t be the reason you end up back on Jiwon’s table just to prove something.” The mention of Jiwon's infirmary brought it all rushing back—the sting of the needle, the rough pull of stitches through flesh without mercy, the humiliation of being laid out like dead weight while the pack moved on without him.

Jimin stared at him, pulse thudding hard enough to drown out everything else—the distant hum of the wind through the fences, the faint creak of the compound settling in the cold. Anger surged first, hot and blinding, clashing with the undercurrent of relief that Jeongguk was here, whole and arguing instead of bleeding out in some forgotten depot. 

Something dangerously close to gratitude twisted in there too, softening the edges until he couldn’t tell which feeling he was reacting to anymore, the tangle knotting tighter in his chest, making his breath come shallow.

“Get in the ring,” Jimin said, the command rough, forcing the words past the chaos in his throat, his good hand gesturing sharply toward the dirt expanse.

Jeongguk hesitated, his weight shifting slightly, boots scraping the grass outside the ropes, eyes searching Jimin's face for a crack, a sign to push back. “Jimin—”

“Get in,” he repeated, voice low and uncompromising, the tone he'd used on recruits a hundred times, brooking no argument, even as his injured arm ached in protest, the bandage a constant, itching reminder of his limits.

“Or go.” The finality of it hung there, a line drawn in the dirt between them, Jimin's gaze steady despite the storm raging inside—the fear that if Jeongguk walked away now, the fragile thread holding his resolve—his sanity—together might snap for good.

For a moment Jeongguk didn’t move, the air thick with the standoff, his breath the only sound breaking the brittle quiet, each exhale visible in the chill that clung to the night like a second skin. Jimin could hear it clearly—steady, controlled, a counterpoint to the erratic thump of his own heart echoing in his ears, drowning out the distant creak of the compound's gates settling in the wind. The dirt under his boots felt packed and unforgiving, every shift of weight grinding small stones against the soles, grounding him in the tension that pulled at his muscles like an invisible tether.

Then Jeongguk stepped past him, boots crunching softly into the dirt of the ring, the grains shifting under his weight like they yielded to his presence, compressing with a faint, gritty whisper that Jimin felt more than heard. His shoulders squared as he turned to face him, stance settling into that familiar readiness—knees slightly bent, arms loose at his sides—but there was a wariness in his eyes, a flicker of hesitation that locked onto Jimin's without flinching, pulling him in despite the anger simmering low in his gut.

Jimin followed, pulse thudding too loud in his ears, a relentless drum that vibrated through his skull and down his spine, making the cold air feel sharper against his flushed skin.

Jeongguk stepped forward slowly, crossing the boundary into the ring without breaking eye contact, his boots dragging lightly over the dirt, kicking up a faint dust that settled on Jimin's tongue, dry and tasting of old soil. His shoulders stayed loose, not hunched in that aggressive coil Jimin knew from fights, his stance careful—feet planted wide but not rooted, hands open and ready but not clenched into fists.

He was showing restraint, every line of his body screaming it, and for reasons Jimin didn’t want to examine too closely—the way it made his chest tighten with something sharper than irritation, something that whispered of vulnerability he couldn't afford—that made him angrier than anything else, heat flooding his face and neck.

“That’s it?” Jimin said, circling to the left, his steps deliberate, boots scuffing the dirt in a slow arc that kept Jeongguk in his sights. The motion pulled at his bandage again, a fresh twinge shooting up his bicep, but he ignored it, focusing on the way Jeongguk's eyes tracked him, unblinking, the low light catching the tension in his jaw.

“You’re going to stand there all night?” The words came out edged, mocking, but underneath lurked the frustration of being treated like glass, like the depot hadn't already cracked him open.

Jeongguk’s eyes followed him, steady as a fixed point, the dark pools reflecting the faint glow from the distant lanterns, holding Jimin's gaze without a flicker of retreat.

“You told me to spar,” he said, voice low and even, carrying across the short distance without effort, “but you didn’t say how.” There was no challenge in it, just fact, but it landed like one, stirring the restless energy in Jimin's limbs, making his fingers flex at his sides.

Jimin moved first—fast and clean, the way muscle memory took over when his head refused to cooperate, his good fist snapping out in a jab aimed at Jeongguk's shoulder, the air whistling faintly past his knuckles. Jeongguk blocked easily, his forearm coming up to meet it with a solid thud of flesh on flesh, but instead of absorbing the force, he redirected the strike, guiding Jimin's arm aside with a twist of his wrist that sent him off-balance for a split second. Jeongguk stepped back instead of countering, his boot sliding backward in the dirt with a soft scrape, giving ground without aggression, his breath steady, not even quickening.

Jimin pressed harder, forcing him to give more, lunging forward with a follow-up hook that cut through the cold air, his pulse roaring louder now, syncing with the strain in his muscles. Jeongguk stayed measured, careful in a way that scraped at Jimin’s nerves like sandpaper—every grab loosened before it could bruise, fingers uncurling just as pressure built, every opening he left closing without a retaliatory swing, without the sharp pain of a real hit.

The contact was there, brief and warm through the layers of clothing, but it vanished too quickly, leaving Jimin chasing shadows, his irritation coiling tighter, breath coming in sharper bursts that fogged the space between them.

“You’re fucking holding back,” Jimin said, voice rough, circling again to reset, sweat already beading at his temples despite the chill, trickling down to sting the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with his good hand, the motion jerky, his injured arm hanging heavier now, throbbing in rhythm with his heartbeat.

Jeongguk didn’t deny it, his stance unchanging, chest rising and falling evenly, the faint scent of his skin—clean sweat and something warmer, underlying—wafting toward Jimin on the breeze. “You’re not at full strength.” The words were simple, observational, but they hit like an accusation, highlighting the bandage, the pull in his arm, the way the night's exhaustion clung to his bones.

With his temper barely holding together, fraying at the edges like the ropes around them, Jimin drove forward again, sharper now, feinting low before swinging high, the motion ripping through his shoulder with a white-hot protest from the wound.

He ignored it and struck anyway, fist connecting with Jeongguk's guard in a solid smack that reverberated up his arm. Jeongguk caught his wrist mid-motion and twisted him off balance, grip firm enough to stop him cold but not enough to finish it, not enough to throw him down into the dirt where he belonged. Jimin pushed harder, driving him back a step, then another, boots digging into the loose earth for leverage, the grains shifting and spraying lightly against his ankles.

Jeongguk adjusted instantly—too instantly—weight shifting fluidly, hands coming up to redirect instead of counter, palms pressing against Jimin's forearm with controlled pressure that guided rather than shoved. Every movement was deliberate, measured, like he was deliberately refusing momentum, refusing to let the spar turn into the fight Jimin craved, the one that would burn away the tangle in his chest. The air between them grew warmer from the exertion, heavy with the sounds of their breaths and the occasional grunt, the night's cold retreating from the heat building in Jimin's core.

“Don’t do that,” Jimin snapped, yanking his arm free with a sharp twist, the skin under the bandage burning now, raw and insistent, but he stepped in closer, invading Jeongguk's space, close enough to feel the warmth rolling off him in waves.

Jeongguk didn’t answer, his eyes narrowing slightly, but he caught Jimin’s forearm on the next attempt and let it slide off instead of locking it, grip loosening before it could become anything solid, fingers trailing lightly over the fabric of his sleeve. The contact lingered just long enough to register—warm, callused skin brushing his, sending an unwelcome spark up his arm—before it was gone, leaving cool air in its wake and Jimin breathing harder, frustration twisting into something hotter, more urgent.

“Fight me like you mean it.” Jimin's voice came out low, demanding, his chest heaving as he held Jeongguk's gaze, the wariness there mirroring his own buried fears.

“I am.” Jeongguk's response was quiet, but his stance held firm, muscles coiled under the loose shirt, ready but restrained.

“No, you’re not.” The denial burst out, edged with the raw edge of his anger, the way Jeongguk's caution made him feel exposed, fragile in a world that didn't allow it.

Jimin surged forward once more, not even pretending it was a strike this time—just closing space, body slamming into Jeongguk's with raw force, forcing him to either push back or give ground, shoulders colliding with a dull impact that jarred through Jimin's frame. Jeongguk didn’t yield fully; he caught him on instinct, one hand bracing at Jimin’s side, fingers splaying wide over his ribs through the sweatshirt, while the other slid up his arm to stop him short, pinning the injured limb gently but securely between them.

The contact sent a sharp jolt through Jimin’s system—hot, solid and grounding, Jeongguk's body heat seeping even faster through the layers, his heartbeat thudding against Jimin's chest in a frantic rhythm that matched his own. His injured arm barked where it was trapped, the sting flaring hot and immediate, radiating up to his shoulder, but instead of pulling away, it only fed the restless pressure already coiled under his skin, twisting anger into need, the line between fight and something else blurring in the haze of adrenaline.

Jimin sucked in a breath, the air tasting of dust and Jeongguk's scent, sharp and intoxicating, and swore under it, the word muffled against the proximity. “Let go.” His breath was already off, ragged and uneven, the words lacking any real force, his body betraying him by leaning in rather than away, the fence posts digging into his back from the momentum.

Jeongguk didn’t. His grip tightened by instinct, just firm enough to hold him there, fingers pressing into Jimin's side with a possessiveness that sent heat pooling low in his gut—and his breathing went uneven, chest pressing closer, gaze flicking, once, involuntarily, to Jimin’s mouth, the dark of his pupils dilating in the low light.

“I’m not trying to hurt you.” Jeongguk's voice was rough now, strained, the words vibrating through the space between them, his thumb brushing accidentally— or not—over the edge of the bandage, a touch that made Jimin hiss softly.

“Goddamit Jeongguk, just—”

The protest died on Jimin's lips as Jeongguk leaned in and kissed him.

It was hard and crooked, all teeth and heat and barely restrained urgency, like something in him had finally snapped under the weight of holding himself back all night. Jeongguk's lips crashed against Jimin's with bruising force, his mouth hot and demanding, tongue pushing past without preamble, tasting of salt and the faint bitterness of unspoken words. 

It was now clear to Jimin that this action from the alpha wasn't thought through. But it still stole the air straight from Jimin’s lungs, his good hand fisting into Jeongguk's shirt on reflex, pulling him closer even as his mind reeled. The kiss sent him moving before he could stop himself, back hitting the ring’s fence with a dull rattle, the ragged wood biting through his sweatshirt into his spine, splinters pricking skin as Jeongguk pressed in, body pinning him there, the world narrowing to the slide of mouths, the scrape of stubble, and the thunder of his pulse roaring louder than ever.

Jeongguk followed his lips immediately, closing the space again without hesitation. His body heat crashed back into Jimin's like a wave he couldn't outrun, the air between them thickening with the sharp tang of sweat and adrenaline that clung to both of them. One hand came up to the fence beside Jimin’s waist, fingers wrapping around the damp wood with a grip that made somehow still made it creak under the strain, the sound grating like a warning in the still night. The other stayed firm at Jimin’s side, palm pressing into the fabric of his sweatshirt, anchoring him there like he was afraid to let go, thumb digging just enough to send a fresh spark of awareness through Jimin's ribs. The contact burned through him, Jeongguk's breath ghosting hot against his jaw, ragged and close, pulling Jimin deeper into the chaos swirling in his chest.

For half a second Jimin froze, shock flaring bright and sharp through him, a jolt that locked his muscles and widened his eyes, the world narrowing to the press of Jeongguk's body, the unyielding fence at his back, and the thunderous roar of his own pulse drowning out everything else—the distant hum of the wind through the perimeter wires, the faint rustle of leaves in the compound's sparse trees.

'What the fuck am I doing? Why can't I stop?'

Then both of his hands were fisting in Jeongguk’s sweatshirt, twisting the worn fabric with a desperate yank that bunched it under his knuckles, the material rough and damp against his skin, and he kissed him back with even more ferocity, surging up on the tips of his toes to press further, lips smashing with a force that both bruised and demanded more.

Anger poured straight into it, hot and unrelenting, flooding his mouth with the metallic edge of his bitten lip. Frustration was beginning to twist the kiss into something punishing as he angled his head to deepen it, teeth grazing Jeongguk's lower lip in retaliation for the vulnerability this dragged out of him. Resentment simmered underneath, for the restraint, for the care that made him feel exposed, for the way Jeongguk saw through his walls like they were nothing.

And relief—he didn't want to acknowledge it, but it seeped in anyway, a treacherous warmth uncoiling in his gut, easing the knot of exhaustion and fear from the depot that still lingered like a bruise.

Jeongguk made a rough, broken sound against his mouth, a low growl that vibrated through Jimin's chest. His breath hitched in a stutter that betrayed his own unraveling, kissing him again like he was done pretending this wasn’t tearing him apart too, tongue sweeping over his with urgent possession, tasting of salt and the faint bitterness of the night's tension.

Their mouths continued to collide in messy, desperate rhythm, teeth clicking with each shift, breaths tangling in hot, uneven bursts that fogged the space between them, the fence vibrating faintly at Jimin’s back every time Jeongguk shifted closer. The dirt ring felt smaller, the boundaries closing in, the cold night air nipping at exposed skin on his neck where Jeongguk's fingers lifted and brushed accidentally, sending shivers that had nothing to do with the chill.

It felt good.

That realization hit Jimin harder than the impact ever had, dizzying in its clarity, slamming into him like a punch to the solar plexus, stealing his breath and leaving him reeling. The world felt like it was tilting on its axis as more heat flooded his veins, even chasing away the ache in his arm for a fleeting moment. His pulse thundered so loudly he could barely hear anything else, a deafening roar that echoed in his ears, syncing with the frantic beat against his ribs where Jeongguk's chest pressed flush.

His arm was still throbbing where Jeongguk was now holding him, the bandage pulling tight with each subtle shift, pain lancing up to his shoulder in sharp reminders. But even that sensation blurred under the heat of it, under the way Jeongguk kept pressing impossibly closer without meaning to, hips aligning in a way that pulled desperate groans from both of them, like his body knew exactly where Jimin was and where he wasn’t fragile—strong lines yielding just enough to fit, callused hands steady and sure, not hovering but claiming.

Jimin hated that he leaned into it, his body betraying the war in his head. He arched his neck slightly to chase the slide of Jeongguk's addictingly soft lips, his good hand sliding up to grip the nape of his neck and tangle his  fingers in the short, damp hair that felt coarse and real under his touch. Still, the resentment twisted sharper, a knife in his gut for how easily this cut through his defenses, how Jeongguk's presence filled the voids he'd spent years fortifying, making the isolation of leadership feel like a lie.

But oh god, the pull was magnetic and undeniable.

It all felt like a release valve for the pressure that had built all night—the depot's shadows, the howlers' snarls still echoing in his nightmares, the weight of eyes on him expecting perfection when he was fraying at the seams.

Then voice carried from the far side of the perimeter, distant but sharp enough to cut through the haze like a blade, slicing the fog of sensation and yanking Jimin back to the compound's harsh reality.

“Hey,” Mira called, her tone laced with casual alertness, the words drifting on the wind, accompanied by the faint crunch of boots on gravel far beyond the ring's dim outline.

“You seeing that, Mr. Park?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Park answered, closer than Jimin liked. His gravelly voice rumbled from a point nearer the fence line, maybe fifty yards out, the proximity sending a spike of alarm through Jimin's veins, cold sweat prickling his skin despite the lingering warmth.

“There’s some movement by the ring.” The observation hung heavy, neutral but probing, the kind of watchfulness that came from years patrolling shadows where threats hid in every rustle.

The spell broke all at once, reality crashing back in a rush of chilled air and pounding heart, the intimacy shattering like fragile glass underfoot.

Jimin shoved Jeongguk back with both hands, palms slamming into his chest with enough force to feel the solid muscle yield, breath tearing out of him in a ragged gasp that burned his throat as he swore under his breath, the curse low and venomous, tasting of regret and fury. Jeongguk stumbled a step, boots scraping in the dirt with a gritty drag, blinking like he’d been dragged abruptly back into his body, eyes refocusing with a dazed flicker that mirrored the disorientation twisting in Jimin's gut.

Another call followed, still far enough that they couldn’t see—the silhouettes of patrols blurred in the darkness, lanterns swaying faintly in the distance—but close enough to tighten every nerve.

“Identify yourselves.” Mira's voice again, edged with protocol, the routine demand slicing through the remnants of heat still flushing Jimin's skin.

“It’s just Jeongguk and I,” Jimin snapped, already turning away, forcing his breathing into something steady.

His chest was heaving uncontrollably as he smoothed his sweatshirt with jerky motions, the fabric clinging damply to his back where the fence had pressed. His voice came out clipped, authoritative, the mask of control slipping back into place like armor, even as his lips tingled and his arm screamed from the abrupt motion.

“All clear.” The words felt hollow, a lie to cover the vulnerability exposed in the ring's confines, the night suddenly too vast and exposing.

There was a pause, just long enough to stretch his nerves thin, silence amplifying the distant calls of night creatures beyond the walls, the creak of the fence wires settling, Jeongguk's uneven breaths beside him like accusations. Jimin's mind raced—images of reports, questions, the fragile trust he'd built cracking under scrutiny—before Mr. Park’s voice came back, dry as ever, laced with that paternal amusement that grated now.

“You pups should be in bed, you’ve already worked hard enough.” No suspicion, just the weary dismissal of an elder who saw too much but said little, the words carrying a faint chuckle that faded into the dark.

Mira’s boots crunched once more against the dirt as she turned away, the sound deliberate and retreating, Mr. Park’s heavier steps following her back toward the perimeter, their low murmur of conversation blending into the night's ambient hum—unconcerned, already moving on to the next shadow. The tension in Jimin's shoulders eased a fraction, but the air in the ring felt heavier now, charged with the aftermath, the space between him and Jeongguk humming with unspoken fallout.

The moment they were gone, Jimin moved, the impulse rising swift and unbidden, a surge of clarity cutting through the confusion. His hand whipped out, connecting with Jeongguk's cheek in a slap that landed sharp and loud in the quiet ring, the crack echoing off the wooden posts like a gunshot in the stillness, stinging his palm with immediate fire that radiated up his arm.

Jeongguk didn’t flinch until after it hit, head snapping to the side with the force of it, the impact jarring through Jimin's wrist, breath knocking out of him in a short, startled sound that cut the silence—a sharp exhale that held more surprise than pain. He turned back slowly, eyes wide for half a second, the dark irises catching the faint moonlight, surprise cutting clean across his face in the subtle widening of his pupils, the parting of his lips before it smoothed into something taut and watchful, jaw clenching under the reddening mark blooming on his skin. 

Jimin’s hand burned, the heat mirroring the storm raging inside him—regret flickering at the edges, drowned out by the raw need to reclaim control, to push back against the pull that threatened to undo him completely.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Jimin gritted out, the words scraping past his teeth like gravel, raw and edged with the fury still coiling tight in his chest, his voice dropping low enough that it vibrated through his jaw, the sting in his palm from the slap pulsing in time with his racing heart. 

The night air felt colder now, seeping through his sweat-damp shirt, raising goosebumps along his arms where the bandage tugged with each tense flex of his muscles, the metallic tang of blood from his bitten lip lingering on his tongue, mixing with the ghost of Jeongguk's taste—salt and heat—that refused to fade.

Jeongguk steadied himself almost immediately, shoulders squaring back into place with a deliberate roll that pulled the fabric of his sweatshirt taut across his broad frame, jaw tightening until the muscle jumped under his skin, a visible clamp of restraint that Jimin could see even in the dim moonlight filtering through the compound's sparse overhead lights. 

He turned to face him fully, boots shifting in the loose dirt with a soft crunch that echoed too loudly in the sudden quiet, his dark eyes locking onto Jimin's without flinching, the intensity of that gaze boring in like it could peel back layers Jimin had no intention of exposing. The air between them hummed with unspoken fallout, the fence wires humming faintly in the breeze, carrying distant echoes of the patrols' retreating steps, a reminder of how close they'd come to unraveling everything in plain sight.

Jimin shoved him, the motion explosive and unthinking, his good palm slamming into Jeongguk’s chest with a thud that reverberated up his arm, driving him back a step, the solid wall of muscle yielding just enough to send a jolt through Jimin's fingers, the contact reigniting the chaos in his veins—anger surging hot and blinding, drowning out the treacherous pull that had let him lean into the kiss moments before. 

“Don’t,” he said again, the command sharper now, laced with a desperation he hated, his breath coming in short bursts that fogged the space between them, the cold nipping at his flushed cheeks.

“You ever—” another shove, this one fueled by the resentment boiling over, fingers curling into the sweatshirt's collar as he yanked forward, the fabric twisting under his grip, damp and warm from Jeongguk's body heat.

“—do that—” he drove him back again, boots scraping furrows in the dirt ring's packed earth, the grains shifting underfoot like unstable ground, mirroring the fracture lines cracking through Jimin's resolve, “—again.”

Jeongguk stayed where he was after the last push, feet digging into the dirt with a stubborn plant that sent fine dust puffing up around his ankles, his body absorbing the force without retaliation, shoulders set but not aggressive, hands hanging loose at his sides—no raised fists, no bared teeth flashing in the shadows, just that unyielding stance, eyes locked on Jimin like he was trying to see past the fury to whatever sat underneath, the raw vulnerability Jimin buried deep under layers of protocol and self-control. 

The silence stretched taut, broken only by the faint creak of the wooden posts framing the ring, the night's chill wrapping around them like an unwelcome witness, amplifying the thunder of Jimin's pulse in his ears, the ache in his injured arm flaring sharper with each shove, a burning reminder of fragility he couldn't afford.

“I wasn’t—” Jeongguk started, his voice rough but measured, the words halting as if he were choosing them carefully. His breath was still uneven from the kiss, chest rising and falling under Jimin's lingering grip.

“I said don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Jimin cut in, voice low and precise, every word deliberate and venomous, slicing the air between them. His eyes narrowed to slits that burned with the weight of betrayal—not just the kiss, but the way it exposed the cracks in his armor, the fear that Jeongguk's impulsiveness could drag them both under in this world where one slip meant death.

“You don’t get to touch me like that. You don’t get to decide anything for me.”

He shoved Jeongguk once more, the final push explosive, then let go abruptly, fingers uncurling from the fabric as if the contact itself had turned unbearable, scorching like a brand that marked him too deeply, leaving his hands trembling with the aftermath. Jimin turned away, his chest heaving now, breath coming too fast, too shallow, ribs straining against the tightness banding his lungs, the cool air rushing in sharp and unsatisfying, carrying the faint, earthy scent of disturbed soil and the lingering musk of Jeongguk's sweat. 

Jimin walked toward the edge of the ring without looking back, boots grinding into the dirt with deliberate force, each step a bid for solidity, for reclaiming the ground that felt like it was shifting beneath him, the fence looming closer, its wires glinting dully, a barrier he suddenly craved to lean against just to steady the spin in his head.

Behind him, Jeongguk followed a step, the soft scuff of his boots trailing like an echo he couldn't escape, presence heavy and insistent, pulling at the frayed edges of Jimin's composure.

“Jimin,” he said steadily, though Jimin could still hear a slight waver in his voice, a crack of uncertainty threading through the calm, close enough now that the warmth of his body cut through the night's bite, voice dropping to that intimate timbre that twisted something low in Jimin's gut. 

“Just talk to me.”

The plea hung there, simple and raw, demanding the honesty Jimin wasn't ready to give. It was stirring the storm of emotions he'd tamped down—the gratitude for Jeongguk's protection warring with the resentment of his overreach, the desire that simmered beneath it all like a live wire.

Jimin stopped so suddenly Jeongguk nearly collided with him, the abrupt halt sending a jolt up his spine, dirt skittering under his heels, the air thickening with the proximity, Jeongguk's breath brushing the nape of his neck in a ghost of sensation that made his skin prickle.

“Leave,” Jimin said, the word flat and final, forced out through clenched teeth, his back rigid, refusing to turn, the command of a shield against the vulnerability clawing at him.

Jeongguk stayed where he was, unmoving, the silence stretching like a taut wire, his presence a weight that pressed against Jimin's resolve, the faint rustle of his clothing the only sound, amplifying the roar of blood in Jimin's ears.

Jimin turned then, eyes sharp enough to cut, locking onto Jeongguk's with a glare that burned cold and unyielding, the moonlight catching the hard set of his jaw, the flush of anger still staining his cheeks. 

“Leave,” he repeated, slower this time, colder, each syllable deliberate, laced with the ice of authority he wielded like a weapon, even as his injured arm throbbed in protest, a dull fire that grounded him in the pain of reality. 

“Before you make this worse.”

The warning carried the undercurrent of his fear—not just for the pack's protocols, but for the way Jeongguk unraveled him, piece by jagged piece, exposing the loneliness he'd armored against for years.

Something flickered across Jeongguk’s face—frustration tightening his brows, restraint etching lines around his mouth, things he kept tightly leashed flickering in the depths of his eyes like shadows in the ring's dim corners, a storm held back by sheer will.

He held Jimin’s gaze for a long moment, the stare-down electric, weighing his next move, the air crackling with the unspoken battle between them—Jeongguk's protectiveness clashing against Jimin's need for control, the fragile trust teetering on the edge of the dirt-strewn ground. Then he nodded once, a sharp, reluctant dip of his chin, acceptance settling over his features like a mask slipping back into place.

“…Okay.”

The word came quiet, resigned, carrying a weight that twisted in Jimin's chest, Jeongguk stepping back with measured slowness, boots dragging faintly in the dirt, creating distance that felt both relieving and aching. 

He took another step, then turned slowly, heading toward the quarantine shed without looking over his shoulder, posture still controlled, still composed—the broad line of his back straight, steps even despite the tension coiling in his frame—even as his hands curled briefly at his sides, knuckles whitening before relaxing again, a fleeting betrayal of the turmoil Jimin knew mirrored his own. The door shut behind him with a muted thud, the sound final in the quiet night, wood meeting frame with a dull echo that reverberated through the empty ring, leaving Jimin utterly alone.

Only then did Jimin breathe out, the sound coming rough and unsteady, like his lungs had forgotten their purpose, a ragged exhale that tore from his throat and left him lightheaded, chest shuddering with the release. He dragged a hand through his hair, fingers tangling in the sweat-matted strands, pulling hard enough to sting his scalp, the sharp sensation an anchor against the whirlwind in his mind. 

Jimin paced once, then again, boots kicking up small clouds of dust that settled on his pant legs, the motion restless and futile, chasing away the phantom press of Jeongguk's body, the heat of his mouth that still flooded all of his senses—lips tingling, skin flushed, the memory insistent and unwelcome, impossible to shake like a burr embedded deep. 

Anger rushed in to fill the space—at Jeongguk for the kiss that shattered boundaries, at himself for the weakness that let him respond, at the pack for the weight of their expectations pressing down like the compound's walls, at the way the ground beneath him no longer felt solid, every step a reminder of the instability creeping in.

Jimin had spent years containing worse things than fear and anger—the howlers' assaults, the losses that carved hollows in his chest, the isolation of command in a world gone feral. This felt different—and that terrified him, a quiet dread uncoiling in his gut, whispering of changes he couldn't control, vulnerabilities that could cost more than his pride.

Absolutely stunning art by Dolcca on Twitter

Chapter Text

Chapter 6 : Saccharine

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Jimin woke up on his back, eyes unfocused on the ceiling while the morning light crept in around the edges of the room. For a few seconds, he stayed there, letting the weight of his body sink into the mattress. He breathed slow and deep, listening to the farmhouse start its usual routine—footsteps echoing somewhere down the hall, the faint clatter of someone already awake in the kitchen, pots shifting on the stove. His arm still ached dully where it was wrapped tight, a persistent throb that reminded him the depot mission had been real. He'd really been that close to death, the sharp crack of gunfire still echoing in his ears if he let it. He stayed where he was, letting the sleep bleed out of him at its own pace, unwilling to face the day just yet.

Then the memory of what happened a few nights ago came flooding back for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was all heat and motion, the rough wooden fence cold against his back, Jeongguk’s mouth crashing into his—and the breath left him before he could stop it, a sharp hitch in his chest. 

He dragged a hand over his face, palm pressing hard against his eyes, as if that might scatter the images before they finished forming in the dark behind his lids. Jimin squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, jaw clenching until his teeth ground together, but the memory assembled itself anyway, unwanted and stubborn as ever. 

He couldn’t believe he’d kissed him back. Couldn’t believe how natural it had felt, how his body had answered before his mind could catch up—lips parting, tongue meeting tongue, a low groan escaping his throat that he hadn't meant to let out. Worse still was how it had lingered, the faint scent of pine and sweat clinging to his senses no matter how much distance he’d put between them afterward, how his skin still tingled at the ghost of those hands gripping his hips.

He shifted on the mattress, rolling his injured shoulder experimentally, wincing at the pull of the bandage, then pushing himself upright with a grunt. He sat there for a moment, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the worn floorboards while the room came back into focus around him—the faint dust motes dancing in the sunlight, the simple wooden crate beside the bed with its untouched mug of tea, now cold and filmy on the surface. 

The bandage on his arm tugged faintly as he moved, stained with a bit of yellowish drainage seeping through. He’d need to get it changed before he started any work today, wrap it fresh to keep from any infection surfacing. 

But goddammit, his thoughts kept circling back to Jeongguk, to that strange pull he’d been pretending not to notice for weeks now, a magnetic tug low in his gut that made his pulse quicken just thinking about it. What unsettled him most wasn’t the kiss itself—it was how much he hadn’t wanted it to end, how his fingers had dug into Jeongguk’s shirt, pulling him closer instead of shoving him away. How the strange tension that followed Jeongguk everywhere lately had sharpened instead of easing, the pull stronger now that he knew exactly what it felt like to give in to it, to taste the heat of his mouth and feel the hard line of his body pressing in. 

He needed distance. He needed this to cool off before it turned into something reckless, something he couldn’t take back—like dragging Jeongguk into a shadowed corner and letting it all spill over, consequences be damned.

A knock sounded at the door, quick and faint, barely a courtesy, and Jimin let out a quiet breath as Taehyung pushed it open without waiting for an answer. He let himself in like he always did, casual as if the room were his own, already stepping halfway across the threshold by the time Jimin looked up, blinking against the light.

“Wow,” Taehyung said, his deep voice laced with that familiar dry humor, eyes flicking over Jimin with a slow, unapologetic sweep—from the rumpled sheets to the bandaged arm, lingering on the shadows under Jimin’s eyes. “You look like shit.”

Jimin managed a weak huff of a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as he straightened up a little, the mattress creaking under him. 

“Thanks. You really know how to make an omega feel good.” His voice came out rougher than he intended, still thick with the remnants of sleep and whatever else was churning inside him. 

Taehyung’s presence was a welcome distraction, grounding in its familiarity—no judgments, no probing questions, just the easy rhythm of someone who’d seen him through worse. But even as he said it, Jimin’s mind flickered back to Jeongguk, wondering if he was out there in the kitchen too, if their eyes would meet across the room and spark that same dangerous heat.

“Morning,” Taehyung said easily, kicking the door shut with his heel. He glanced at the bandage, then at the untouched mug by the bed. “You drinking that, or are you just letting it suffer for aesthetic reasons?”

“I was getting to it.”

Taehyung’s gaze flicked back to the bandage on Jimin’s arm, then lingered there a second longer than before. But before he could say anything else, he paused, tilting his head slightly as he sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring just a touch. His eyes narrowed playfully, locking onto Jimin’s with a knowing glint.

“Woah,” Taehyung drawled, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Your scent’s a little sweet this morning, Jimin. Thinking about someone? Need my help with that?”

Heat flooded Jimin’s face in an instant, his cheeks burning as he realized what Taehyung meant—the faint, honeyed edge to his scent that had seemingly sharpened when his thoughts tangled around Jeongguk. He snatched the pillow from behind him and hurled it at Taehyung’s chest, the soft thump barely fazing him.

“For once in your life Taehyung, shut up.” He rolled his eyes then, averting his gaze so that the alpha couldn’t see just how flustered he was. “I’ll get Yoongi in here if you don’t knock it off.”

Taehyung caught the pillow with one hand, snorting a laugh that rumbled deep in his chest as he tossed it aside. “Oh, please. Yoongi would be just as willing—probably more, knowing him. You’re the only omega he’ll ever make an exception for, even though I’ll forever call first dibs on you.”

“I’m starting to feel very confused on whether you two love each other, or are bonded together over your shared love for me.”

“Jimin, who doesn’t love you?”

“Everyone else. Now shut up, or I’m counting this as sexual harrassment.”

“Who are you gonna report to? Namjoon? Wanna tell him how you basically started this whole thing when you let Yoongi and I—”

“Okay, okay, fuck—that’s enough you knothead,” Jimin groaned, burying his face in his hands for a second to hide the flush creeping down his neck, but the banter pulled a reluctant smile from him despite the embarrassment. Taehyung’s teasing was relentless, but it cut through the tension knotting in his gut, at least for a moment.

“You rewrap that yet?” Taehyung asked, steering them back with a casual shift, though the amusement lingered in his eyes.

Jimin followed his eyes, flexing his fingers experimentally, feeling the pull of the fabric against the tender skin beneath. “Was about to.”

“Uh-huh.” Taehyung nudged the crate aside with his foot, the wood scraping lightly against the floor, and reached for the mug, peering into it with a grimace before setting it back down with a soft clunk. “Jiwon’s slammed. Said if I let you mess with it yourself, she’d skin me alive.”

Jimin huffed. “She says that about everyone.”

“Yeah, but you’re our precious gem, so she definitely means it when it comes to you.”

Taehyung was already opening the aid kit that sat in the corner of Jimin’s room, fingers moving with practiced efficiency, pulling out gauze and antiseptic wipes. He didn’t look up when he spoke again. 

“Shirt off.”

Jimin paused just long enough to register the instinctive resistance—a flicker of self-consciousness about the bruises mottling his torso, the vulnerability of baring his skin—but then he tugged it over his head and dropped it beside him in a heap. The room felt cooler without it, the morning air brushing against his bare chest, raising faint goosebumps along his arms. 

Taehyung stepped closer, easy and familiar, like this was just another one of their morning tasks, nothing out of the ordinary. After all, he’d seen Jimin in a far more naked state than this—post-mission, stripped down for checks, or in the rare moments of downtime when boundaries blurred under the weight of exhaustion.

“Try not to leak on me,” Taehyung said, his voice low and playful as he knelt beside the bed, close enough that Jimin could feel the warmth radiating from him. “I just washed this shirt.”

“Then don’t screw it up,” Jimin shot back, though there was no real bite to it, just the comfortable sparring that came naturally between them.

“Oof. Captain’s in a mood this morning, yeah?”

Taehyung’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he unwound the old bandage slowly, careful where the dried skin was pulled taut. The cut had closed cleanly, stitches neat and even, but bruising bloomed outward in muted purples and yellows, a map of the close call at the depot. Taehyung made a small sound in the back of his throat, thoughtful.

“Looks worse than it is,” he said, more to himself than to Jimin, his fingers steady as he dabbed at the edges with a cool cloth. “But you always heal fast. It’s kind of annoying, actually—makes the rest of us look bad.”

Jimin leaned back on his hands, palms pressing into the thin blanket, and stared at the ceiling while Taehyung cleaned and redressed the wound. The wooden beams above were familiar, scarred from years of leaks and repairs, a ceiling he’d watched a hundred times while piecing himself back together. When the antiseptic stung sharp and cold, he sucked in a breath through his teeth without comment, his free hand curling into a loose fist.

“Still hurts?” Taehyung asked, his touch pausing, thumb brushing lightly over the uninjured skin nearby—reassuring, absentminded.

“It’s fine,” Jimin lied, voice tight, though the ache was more of a dull throb now. He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, avoiding the way Taehyung’s dark eyes might search his face for the truth.

“Yeah, that wasn’t very convincing.”

He taped the fresh dressing down with careful precision, his fingers warm where they brushed Jimin’s skin—lingering just a second too long, the heat of his touch sending an involuntary shiver racing up Jimin’s arm. Then Taehyung stepped back, putting a deliberate inch of space between them, the air in the room shifting with his withdrawal. His jokes had thinned out somewhere along the way, the usual barrage of teasing silenced, and Jimin noticed it only after the room plunged into a quieter hush than it usually carried with Taehyung’s easy energy filling the space.

“All set,” Taehyung said finally, his voice lower now, shuffling back toward the aid kit with a slowness that felt off, like he was buying time. He packed it away methodically, eyes downcast and his broad shoulders drawn in just a touch, the tension coiling there visible even from Jimin’s vantage on the bed.

Instead of standing and leaving like he normally would—cracking another quip on his way out—Taehyung lowered himself to the worn floorboards with a soft creak, leaning back against the side of the bed. His head tipped just enough that Jimin could reach him without shifting, the dark strands of his hair falling messily over his forehead. Jimin stilled, his breath catching for a fraction of a second, the gesture stirring a flicker of familiarity that tugged at the edges of his guarded heart. Then, out of pure habit, he reached out anyway, fingers sliding into Taehyung’s hair, threading through the soft thickness with a gentle scratch along his scalp.

The alpha leaned into it immediately, a low sound of approval rumbling from his chest—deep and contented, like a purr that vibrated through the mattress and into Jimin’s palms. Tension bled out of Taehyung’s shoulders visibly, the rigid lines softening as Jimin’s nails grazed in slow, rhythmic circles, the motion as instinctive as breathing for them both.

“God,” Taehyung muttered, his voice muffled slightly against the bedframe, eyes fluttering shut as he settled more comfortably, knees drawing up loosely. “I missed this. You’ve been real stingy with your affection lately.”

“Don’t start,” Jimin said flatly, though his hands didn’t stop moving, the repetitive motion soothing his own frayed nerves even as his mind raced. He could feel the warmth of Taehyung’s head against his thigh through the thin blanket, a solid presence that grounded him amid the chaos of his thoughts—thoughts that kept drifting back to Jeongguk, to the ghost of that kiss, the way it had ignited something reckless inside him.

“I’m just saying,” Taehyung went on, his words lazy now, eyes still closed as he tilted his head into the touch, chasing the pressure of Jimin’s fingers. “You’ve been weird. Jeongguk’s been weird. The whole farm’s been weird—like everyone’s walking on eggshells, waiting for the next boot to drop.”

Jimin exhaled through his nose, sharp and controlled, his fingers faltering for a beat before resuming their path. The mention of Jeongguk hit like a spark to dry tinder, heat flaring low in his belly, unbidden and unwelcome. He swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat, the room’s air feeling thicker, laced with the faint sweetness of his own scent that hadn’t fully dissipated from earlier. 

“It’s been a long week,” he replied, voice even, though it felt like a deflection, a wall thrown up to keep the deeper currents at bay.

“That’s not what I meant.” Taehyung’s response was quiet, almost too quiet, cutting through the haze of Jimin’s internal whirlpool.

Silence crept in then, slow and uncomfortably heavy, wrapping around them like the morning fog outside the window. Taehyung’s breathing stayed even, measured inhales that filled the space, but something about the way his shoulders hadn’t exactly fully relaxed—still holding that subtle rigidity—snagged at Jimin’s attention. His fingers slowed, tracing idle patterns now, then paused entirely, hovering just above the alpha’s temple.

“Hey,” Jimin said quietly, his voice threading with concern he couldn’t quite mask, leaning forward slightly to peer down at the top of Taehyung’s head. “What’s going on?”

Then Taehyung’s breath hitched—a subtle catch, barely there, but Jimin felt it ripple through the body beneath his hand, the faint tremor traveling up his arm. He frowned, brows knitting as he looked down more closely. Taehyung’s spine was pressing harder into the bed, the muscles along his back tensing like he was bracing himself against an invisible wave. 

His scent had changed too, the grounding edge of cedar smoke and earth thinning into something frayed at the edges, raw and vulnerable enough that it prickled against Jimin’s senses before he fully understood why. It wrapped around him, stirring a mix of protectiveness and unease that made Jimin’s chest tighten.

Taehyung didn’t answer him right away. That silence stretched out, heavy and uncharacteristic. Taehyung talked—always, endlessly, filling every quiet corner with his easy chatter or sharp quips. Even when things were bad, when the weight of the world pressed down on them all, he kept the air moving, kept the darkness from settling too deep. This kind of quiet from him felt wrong

“Taehyung,” he tried again, his voice firmer this time, laced with a quiet urgency that betrayed the concern pooling in his chest. He leaned forward a fraction more, ignoring the dull ache radiating from his wound, his fingers still hovering near the alpha’s temple, waiting.

Taehyung exhaled shakily, the sound ragged and uneven, and tipped sideways, his temple pressing firmly into Jimin’s thigh through the thin blanket. The warmth of him seeped through the fabric, solid and grounding, but there was a tremor in the contact that made Jimin’s breath catch. Taehyung’s hands fisted in the blanket near Jimin’s knee, knuckles whitening as he gripped the material like it was the only thing keeping him from unraveling. 

For a long moment, Jimin just stared down at him, heart twisting at the sight—the broad shoulders that usually carried so much now hunched in quiet defeat, the dark hair mussed from Jimin’s earlier touch.

He’d seen Taehyung angry, fists clenched and jaw set like he could punch through the pain. He’d seen him terrified, eyes wide in the heat of a raid, body coiled to strike or flee. He’d seen him reckless, laughing wildly after a close call, or devastated, staring blankly at the horizon after a loss. Even smiling through a split lip, blood caked on his teeth from some farmyard brawl. But crying—this quietly, this contained, tears unshed but hovering at the edges—was rare enough that it threw Jimin off balance, stirring a fierce protectiveness in his core that warred with his own exhaustion.

His hands moved again on instinct, fingers sinking back into Taehyung’s hair, slower now, more deliberate, tracing soothing paths along his scalp with a gentleness that belied the storm in Jimin’s mind. The strands were soft under his touch, slightly damp at the roots from the morning’s humidity, and he felt the alpha’s pulse thrum faintly against his palm—a steady reminder that they were both still here, still breathing.

“I didn’t want to talk the last few nights,” Taehyung started, his voice rough and gravelly, like the words had been lodged in his throat too long, scraping their way out. He kept his eyes averted, fixed on some invisible point on the floor. 

“I knew if I started speaking about how I’ve really felt about the depot—about watching you go down, about the seconds it took for Jeongguk to pull you out—I wouldn’t stop. And I didn’t want to dump it on you when you were already—”

He trailed off, frustration etching lines across his forehead, breath pushing out hard through his nose in a sharp burst. Jimin’s hands stayed steady in Taehyung’s hair, a quiet permission, an anchor he’d always offered without question. The room felt smaller now, the morning light filtering through the curtains casting soft shadows that danced across Taehyung’s face, highlighting the tension in his jaw.

“You’re doing a great job of waiting,” Jimin said dryly, but the usual edge to his tone was absent, softened by the rawness hanging between them. 

He kept his voice light, an attempt to ease the weight, even as his own thoughts flickered unbidden to Jeongguk—to the alpha’s strong arms hauling him from the wreckage, the press of his body in the chaos, the kiss that still burned on his lips like a brand.

A weak huff of laughter escaped Taehyung, breaking midway into something fractured, almost a sob swallowed back. His body shifted slightly, pressing closer into Jimin’s leg, seeking more of that comfort.

“God, this is so stupid,” he muttered, the words muffled against the blanket.

“You don’t usually say that unless it’s not,” Jimin replied softly, his fingers resuming their slow circles.

“That’s because I usually talk myself out of it first,” Taehyung said, his voice wavering on the edge before steadying, like he was bracing for the plunge. He drew in a deep breath, chest rising and falling visibly. 

“I didn’t want to come in here all dramatic and blow this whole thing out of proportion. I kept telling myself it was over,” he continued after a second, the words tumbling out now, hesitant but gaining momentum. “That you were still here, everyone was fine, and the pack had already moved on in such a short time. So I figured if I just went to sleep, forced my eyes shut and waited it out, I’d catch up to that sentiment eventually.”

A small, humorless sound left him—a bitter chuckle that didn’t reach his eyes, still hidden from Jimin’s view. “Of course, I haven’t, and probably won’t ever.”

His fingers twisted tighter in the blanket near Jimin’s knee, worrying the fabric in restless pulls, the motion betraying the turmoil he couldn’t voice fully. Jimin watched it all from his vantage, a pang of empathy sharpening in his chest, mingling with his own unresolved ache—the physical throb in his arm a pale echo of the emotional knots tying him to the pack, to the fragile threads holding them together. He pressed his palm flat against Taehyung’s scalp, a silent vow to listen, to hold space, even as his mind whispered warnings of how close they all teetered on the edge.

“I did what I was supposed to do,” Taehyung said, and there was a defensive edge sharpening his words now. “I stayed where I was told, covered the exit, waited for the signal—y’know, all that stuff.” 

He swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet room, throat working against the lump of unspoken fears. “And I remember counting in my head. Just… standing there, thinking any second now.”

Jimin looked down at him again, brow furrowing as a fresh wave of unease twisted in his stomach.

The alpha huffed out another breath, this one turning shaky at the edges, his chest heaving as if the memory squeezed the air from his lungs. “I saw him go, and I didn’t even process it at first.” He shook his head, the motion brushing his hair against Jimin’s thigh, sending a faint tickle through the fabric. “He didn’t hesitate. He just… I swear I’ve never seen anyone move so fast in my life.”

Him. Taehyung must be referring to Jeongguk.

“But I was still standing there,” Taehyung pressed on, his voice dropping lower, laced with a self-recrimination that cut sharper than any blade. “Still doing exactly what I’d been told to do. And now, after having a moment to really think about that day, all that’s plaguing my mind is that if he hadn’t—”

His voice broke off abruptly, the words fracturing into silence, and Jimin felt the tremor ripple through Taehyung’s body, vibrating against his leg. The air thickened, heavy with the what-ifs that haunted their every mission, every narrow escape in this ragged world of ragers, howlers and ruined outposts. His fingers tightened instinctively in Taehyung’s hair, a gentle tug to ground him, to pull him back from the edge. 

“If he hadn’t ignored your orders,” Taehyung finally forced out, “I don’t know how this would’ve ended. You probably wouldn’t be here—we would’ve probably lost even more, too.”

Silence stretched taut as a wire, broken only by the uneven rise and fall of Taehyung’s shoulders, paired with shaky sniffles that he tried to muffle against the blanket. Jimin’s chest tightened, empathy warring with the defensive coil in his gut. He’d laid down those protocols himself—clear lines in the sand to keep the pack alive, to prevent rash moves that could doom them all in the face of ragers tearing at the fences or supply runs gone sideways. Jeongguk’s defiance had shattered that structure, leaving Jimin exposed, furious in the aftermath. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared,” Taehyung murmured. “Not even when we first lost the perimeter fencing and had to fight that group of ragers. Not even when the crops kept failing our first year out here.”

He finally lifted his head, just enough to glance back at Jimin, eyes wet and red-rimmed, brimming with an apology. The alpha’s gaze held steady for a beat, searching, vulnerable in a way that stripped away his usual bravado. Jimin met it without flinching, his hand sliding from hair to the nape of Taehyung’s neck, thumb brushing a soothing arc over tense muscle.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Taehyung added quickly, like he needed Jimin to understand that part. “About having a strict protocol, and our rules. I know why they exist—if anything, they’ve been engraved into my mind since basic training all those years ago.” He exhaled, shakily. “I just don’t know how to be angry with Jeongguk for disregarding them in that moment. I…I don’t think I ever could.”

Something inside Jimin shifted then, uncomfortable and undeniable, like a fault line cracking under pressure. The image rose in his mind again, uninvited and vivid: Jeongguk breaking formation, boots pounding the dirt as he sprinted toward the depot’s collapse, ignoring the shouts, the risks, his focus laser-sharp on Jimin alone. 

Jimin’s own anger afterward had burned hot and righteous, a safe harbor to cling to amid the disorientation of pain and relief. It was easier to aim it outward—at Jeongguk’s recklessness, at the breach in command—rather than sit with the truth underneath it: that single act had saved him, bound him tighter to the pack, to the alpha whose touch still echoed in his dreams, stirring a heat low in his belly that he couldn’t afford to indulge.

“I know you’re mad,” Taehyung said softly, his voice a gentle prod at the wound, eyes flicking away as if the admission cost him. “I get why. I really do. But… I would’ve done the same thing. I wanted to.”

Taehyung leaned back again, temple resettling against Jimin’s thigh with a weight that felt like surrender, gravity itself drawing him there, seeking solace in the familiar press of skin and fabric. 

“And it angers the hell out of me that I didn’t.”

Jimin’s hand stilled on Taehyung’s neck, fingers curling lightly into the short hairs at his nape as the words sank in like stones in still water, rippling through the quiet. The room seemed to hold its breath, the distant sounds of the farmhouse—creaking floorboards under hurried steps, muffled voices from the kitchen debating ration splits—fading into irrelevance against the weight pressing on his chest. His mind raced, a whirlwind torn between the loyalty to his role as the one who set the boundaries, the protocols that had kept their pack breathing through endless threats, and the raw humanity of it all: the bone-deep fear that clawed at you in the split second before disaster, the primal impulse to shield what mattered most, the bonds that laughed in the face of orders and surged forward anyway.

Jeongguk’s face flickered in his thoughts once more—sharp jaw clenched in grim determination, eyes fierce with unspoken promises that burned hotter than the depot’s flames—and Jimin felt that pull again, magnetic and dangerous, a current tugging at his core, urging him to bridge the distance he’d tried so hard to enforce with glares and clipped commands. But here, with Taehyung’s warmth seeping through the thin fabric of his pants, the alpha’s vulnerability shared like a fragile thread stretched taut between them, Jimin simply held on, letting the silence wrap around them both, a temporary balm against the storm still brewing inside, churning with questions he wasn’t ready to voice.

“When I saw him dragging you back,” Taehyung murmured, his voice roughened by the emotion clogging his throat, “I don’t think I’ve ever been that grateful in my life.”

Jimin’s hands tightened before he could stop them, gripping the nape of Taehyung’s neck a fraction harder, the muscle there tense and unyielding under his palm. He swallowed, a lump forming thick in his throat, scraping as it went down. 

How many times had he used those rules like a shield, justifying the sharp edge of his anger toward Jeongguk? How many times had he told himself the youngest alpha had crossed an unforgivable line, endangering the whole team with his solo charge, when here was Taehyung—an alpha who’d once served beside him as captain, who knew the weight of command better than anyone—sitting on the floor, admitting raw and unfiltered that he would’ve shattered every protocol in the same breath?

The hypocrisy twisted in Jimin’s gut, sharp and unwelcome, mingling with the dull ache from his bandaged arm, the drainage tube pulling taut with each subtle shift. He could picture it too clearly: Taehyung bolting from cover, broad shoulders cutting through the smoke, hands clamping around Jimin’s arms to yank him free, breath ragged and hot against his ear as they stumbled back to safety. No hesitation, no second-guessing—just the fierce protectiveness that came as natural as breathing for their kind. And Jimin knew, deep in the marrow of his bones, that he’d have wrapped his arms around Taehyung’s neck in the aftermath, murmuring thanks instead of fury, seeing it as the loyalty they’d forged in blood and sweat over years of survival.

“I love you,” Taehyung added, the words simple and unguarded, slipping out like they’d been waiting too long behind his teeth. He stopped short, pressing his face harder into Jimin’s thigh, the pressure firm and desperate, as if the alpha could burrow into the solidity there and block out the ghosts. 

“Fuck, Jimin. My heart is literally tearing apart at the thought—”

He leaned forward just enough to let his free hand join the first, cupping the side of Taehyung’s face now, thumb tracing the damp trail of a tear sliding down his cheek. The skin was warm, stubbled faintly from a skipped shave, carrying that familiar alpha scent—earthy and grounding, laced with the salt of unshed grief.

“I’m still here,” Jimin murmured back, his voice gentle, threaded with the quiet strength he reserved for these moments, when the world’s edges frayed and all that remained was them. 

“You didn’t lose me.”

Taehyung nodded against him, the motion jerky, breath warm and uneven through the fabric of Jimin’s pants, seeping into his skin like a brand of reassurance. “I—y-yeah, I know.”

Jimin stared at the wall across from them, the faded paint peeling in curls from years of harsh weather, pulse slow and heavy in his ears like the thud of distant thunder. He kept touching Taehyung—fingers sifting through the dark strands, palm pressing steady against his jaw—comforting his best friend with an ease that bordered on instinct. They’d shared far too many late-night watches back in the military, sharing body heat against the chill, wounds cleaned in the dim glow of lantern light, laughter barked out over meager meals to chase away the despair. This was familiar territory, allowed without question, a safe harbor in the chaos of the infected and failing fences.

But the realization slid in ugly and unrelenting, coiling tight around his ribs like barbed wire. He was giving Taehyung grace for the same feral instinct he’d been punishing Jeongguk for, night after night replaying the depot in his mind—the collapse, the heat, the alpha’s arms hauling him out. 

If Taehyung had ignored those direct orders, charging in with that same reckless speed, Jimin would’ve forgiven him without a flicker of doubt. He’d have seen it as nothing but the unbreakable loyalty they shared, the kind that had pulled them through perimeter breaches and crop blights, two best friends bound by survival’s brutal forge.

But it had been Jeongguk who acted, Jeongguk who’d broken formation and scooped Jimin from the pack of howlers, body slamming into them with urgent force, and tearing through the haze while shouts echoed uselessly behind. 

And for that, Jimin had kissed him—lips crashing in a haze of relief and heat, tasting the younger alpha’s pulse pounding wild under his tongue—then slapped him hard across the face, the sting echoing in his own palm, and sent him away, words like weapons to enforce the distance he craved even as his body betrayed him with lingering warmth.

The guilt settled in quietly without warning, just a steady pressure building behind his sternum that felt heavy and immovable. His bandaged arm twinged sharper now, as if the wound itself mirrored the ache spreading inward. And for the first time since that charged moment in the training ring, the air thick with sweat and unresolved tension, Jimin didn’t know which of them he was angrier with anymore—Jeongguk for daring to save him, or himself for the double standard that let familiarity blind him to the truth staring back from the mirror.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The week settled into a rhythm that Jimin enforced with stubborn precision, a deliberate barrier against the looming guilt and confusion that threatened to flood his mind at every unguarded moment.

He made himself busy—too busy to linger in the common spaces where voices overlapped and scents mingled in the air, too busy to get cornered by lingering glances or half-spoken words. Instead, Jimin found himself spending even more time mapping out supply runs, double-checking fence reinforcements, and tallying ammo stocks in the dim light of the storage shed—anything to keep his thoughts from drifting to forbidden territory. Common spaces became minefields that he navigated with calculated care, slipping in and out before the air could thicken with unspoken words or lingering glances.

He stopped eating in the dining room, or at least stopped eating there when Jeongguk was around, timing his meals with the careful calculation of a scout plotting a route through hostile territory. Sometimes he took his plate earlier, slipping in while the table was still half-empty, the wooden benches creaking under fewer weights, the clatter of utensils muffled by the morning haze filtering through the windows. 

Other times, he waited until the group had dispersed, the remnants of stew cooling in his bowl as he ate alone under the dim lantern light and the silence broken only by the distant lowing of livestock in the pens outside. If he lingered anywhere too long, it was by accident—a pause to catch his breath after hauling crates, or a moment's hesitation reviewing the fence logs—and he corrected for it quickly, shifting tasks or patrol routes without a word of explanation, his steps always measured now.

By the fifth day, he’d managed to go an entire morning without crossing Jeongguk’s path once, the quiet satisfaction that followed irritating him enough that he shoved it aside like an unwelcome intruder, jaw tightening as he kept moving. He couldn’t exactly grasp what to make of the thoughts swarming around in his head. The avoidance felt like a victory and a defeat all at once, a thin shield against the memories that clawed their way back in the quiet hours. It was taking everything within him not to march into the barn storage and take a goddamn horse de-wormer, because that’s exactly how it was beginning to affect him. A parasite, unwavering in its harassment as it burrowed further and further into his mind, whispering about everything Jimin was fighting to not think about: the depot's roar of rotting bodies, Jeongguk’s blood-soaked claws as he tore through the howlers, his arms locked around his waist, the desperate press of lips that had tasted like salt and survival. He did his best to shake it off, focusing instead on the ledger in his hands and the ink smudges on his fingers from tallying supplies—anything to anchor him in the present.

They didn’t speak, though not for lack of opportunity. Jeongguk tried—quietly, almost carefully, like he wasn’t exactly sure how to approach him. Jimin clocked it every time: the way Jeongguk slowed near him at breakfast, like he was waiting for a pause that never came. The brief moments of hesitation when tasks were handed out, eyes flicking to Jimin before sliding away again. 

The closest they’d come was in the narrow corridor by the tool shed, dust motes dancing in the slanted afternoon light filtering through cracked boards. Jeongguk had shifted his path, angling closer with purpose, shoulders squared but not aggressive, mouth opening as if the words had finally clawed their way free. A lump had immediately formed in Jimin’s throat as he changed direction without breaking stride, keeping his shoulders squared and his pace even. He wanted to—fuck, he almost gave in—but he didn’t look back even when he could feel the moment stretch thin behind him, taut enough to be uncomfortable.

He buried himself in work that didn’t allow for distraction—numbers, schedules, patrol rotations—anything that demanded focus and punished wandering attention. Yet betrayal came in stolen glimpses, his eyes drawn across the yard despite his iron will.

Jimin watched the way Jeongguk's stance widened instinctively when he lifted heavy items from the wagon—crates of salvaged wire or barrels of water hauled from the well—thighs flexing under the strain, back arching with controlled power that sent an unwelcome heat curling low in Jimin's belly. The roll of muscle through his arms as he worked, veins standing out against tanned skin, sleeves pushed up to his elbows in the warming sun, drawing Jimin's eyes despite the burn of shame that followed. The darkened fabric at the back of his shirt where sweat collected in the sun, despite the cooling breeze rustling the leaves overhead, clinging to the curve of his spine and hinting at the heat radiating from his body.

Once, when Jeongguk laughed with Hoseok near the perimeter gate, the sound carrying on the wind—deep and unguarded, head tipped back and eyes crinkling at the corners in genuine mirth—Jimin caught himself staring long enough for annoyance to spike sharp and hot in his chest, a flush creeping up his neck that had nothing to do with the midday warmth. The alpha's throat worked with the motion, Adam's apple bobbing. Worst of all was his mouth—soft when he laughed with Hoseok, lips curving in easy joy that lit his face; pressed thin when he concentrated on repairing a fence post, tongue darting out to wet them absentmindedly; aggravatingly enticing now that Jimin knew exactly how they felt, firm and yielding, tasting of urgency and unspoken need.

He turned away too fast, jaw clenched against the surge of frustration, fingers digging into the edge of the crate in front of him until the wood bit into his palms. The rough grain grounded him, a stark reminder of the tasks at hand—sorting tools, checking latches, anything to redirect the traitorous pull. But the image lingered, seeping into the corners of his mind like the faint alpha scent that clung to the air after Jeongguk passed by—musky and warm, laced with earth from the fields, stirring something primal in Jimin's instincts that he fought to suppress. The guilt twisted tighter, mingling with the confusion—why did the avoidance feel like running from himself as much as from the alpha? Why did the distance only sharpen the ache, making every stolen glance feel like a spark against dry tinder?

‘Get it together, Park.’

By midweek, it was obvious to Jimin that other people had started to notice his avoidance tactics, the subtle shifts in the pack's rhythm grating against his nerves like sand in a boot. Namjoon’s gaze lingered during briefings, those sharp, thoughtful eyes flicking between him and the alpha before settling back on the maps spread across the scarred wooden table, his expression unreadable but attentive in a way that made Jimin straighten his posture without realizing it, spine snapping rigid as if under inspection. The room felt smaller then, the air thick with the scent of aged paper and ink, the faint creak of the floorboards under shifting feet amplifying the weight of that unspoken scrutiny. Jimin kept his face neutral, fingers tracing the edge of a patrol route he'd already committed to memory, but inside, a coil of unease tightened—how much did Namjoon see? How much did he suspect about the depot, the kiss, the fracture Jimin was desperately papering over?

Seokjin had paused once while serving stew in the common room, the ladle hovering midair as steam curled up from the pot, his eyes tracking Jeongguk’s line of sight straight to where Jimin was checking supplies against the inventory list by the hearth. The omega's heart stuttered, a flush threatening to rise as he pretended to be absorbed in the columns of numbers, the scratch of his pencil the only sound in his ears. Seokjin resumed without comment, the clink of the spoon against bowls resuming its rhythm, but the look he gave Jimin afterward was pointed enough that it landed like a physical touch—knowing, almost pitying—burning into his back even as he ignored it, jaw clenching against the urge to snap something defensive.

Or at least he tried to

The alpha’s scent was seemingly carrying farther than it should have over the last few days, that deep pine threading through the air just enough to register before Jimin tried to shut it out, nostrils flaring involuntarily as irritation flared hot in his chest. It wasn't overpowering, not like during a rut or a threat, but insidious—lingering on the breeze from the open windows, mixing with the earthy tang of the fields outside, wrapping around him in the yard or the corridors like an invisible tether. 

He wasn’t compromised—he’d never been compromised, not in all the years of scavenging runs and close calls that had tested his control. He certainly wasn’t ruled by stupid wolf instincts, those primal pulls that alphas and omegas alike whispered about in the dark, as if they were chains rather than choices. But the fact that he still felt like he was slowly losing his resolve only made the distraction harder to swallow, a bitter lump in his throat that he washed down with gulps of water from his canteen, willing his body to obey the iron will he'd forged through survival.

The alpha was paused mid-task, hands resting uselessly at his sides, fingers flexing as if unsure whether to reach out or clench into fists, his expression caught somewhere between concern and something possibly softer—vulnerable, almost pleading, dark eyes wide and searching under the brim of his cap. Their eyes met by accident, the world narrowing to that locked gaze, and for what seemed like a split second, hope crossed Jeongguk’s face before he could stop it, a flicker that twisted something deep in Jimin's gut—guilt, longing, fear all tangled together. His posture shifted like he was about to step forward, one boot scraping forward in the dirt, the air between them humming with unspoken words.

Jimin gave him nothing—he couldn’t, not without unraveling the careful distance he'd built, brick by painful brick. Instead, he let his gaze slide past, cool and deliberate, as if Jeongguk were just another shadow in the landscape, and kept walking, pace brisk and steady, expression blank as a slate wiped clean. His pulse thrummed in his ears, a frantic counterpoint to the steady crunch of his steps, but he didn't falter once. After doing this consistently over the past week, he didn’t need to look to know that Jeongguk’s shoulders likely dropped in disappointment, the alpha's frame sagging just a fraction, the space between them closing back up again with a finality that echoed in Jimin's chest like a door slamming shut.

‘Good’, Jimin told himself, the word a mantra repeated in the hollow of his mind as he crested the hill, the fence line stretching out ahead like an endless barrier. ‘That’s how it has to be.’ For the pack's sake, for the fragile order they'd clawed from the ruins, for the protocols that kept them alive amid the ragers and the endless threats beyond the wire. Indulging whatever this was—the pull of that kiss, the heat of Jeongguk's body pressed against his in the depot's chaos—would only invite chaos, fracture the loyalties that bound them.

Still, the tension followed him like grit under his skin, abrasive and unrelenting, embedding itself in every moment. It showed up in small, infuriating ways—the way he found himself continuously having to take the long route around the barn just to avoid passing too close to the alpha, detouring through the muddy paddock where the livestock lowed in protest, his boots sinking into the soft earth as he cursed under his breath. The way his fingers tapped sharp, impatient rhythms against his thigh when Jeongguk laughed or expressed any form of joy somewhere too closely behind him, that rich, unguarded sound slicing through the air like a blade, sending a shiver down his spine that he masked with a cough. The way his attention sharpened whenever Jeongguk went suspiciously quiet during a group task, instincts flaring before he could stop them—ears straining for the alpha's steady breaths, body tensing as if braced for an approach that never came. He hated that most of all, the betrayal of his own senses, attuned to Jeongguk in ways that defied logic, pulling him toward the very thing he was fleeing.

By the end of the week, the energy between them had turned into something brittle, a taut wire humming just beneath the surface of the pack. The others moved around them carefully now, conversations rerouting mid-sentence when both of them were nearby—Hoseok's jokes trailing off into awkward chuckles, Taehyung's easy banter redirecting to safer topics—the air thickening with the effort. Work groups reshuffled with silent efficiency, pairs and trios forming without a word, eyes darting away from the invisible line drawn between Jimin and Jeongguk. 

No one said anything outright, but the awareness hung there—unspoken and uncomfortable, a shadow over the shared meals and evening watches. The farm still ran smoothly, patrols circling the perimeter without falter, supplies tallied and fences mended, but it did so carefully, like everyone was stepping around something unstable that no one wanted to test, lest it shatter underfoot.

Jimin felt it most at night, when the pace finally slowed and there was nowhere left to redirect his focus, the farmhouse settling into a hush broken only by the distant hoot of owls and the creak of settling beams. He closed the patrol logs with more force than necessary, the ledger slapping shut on the dining table, ink-stained pages fluttering in protest, pushed back from the edge with his jaw set tight, irritation simmering low and persistent under his skin like a banked fire. The wooden chair scraped against the floor, drawing a few glances he ignored, his mind a whirlwind of unresolved edges—the depot's smoke still acrid in his memory, Jeongguk's lips a ghost against his own. Whatever this was, it needed to burn out, fade into the background like so many close calls before, and he wasn’t about to let it derail everything he’d built by indulging it, by giving in to the ache that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

He stood up from the dining table, chair legs groaning in relief, and ignored the way Jeongguk’s eyes followed him as he left the room—the weight of that gaze like a hand on his shoulder, warm and insistent. Jimin kept his steps measured, slipping into the shadowed corridor where the lantern light flickered low. The door to his room waited at the end, a sanctuary of sorts, but even as he reached for the latch, doubt gnawed at him. How long could he keep this up before the brittle tension snapped, dragging them both under?

A few days later, Jimin made yet another change to the schedule before anyone could argue with him about it, the chalk gritty between his fingers as he gripped it like a weapon. He stood at the assignment board in the dim morning light filtering through the farmhouse windows, the wooden frame scarred from years of use, names etched in white lines that he now rearranged with quick, efficient strokes. Greenhouse duty slid neatly into his column, the letters forming under his hand with a faint squeak against the slate, while horse care was crossed out in a thick, decisive slash and replaced with Areum’s name, her script looped and careful. 

He didn’t look at Jeongguk when he did it—couldn’t, not without risking the knot in his chest tightening further, the alpha's presence a heat at the edge of his awareness, like sunlight too bright to face directly. He didn’t look at anyone, really—just stepped back, scanned the board once like this was part of his normal routine, the air thick with the scent of damp earth from outside and the faint, lingering trace of last night's stew, and moved on to the next task, his boots echoing softly on the worn floorboards as he turned away.

Areum did a double take when she noticed, her brows knitting together in a furrow of surprise as she leaned closer to read the board again. She hovered near the edge of the group once the work for the day officially began, the morning bustle picking up around her—clinks of tools being gathered, low murmurs of plans—her eyes flicking between the board and Jimin with a hesitation that twisted something uncomfortable in his gut. Her mouth parted like she meant to say something, a question forming on her lips, but she couldn’t quite find the nerve, glancing away instead toward the yard where the first rays caught the dew on the grass. 

Jeongguk followed her gaze a beat later, his sharp intake of breath almost inaudible over the shuffle of feet, but Jimin felt it like a vibration in the air. The alpha's brows bumped together, confusion clear as day on his face—those dark eyes narrowing slightly, jaw tightening just enough to betray the questions swirling behind them—but he stayed quiet, shoulders squared in that disciplined way of his, hands clasped loosely behind his back like he was waiting for further instruction.

By the time people drifted off to their respective tasks, the shift in the pack’s energy had already been noticed, a subtle undercurrent rippling through the group like a stone dropped in still water. Jimin felt it like pressure between his shoulder blades—looks that lingered a fraction too long from Hoseok as he slung his pack over one shoulder, conversations that stalled mid-sentence when he passed by the tool shed, voices dropping to whispers that scraped against his nerves. But he kept moving, boots crunching over the gravel path that wound toward the greenhouse, the stones biting into the soles of his worn boots. 

The air was crisp, carrying the sharp tang of pine from the distant treeline—Jeongguk's scent, faint but insistent, threading through the breeze like a reminder he couldn't escape. His mind raced with justifications: the greenhouse soil needed turning, the seedlings were wilting under the erratic sun, it was practical, necessary.

“Slow down and walk with us, Jimin.”

Jimin slowed at the voice and turned, finding Namjoon and Yoongi smoothly flanking him with an ease that made it clear this wasn’t a suggestion in the slightest—their strides syncing with his as if they'd planned it, the taller alpha's presence a steady wall on one side, Yoongi's quieter intensity on the other. He adjusted the strap of his rifle where it dug into his shoulder, the leather creaking under his fingers, and fell into step without comment, the gravel giving way to packed dirt as they veered slightly off the main path, the farmhouse shrinking behind them.

“You switched your task from horse care,” Namjoon said after a moment, eyes forward, his voice even but probing, the words hanging in the air like they expected an elaboration.

“The greenhouse needed my hands,” Jimin replied, his tone steady and neutral, though he knew exactly what was coming next, the knot in his stomach twisting tighter. 

He wasn’t scared of the two alphas—they all saw each other as equals, scars and shared battles forging that bond—but he couldn’t deny feeling like he was about to get scolded like he was their younger brother, the weight of their concern pressing in, and he was not in the mood to hear any of it, not when his thoughts were a tangle of guilt and resolve, the phantom taste of Jeongguk's mouth still lingering like a forbidden secret. The path ahead blurred slightly in his vision, the greenhouse's glass panes glinting in the distance, a fragile sanctuary he hoped would hold the chaos at bay, if only for a few hours.

“And you decided it was a good idea to put Areum on horse care knowing how she is around them,” Yoongi added, gaze sharp beneath the brim of his cap. “Especially with Cheol.”

Cheol was big even by the farm’s standards—thick through the neck and chest, muscle laid dense beneath a dark, weather-slick coat that caught the lamplight like oil, gleaming with a restless energy that set Jimin's instincts on edge every time he approached. His shoulders were powerful, broad enough to carry a rider through rough terrain without faltering, his hindquarters packed solid with strength meant for hauling weight and covering ground fast, a coiled force that thrummed under Jimin's palms when he laid hands on him. 

Everything about the horse suggested momentum held barely in check, a wildness tamed only by will, not submission. He wasn’t skittish, and he wasn’t stupid—Cheol watched people the way Jimin watched strangers at the perimeter, head angled just so, ears flicking with calculated interest, attention sharp even when he looked bored, those dark eyes assessing weaknesses before a single hoof shifted. The stallion tested hands deliberately, leaning into pressure until it bordered on shove, ignoring gentle coaxing with a snort that dismissed it as weakness, pushing back just to see who would flinch, who would yield first.

Most people did.

He remembered the first time he'd tried to ride him, the sun beating down on the yard like it did now, the pack gathered loosely at the edges, their murmurs a low hum as Jimin swung up into the saddle. Cheol had tolerated the mounting for a heartbeat, muscles bunching under the leather, then bucked him clean off before his boots had found any kind of rhythm—a sudden twist of power that launched Jimin through the air, the world inverting in a blur of sky and dirt. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, pain exploding across his ribs and shoulder, the impact jarring his teeth as gravel bit into his skin through his shirt.

Voices had gone up immediately—Hoseok swearing under his breath as he lunged forward, Seokjin already reaching for the reins with a curse, ready to declare the horse a lost cause and drag Jimin away before he pushed too far. But Jimin waved them off before anyone could touch him, his hand cutting through the air in a sharp gesture that brooked no argument, even as stars danced at the edges of his vision and his chest heaved for air. He stayed down only long enough to make sure nothing was broken, probing his side with careful fingers, the ache blooming but not crippling, then got up without a word, brushing the dirt from his clothes with palms that stung from the fall. There was no punishment in it, no raised voice or sharp correction—just a quiet, watchful patience that seemed to irritate Cheol more than anger ever could, the horse's ears flattening as Jimin met his gaze steadily, unblinking, refusing to let the rejection define them.

He led Cheol back to the stall as if nothing had happened, the rope firm but not tight in his grip, the stallion's steps heavy and resentful beside him, but Jimin didn't flinch, didn't pull away. That night, long after the barn had gone still—the creak of floorboards fading, the distant clatter from the kitchen dying to snores and silence—Jimin came back alone, the cool air off the fields raising goosebumps on his arms as he slipped through the side door. He didn’t bring a saddle, didn't need the false security of it; this was about trust forged in the raw, without crutches. The packed earth of the aisle muffled his boots as he approached the stall, posture straight and unyielding, his omega senses attuned to the shift in the air, the faint musk of hay and horse sweat thickening as he neared.

Cheol swung his head around sharply at the intrusion, ears pinning back flat against his skull, muscle coiling along his flanks as if ready to throw him again, a low rumble building in his throat that vibrated through the wooden dividers. But Jimin didn’t back away—couldn't, not when backing down felt too much like surrendering to the chaos inside himself, the way Jeongguk's scent still haunted his dreams, pulling at instincts he fought to chain. He slowly stepped closer instead, each footfall measured until they were standing close enough that Cheol could feel him fully—his heat radiating steady, his weight planted firm, the stubborn refusal to give ground that lived in his bones, a quiet defiance born of too many battles lost to impulse.

Jimin reached up and set a firm hand against Cheol’s neck, fingers curling into the dense muscle, not soothing with soft strokes, not hesitant with tentative pats, but holding, grounding, a pressure that demanded reciprocity. “Enough,” he said quietly, but firmly, the word carrying the weight of his exhaustion, the undercurrent of his own frustrations with the pack's unraveling edges, with the alpha who watched him now from afar, confusion etching lines on his face that Jimin pretended not to see.

Cheol tossed his head once, a sharp jerk that tested the hold, blew out a long, frustrated breath that warmed Jimin's face, hot and damp, then went still. The tension didn’t disappear so much as shift, redirected into something watchful instead of combative, the horse's eyes locking onto his with a wary intelligence that mirrored Jimin's guarded heart. Jimin moved with it, not rushing to claim victory, not yielding an inch, his breath syncing slowly with the rise and fall of Cheol's sides. When he swung up bareback—no saddle to buffer, no reins to rely on—the stallion stiffened under him, every sinew taut as he tested the weight, waiting for the mistake, the flinch that would justify rebellion. Jimin didn’t make one; he settled his thighs against the broad back, hands resting light on the withers, his balance a testament to the control he clung to amid his inner storm, the memory of Jeongguk's grip flashing unbidden, strong and desperate.

They stood like that for a long moment, horse and rider balanced on nothing but mutual stubbornness, the barn's shadows lengthening around them, the only sound Cheol's steady breathing and the distant hoot of an owl outside. Then Cheol finally took a step, then another, his gait reluctant but even, hooves thudding softly against the straw. He didn’t like it—tail flicking irritably, a soft whinny of protest escaping—but he accepted it, and that was enough, a fragile accord that eased the knot in Jimin's chest just a fraction. By the time Jimin slid back down and left the barn again, the night air cooler now against his sweat-damp skin, something had settled between them that neither of them felt the need to name—a understanding forged in persistence, much like the one he denied with Jeongguk, even as it pulled at him relentlessly.

From then on, Cheol tolerated very few hands besides Jimin's, and even that came with conditions. He still tested on bad days, still stamped and tossed his head when he felt like pushing, but he stood steady for Jimin's touch. He let him work his hooves, iron-shod and heavy, lifting each one without a fight once Jimin gripped the pastern firm. He carried him without protest, broad back rising and falling in a rhythm that matched the ground's uneven roll, muscles bunching under Jimin's thighs like coiled springs held in check. Stubborn met stubborn, and neither yielded first.

Jimin's jaw flexed, teeth grinding against the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t hear her complain at all.”

That earned him a look—quick and unimpressed. Namjoon stopped walking, arms folding across his chest, the fabric of his jacket pulling tight over his shoulders. Jimin took two more steps before he noticed, boots crunching on the gravel path, the morning chill seeping through his sleeves. He turned back, irritation flickering hot and bright in his chest, coiling like a wire ready to snap.

“You know she gets nervous around the horses,” Namjoon said calmly. “Especially with that stubborn little shit.”

“Which is exactly why she needs exposure,” Jimin shot back. “Avoiding it doesn’t help anyone.”

‘What, like how you’re avoiding Jeongguk, you hypocrite?’ Jimin’s supplied unhelpfully. But the thought vanished quickly, buried under the defensiveness surging up, making his pulse thud heavy in his ears.

 “Jeongguk’s new. Learning with someone else like Areum might—”

“Might what,” Yoongi asked quietly.

Jimin held his gaze. “Might be easier for him, as well as Areum.”

Silence settled, still very much thick and disapproving. Namjoon rubbed a hand over his mouth, then let it drop to his side. 

“I don’t care what this is,” he said, still level, but there was an edge there now. “But it’s affecting the pack. I’ll let it slide once. Once, Jimin. I trust you’re not going to continue to let this get out of hand.”

Jimin’s posture went rigid, spine straightening until the muscles in his back pulled taut, the rifle's weight suddenly heavier against his shoulder. The implication hung there, heavy as the morning mist, stirring a churn in his gut he couldn't quite name—frustration, maybe, or something sharper, like betrayal from the one who'd always had his back.

“You need to sort out whatever's going on between you and Jeongguk,” Namjoon continued, eyes locking on Jimin's without flinching. 

“Because your behavior,” he gestured back toward the yard, arm sweeping wide enough to stir the air—“isn’t leadership. It’s avoidance, and I’ve never seen you act this childish.”

Childish. The word hit like a slap, stinging across Jimin's skin, heat flooding his cheeks even as his expression stayed carefully blank. He felt it twist inside, a raw flash of offense that made his vision narrow, breath catching shallow in his throat. Yoongi shifted his weight beside Namjoon, his eyes flicking to Jimin with that quiet watchfulness, like he could see the storm brewing under the surface.

Jimin didn't respond right away. His fingers flexed at his sides, nails digging half-moons into his palms, grounding him until the fury simmered to something colder, more contained.

“Understood,” Jimin said after a beat, voice steady, though it took effort to keep the bite out.

Namjoon studied him another second, gaze searching, then nodded once, sharp and final. He turned away, boots thudding back into motion toward the farmhouse, Yoongi following behind with one last glance over his shoulder—lingering, assessing, before he looked ahead. They split off without another word, their forms blurring into the haze as the path curved.

Jimin stood there for a moment longer than necessary, the world narrowing to the shaky rise and fall of his chest, the faint tremor in his hands he forced still. The irritation lingered like smoke, curling cold in his veins, but he swallowed it down, turning toward the greenhouse alone, steps measured and heavy on the uneven ground.

When the afternoon came, and Jimin had already settled into the rhythm of his tasks, the horses made their displeasure known.

Dirt clung beneath his nails as he thinned seedlings and checked the irrigation lines, movements precise enough that he could let his mind go quiet if he wanted to. Steam fogged the panels overhead, sunlight diffused into a dull glow that blurred the edges of the world, turning the rows of green into a hazy stretch of order. Working in the greenhouse always seemed to feel grounding for Jimin, dulling his racing thoughts into a low buzz, the earthy scent of soil and damp leaves wrapping around him like a buffer against the sharper edges of the day—Namjoon's words still echoing faintly, that accusation of childishness twisting in his gut like a dull knife.

A sharp sound, loud and wrong, cut through it this time, startling him. The scrape of hooves on packed earth, followed by a quick, breathless shout that carried across the yard. Jimin straightened slowly, hand stilling on the plant tray in front of him, fingers dusted with soil that flaked off as he paused. Another sound followed, closer this time—a nervous voice, strained thin, then a horse snorting hard enough that it echoed even through the greenhouse walls, the vibration humming in his chest.

He told himself to finish the row. Told himself that Areum knew the basics, that Cheol had been handled in a much worse manner than this back when the horse first arrived, wild-eyed and snapping at anyone who came near. Stepping in now would only underline the point Namjoon was already making for him, that his avoidance was bleeding into everything, making him question his own judgment. But the crash of something hitting the ground—a bucket, maybe, metal clanging against dirt—made the decision for him

Jimin shoved the greenhouse door open and stepped out just in time to see it happen, the heavy door banging shut behind him with a thud that matched the pounding in his veins.

A bucket of soapy water lay on its side, contents spilling out onto the dirt next to Cheol’s hind legs, foaming pale against the dark earth. Areum stood too close to the paddock rail, shoulders tight and posture pitched forward in a way Cheol had always hated—hesitant, like she was bracing for the wrong kind of fight. Her voice carried again—too quick, too unsure, words tumbling out in a rush that set Jimin's teeth on edge—and Cheol responded the way he always did when he sensed nervous hesitation. His ears pinned back flat against his skull, body shifting sideways in a sudden burst of power that kicked dirt into the air, clods flying like shrapnel.

“Areum—” Jimin started, already moving.

She reached out anyway, hand extending toward the lead rope in a desperate grab.

Cheol lurched, the shove more careless and dismissive than cruel, but the force behind it was unforgiving—his massive shoulder rolling like a wave, sending her stumbling. Areum lost her footing and went down hard, palms slapping against the dirt as the air left her in a sharp, panicked gasp, her body folding awkwardly on impact. Time did something strange in that second. Jimin saw the fall with brutal clarity—the way her knees buckled first, then her shoulder twisting at an ugly angle as she hit, the split-second where Cheol’s weight shifted again, hooves pawing the ground inches from her sprawled form, and it could have gone so much worse, a stomp that might have crushed bone.

“Hey!”

Jeongguk moved, no hesitation in his stride as he caught the lead and stepped into Cheol’s space, body angled and grounded the way Jimin had drilled into him weeks ago during those long, tense sessions in the yard—back when things between them weren't laced with this heavy silence. His voice cut through the noise, low and steady, carrying none of Areum’s strain, rumbling deep like it was meant to settle the air itself.

“Easy,” Jeongguk murmured, one hand firm at Cheol’s neck, fingers pressing into the thick muscle there as he began to press the horse away from Areum, guiding him with that unwavering calm. To Jimin’s surprise—and a flicker of something unwelcome, like resentment mixed with reluctant admiration—Cheol listened, snorting once more as he took a few steps back, ears flicking forward just a fraction.

“Hey, dude. Easy now, don’t be rude.”

Cheol tossed his head once, muscles bunching under his dark coat, then stilled under Jeongguk’s touch with a huff of breath, hot and heavy in the still air. The tension bled out of him in visible degrees, weight settling back onto all four hooves as if he’d simply decided the fight wasn’t worth it, his sides heaving with the remnants of adrenaline. Areum stayed where she was for a moment, palms still pressed to the ground, eyes wide and glassy, dirt streaking her cheeks and palms raw from the scrape.

Jeongguk dropped to a crouch immediately, free hand hovering near Areum without touching her until she looked up, his expression tight but focused, the scent of him—sweat and earth and that underlying alpha edge—cutting through the paddock's sharper smells of manure and dust. Jimin slowed his approach, the sight of Jeongguk there, competent and close.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Take a breath. You okay?”

Areum nodded, eyes still wide, breath coming back in uneven pulls. Jeongguk waited for it to steady before helping her up, careful and deliberate, his movements unhurried as he placed himself between her and Cheol without making a show of it, his broad frame a subtle barrier. When she swayed on her feet, knees wobbling from the shock, he caught her easily, grip firm at her elbow, steadying her weight without pulling her in too close.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, the words meant just for her, soft enough that they barely carried. “I’ve got him.”

Jimin stood a few yards away, boots planted firm in the dirt, hands curled at his sides into loose fists, nails digging half-moons into his palms. He could feel the heat rising in his face, not from the sun but from the knot twisting low in his gut—watching Jeongguk handle it all with that effortless calm, the same way he'd stepped in during the depot, ignoring every rule to pull Jimin back from the edge. Cheol stood calm now, head lowered, chewing thoughtfully at a patch of grass near the fence post, jaws working steadily as if nothing had happened, the crunch of it faint but insistent. The contrast made Jimin’s stomach twist sharper, a sour churn of frustration. Namjoon reached the paddock moments later, his long strides eating up the ground, eyes sweeping over Areum first—assessing the dirt-streaked clothes and the way she leaned into Jeongguk's support—then Cheol, then Jeongguk, taking in the scene with that quiet authority that always made Jimin feel exposed.

“Areum, are you hurt?” Namjoon asked, already kneeling to inspect the muddied patches of dirt on her clothes, his hands gentle but thorough, brushing away grit from her sleeve.

“No,” Areum said quickly, though her hands still shook, fingers trembling as she flexed them. “Just—got a little bruised up.”

“Shit. Okay, that’s enough for today,” Namjoon said gently, his voice softening the edges of his concern as he rose. “Go get some rest.”

Jeongguk nodded along at the alpha’s words, a subtle dip of his chin, keeping a hand at Areum’s elbow as he walked her back toward the farmhouse at an unhurried pace, matching her shorter steps. Cheol trailed calm and compliant behind him, the lead loose in Jeongguk's other hand, as he wrapped it carefully around one of the fence posts, securing it with a practiced twist. When they reached the gate, Jeongguk paused, glancing off to the side. His eyes found Jimin immediately, who was still stuck in place a few feet away from the paddock, rooted by the weight of his own inaction. There was no accusation in the look, just a quiet, searching question—dark eyes holding his for a beat too long, probing without words, like he could see the storm Jimin was burying. Jimin refused to answer it, jaw tightening as he looked away first, the pull in his chest aching like an old bruise flaring under pressure.

Namjoon straightened and turned to Jimin, beckoning him over with a tilt of his head, the motion carrying the full weight of expectation.

“You saw that coming,” he sighed, unwrapping the lead from the post and handing it over to Jimin before stepping aside, the rope warm and rough against his skin.

Jimin’s jaw flexed, words rising hot and defensive on his tongue. “I—”

“Finish your greenhouse work,” Namjoon cut him off, voice firm but laced with that rare undercurrent of disappointment. “Then tonight, you take over horse care duties. You’ll train Jeongguk yourself.”

His gaze sharpened, pinning Jimin in place. “I don’t like piling work on you, Jimin, but this is a product of your own doing. No more switching.”

Jimin nodded once, short and sharp. “Understood.”

Shit. By the disappointed expression on Namjoon’s face—a look Jimin rarely ever saw directed towards him, soft eyes hardening just enough to sting—he’d really messed up, the realization settling heavy in his chest like lead and amplifying the guilt already gnawing at him.

He found Areum in the infirmary a little over two hours later, the air inside thick with the sharp tang of antiseptic and herbal salve, sunlight slanting through the narrow window in dusty beams. She was sitting on the edge of one of the cots with her boots kicked off beneath it, knees bare except for a thin blanket draped loosely over them like she hadn’t bothered to settle into the cot properly, her posture curled in on itself. 

A shallow scrape along her forearm had already been cleaned and wrapped in clean gauze—the skin around it was starting to darken, bruises blooming beneath the surface in ugly purple shadows that made Jimin's throat tighten. She looked shaken, but intact, color returning slowly to her cheeks. He paused just inside the doorway, the wooden frame cool against his shoulder, the faint creak of the floor under his weight announcing him. Areum noticed him a moment later and straightened, surprise flickering across her face—eyes widening briefly—before easing into something softer, relieved. 

“Hi,” she said, softer than usual, her voice still carrying a faint tremor. “Namjoon-oppa figured you might come by.”

Jimin stepped into the room and let the door fall shut behind him with a soft click, the sound sealing them in the quiet space. He crossed the room slowly, boots scuffing lightly on the worn floorboards, eyes flicking to the bandage on her arm— the white stark against her skin, a reminder of his failure to step in sooner—before he looked away again, guilt twisting fresh. His hands slid into his pockets, thumbs catching on the seams of the fabric like he didn’t trust them to stay still otherwise, fingers itching to reach out but holding back, the air between them heavy with unspoken apologies.

“I shouldn’t have made you work with the horses,” Jimin said with no preamble, the words spilling out before he could second-guess them, his voice low in the confined space of the infirmary. “I don’t know why I did that.”

He’d known better, had felt the unease in his gut when he’d reassigned her duties, but he’d pushed it down, buried it under layers of avoidance and the desperate need to keep Jeongguk at arm’s length. It hadn’t fixed anything; it had only rippled out, bruising the pack in ways he couldn’t ignore.

Areum opened her mouth, then hesitated, her lips parting on a soft exhale, eyes searching his face with that quiet perceptiveness she always had. “Oppa—”

“That was my call,” he went on, voice steady even as something tight pulled behind his ribs, a vise squeezing his breath short, making each inhale feel labored. “I knew Cheol would be an issue, and I knew you weren’t comfortable with him. I let it go anyway.”

She studied him for a second, brows knitting together in that thoughtful furrow, then let out a slow breath, the sound easing the tension in her shoulders just a fraction. “I’m not hurt,” she said, her tone gentle but firm, meeting his gaze without flinching. “Just a tiny bit rattled.”

“I know,” he replied, the words quieter now, laced with the weight of his regret. “That doesn’t change anything—it doesn’t make my decision okay.” He could feel the heat creeping up his neck. As the second-in-command, he was supposed to be the steady one, the fixer, not the cause of fractures.

The room settled into a quiet that wasn’t sharp, just weighted. Areum shifted slightly on the cot, the blanket rustling softly against her knees, the fabric whispering in the stillness. Jimin’s eyes traced the motion involuntarily, noting the way her bare skin peeked through, unmarked except for the blooming bruise on her arm—a visual echo of his failure that made his fingers twitch in his pockets.

“I didn’t think you’d do it out of—” she started, then stopped, her words trailing off as if she’d caught herself on the edge of something delicate. “I mean... I figured you had a reason. You always do.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened. “I did, but I realize now that it just wasn’t worth it.”

That earned a small, crooked huff from her, a spark of her usual lightness breaking through. “Wow,” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting in a wry smile “Self-awareness moment before three a.m.? This is something serious.”

He huffed back, brief and humorless, the sound scraping out of his throat like gravel. “Don’t get used to it.” Then he stepped forward, the floorboards creaking under his boot, and patted her knee lightly through the blanket—his touch brief, almost hesitant, but genuine. As adverse to affection as he was, the pack omegas and pups would always hold a soft spot in his heart, a quiet vulnerability he guarded fiercely, like a crack in his armor that only they could slip through without consequence.

“I’m serious,” he said after a second, his hand lingering just a beat longer before pulling away, the warmth of the contact fading too quickly. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

She nodded once, eyes drifting toward her folded hands as she accepted it, fingers interlacing in her lap with a subtle squeeze. “Apology accepted.”

Relief didn’t rush in like a flood; it just loosened something in his chest, enough for him to breathe easier, the vise easing its grip by a fraction. He stood there a moment longer, the air between them settling into something softer, less charged.

After a moment, she smiled softly, hands smoothing the blanket across her lap as she stared at it shyly, her lashes casting faint shadows on her cheeks. “For what it’s worth, Jeongguk handled Cheol really well. He didn’t rush me or panic at all when that little shit knocked me over. Honestly, I was so shocked that he was able to keep him steady until I could get out of the way.”

“I saw,” Jimin said quietly, the words tasting bitter, his mind flashing back to the paddock.

Areum watched his face for a beat longer than necessary, her gaze sharpening with that omega intuition that always saw too much. “You and him,” she said, not in an accusing manner, but rather an observant one, her voice gentle as if handling fragile glass. “You should probably sort that out. Everyone can tell, and it’s starting to get to be a bit much.”

Jimin turned toward the door, hand bracing briefly against the frame, the rough wood grounding him as his pulse thrummed in his ears. He could feel her eyes on his back, patient and knowing, but he couldn’t face it, not now, not when sorting it out meant confronting the pull that threatened to unravel everything he’d built.

“You focus on resting,” he said, his tone firmer than intended, laced with the edge of deflection. “That’s an order.”

She chuckled lightly, the sound warm and forgiving, cutting through the heaviness like sunlight. “Sure, oppa. I will just for you.”

Jimin pushed the door open, stepping into the dim hallway without looking back, the click of it shutting behind him echoing in his chest as he walked away, the weight of her words settling deeper, urging him toward a confrontation he both craved and dreaded.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Outside, the afternoon had started to sink toward the evening, the sun dipping low enough that its light slanted golden across the yard, pulling long shadows from the fences and the scattered tools left to cool. The air cooled with it, carrying the faint bite of approaching night, while the farm settled into its usual rhythms—tools returned to hooks with metallic clinks, voices thinning to murmurs from the kitchen, the slow shuffle of boots toward dinner prep. Jimin walked it off the way he always did, measured pace, eyes forward, jaw set against the churn in his gut that hadn't eased since the paddock, since Areum's fall and the way Jeongguk's steady hands had cut through the chaos like they owned it. The image lingered, a sharp reminder of the pull he was fighting, the one that made his skin prickle even now, hours later. He kept himself busy until there was nothing left to busy himself with—checking latches on the gate, stacking crates in the shed, anything to drown out the echo of her words in the infirmary, the quiet nudge toward sorting things with him that felt like a shove into the void.

He ate quickly and without much thought, the food tasteless on his tongue as he sat at the edge of the table, fork scraping plate in rhythm with the low hum of pack chatter. He cleaned his plate out of habit, nodded through conversation without really hearing it—Namjoon's rundown of tomorrow's patrols, Seokjin's dry quip about ration portions—his mind elsewhere, tangled in the what-ifs of that kiss, the depot's dust still ghosting his senses. When the barn lights flicked on at dusk, their warm glow spilling out like an invitation he couldn't refuse, he was already moving, slipping away before anyone could catch the strain in his shoulders or the way his gaze flicked toward the door Jeongguk might walk through.

He didn’t wait.

The barn was already warm when Jimin stepped inside, the air thick with hay and the earthy scent of animals, a comforting musk that wrapped around him like an old coat. Dust drifted lazily through the lamplight overhead, catching in the beams like slow snowfall, motes dancing in the hazy glow that pushed back the encroaching dark. Bora lifted her head from her stall as he passed, ears pricking forward in that familiar alert twitch, her soft whinny cutting through the quiet like a question. Eun, right beside her, answered with a low huff, one hoof scraping impatiently against the dirt-packed floor, the sound gritty and insistent.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimin murmured, the words slipping out soft and automatic as he set his tools down on the worn workbench, the metal clanging lightly against wood scarred from years of use. 

His fingers flexed, calluses brushing the handles, grounding him in the tactile rhythm that always pulled him back from the edge. Bora went first. She was steady in that calm way that came from years of repetition and trust, her body yielding to his touch without resistance, a quiet partnership that mirrored the control he craved in everything else. Jimin worked through her hooves methodically, fingers sure as he lifted each leg, the soft scrape of the blade steady against the quiet sounds of the barn—the distant rustle of straw, the occasional snort from the other stalls. The work was meditative, each trim and clean a deliberate act that quieted the storm in his chest, pushing thoughts of Jeongguk's assessing gaze or Taehyung's vulnerable confessions to the periphery, if only for a moment.

Eun, a few years younger than Bora, put up more of a fuss—tail flicking in sharp arcs, ears swiveling toward every small noise—but even she quieted once Jimin pressed a steady palm against her flank, the warmth of her hide seeping through his skin, solid and alive under his hand.

“Don’t start,” he told her in a mild tone. “You know better, you little brat.”

She blew out a breath, warm against his arm, and settled, her resistance melting into acceptance as he finished the job, the tension in his own shoulders easing a notch with the satisfaction of completion.

By the time he finished, the knot of the day's regrets had loosened just enough, the work doing what it always did—pulling him into the moment whether he wanted it to or not, a forced immersion that dulled the edges of his longing and shame. He rinsed his tools under the spigot, the cold water shocking his skin as he wiped them clean with a rag that smelled faintly of oil and earth, then set them back in their place on the pegboard, the familiar order a small victory against the chaos threatening to spill over. Only one stall remained. Cheol watched him approach with dark, assessing eyes, unblinking in the lamplight, that steady stare holding a mirror to Jimin's own guarded resolve.

Cheol stood square in the stall, weight settled easy on all four legs, his dark coat catching the lamplight in a muted sheen that spoke of endurance rather than polish. It wasn’t glossy in a pampered way—there were old scars along his flank, faint white lines etched from battles long past, dust worked into the hair at his knees from the yard's grit—but there was something undeniably striking about him all the same, a raw presence that demanded respect without fanfare. His mane hung thick and heavy along his neck, black with faint brown threading through it, the kind that never stayed neatly brushed for long, wild edges curling in the humid air. Power sat on him naturally, not sharp or showy, just there, contained and patient, much like the alpha Jimin was trying so hard to avoid, the one whose strength had saved him once and now haunted every quiet corner of his mind.

He didn’t crowd the gate or pin his ears like he sometimes did with others, no flare of temper or retreat into the shadows. He just stood there, head slightly lowered, eyes sharp and assessing, locking onto Jimin's with an intensity, a silent challenge wrapped in patience. Jimin stopped just inside the stall and rested a hand on the latch, the cool metal biting into his palm as he let the moment stretch before he reached for him, the air between them thick with unspoken negotiation, much like the fragile standoff he carried inside himself.

“You done being dramatic today,” he asked quietly, “or am I in for it?”

Cheol snorted, the sound rumbling deep from his chest, stamping once with a hoof that thudded heavily against the barn floors, sending a faint puff of dust into the air. His ears flicked back in a quick warning twitch, then forward again, alert and weighing. Jimin stepped closer anyway, the warmth of the horse's body radiating against his skin like a living furnace, cutting through the barn's lingering chill. He let his hand settle against Cheol’s shoulder, fingers spreading through the coarse hair there, feeling the solid muscle shift beneath. The contact was grounding, an anchor against the day's unresolved edges—the way Areum's fall replayed in his mind, the flicker of Jeongguk's competence that both irked and drew him in. 

Cheol shifted his weight, testing, just a little—enough to see if Jimin would move, a quiet push against the boundary they both knew was there. Jimin didn’t, his stance firm, breath steady as he held the line, refusing to yield to the horse's probe any more than he would to the insistent tug of his own tangled emotions

“You’re fine,” Jimin went on, voice low and conversational, the words slipping out like a ritual to ease the air between them. “You always are, you big idiot.”

The horse’s head tipped, breath warm against Jimin’s arm, carrying the faint, musky tang of hay and exertion. For a second, it felt like a standoff—two stubborn creatures measuring each other, Cheol's dark gaze locking with Jimin's in a wordless exchange that echoed the careful distances he enforced with everyone else. Then Cheol sighed, a deep, resigned sound that rumbled from his chest, and let his weight settle, the tension bleeding out like water from a cracked bucket.

“That’s better,” Jimin murmured, the quiet approval warming something tight in his own chest, a small win in the endless negotiation of trust and control.

When he lifted Cheol’s hoof, the horse hesitated again, just long enough to make a point, leg tensing in his grasp. Jimin waited him out, patient and calm, fingers steady on the fetlock. Eventually, Cheol relented, hoof heavy in his hands, the weight a familiar challenge he met without flinching. They worked like that—small negotiations, quiet concessions, each trim of the blade a step toward equilibrium. Jimin continued to talk as he trimmed, not to fill the silence, but enough to keep the rhythm between them steady, his voice a low thread weaving through the scrape of metal on keratin.

“You nearly flattened Areum,” he said, not accusing, just stating the fact. “She scares too easily, and you know that, you big bully.”

Cheol flicked an ear, the movement dismissive.

“Doesn’t mean you get to throw your weight around,” Jimin added. “You don’t like it when people do it to you either.”

The hypocrisy of it stung faintly—Jeongguk's disregard for orders at the depot, the way it had upended everything, leaving Jimin caught between gratitude and resentment. Who was he to lecture on boundaries when his own felt like they were fraying at the seams?

The horse snorted again, softer this time. By the time Jimin finished, Cheol stood relaxed, head low, eyes half-lidded in the dim glow, the earlier wariness dissolved into easy acceptance. Jimin gave his neck a final scratch, chuckling lightly as Cheol’s eyes slowly drifted shut, the vibration of a contented rumble under his palm chasing away the last of the afternoon's shadows from his thoughts.

“Good,” he said. “That’s all I wanted.”

Jimin exhaled, the breath leaving him in a slow release, and reached for the last tool as the barn doors opened and slid shut behind him. 

Wood met wood with a muted thud, the latch catching with a soft, final click that echoed faintly through the space, slicing the quiet like a blade. Jimin didn’t turn right away, his grip tightening on the handle until the leather bit into his palm, shoulders squaring instinctively as a fresh wave of awareness prickled his skin. Cheol lifted his head, ears angling sharply toward the sound, the shift in the horse's posture mirroring the sudden coil in Jimin's gut—the instinctive brace against intrusion, against the one presence he wasn't ready to face. 

Jeongguk cleared his throat. It wasn’t loud, but it cut clean through the quiet, a deliberate note that hung in the air, pulling Jimin's focus like a tether he both dreaded and craved.

“So that’s it,” he said. “You just… couldn’t be bothered?”

Only then did Jimin straighten and turn slowly, one hand still resting on Cheol’s neck. The horse shifted but didn’t pull away, his warmth seeping through Jimin's palm like a silent ally in the thickening tension. Jeongguk stood just inside the doors, the lamplight catching on his shoulders and the quiet determination etched into his face, sharpening the lines that Jimin had traced in stolen glances before shoving them from his mind. He took a few steps in, boots crunching softly in the straw, each sound a measured advance. His arms hung loose at his sides, hands flexing once before he shoved them into his pockets like he didn’t trust them not to shake—a vulnerability that twisted something sharp in Jimin's chest.

“I told Namjoon I’d handle it tonight,” Jimin said, keeping his voice flat and controlled, even as his pulse kicked up under his skin. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, he said for you to show me, not do it yourself.”

The alpha’s gaze moved, tracking the details around him—the rasp, the bucket, the neat line of trimmed hooves already cleaned and oiled, glinting dully in the low light. Bora and Eun stood quiet in their stalls, heads low, half asleep, their steady breathing a counterpoint to the storm brewing in Jimin's veins. Cheol watched Jeongguk intently now, nostrils flaring once before he blew out a breath and looked away again, as if dismissing the intruder with the same wary indifference Jimin forced upon himself. Jimin felt the horse's subtle tension transfer to him, a mirror to the knot twisting low in his gut—the unwanted awareness of Jeongguk's scent filtering through the barn's thicker smells, sharp and insistent.

“I figured you’d at least show me,” he went on, voice steady in that way that Jimin could tell that it was taking effort for him to maintain. “After today—after Areum got knocked on her ass because you decided switching assignments was a good idea.”

Jimin’s jaw set, teeth grinding together as the words landed like a swing he saw coming but couldn't dodge. The image of Areum sprawled in the dirt flashed—her wide eyes, the tremor in her hands—and guilt coiled tighter, mixing with the resentment bubbling up at Jeongguk's tone, like he had any right to call him out when his own choices had nearly cost everything at the depot. 

“She’s not hurt.”

“I know,” Jeongguk shot back. “I walked her back myself.”

That earned him a look, brief and sharp, before Jimin turned his back to Jeongguk again, fixing his eyes on the stall's weathered planks. He didn’t want to look at the alpha, didn’t want to see the concern laced with accusation that would only amplify the knot of regret twisting inside him.

“She was scared,” Jeongguk added, quieter now the words dropping softer but no less piercing. “She was shaking so hard she could barely keep the lead steady. Kept apologizing to me like she was the one that screwed up.”

Jimin looked down at the straw, the scattered bits blurring as his grip on the rasp shifted, knuckles whitening against the worn wood. The weight of it all pressed in—Areum's fear, his own evasion, the way Jeongguk's protectiveness for a pack he barely knew both soothed and stung.

“She shouldn’t have been put in that position,” Jeongguk said. “And you know it.”

“If you’re here to lecture me, you can fuck right off. I know what happened—I saw it. I spoke to Areum, this situation has been handled, and it’d be in your best interest to keep your mouth shut before you spew more shit you don’t know about.” Jimin grit through his teeth.

Silence stretched, filled by the soft stamp of Cheol’s hoof, a rhythmic punctuation that grounded Jimin as his heart hammered. He reached up and slid his hand along the horse’s neck again, the coarse strands grounding him in the familiar texture, a momentary shield against the alpha's gaze boring into his back.

“Easy,” he murmured, the word as much for himself as for Cheol.

Jeongguk took another step, stopping just short of the stall. His eyes flicked to Cheol—how relaxed he was, how he stood square and steady with Jimin so close. He let out a short breath through his nose, something like disbelief creeping into his expression, brows furrowing as he took in the scene.

“I don’t get it,” Jeongguk said, and this time the frustration edged through despite his control. “You can spend an hour arguing with a stubborn horse that weighs nearly a ton, but with me—” He stopped, exhaled, scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “You won’t even look at me, let alone talk to me.”

Jimin sighed, setting the rasp aside with a soft clink against the wooden edge of the stall. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” Jeongguk asked.

He stepped closer, stopping just outside Cheol’s space, close enough that Jimin could feel the heat radiating off him in waves, cutting through the barn's cooler drafts like an unwelcome fire. Jimin could smell the spiking trace of pine smoke that hadn’t faded despite the days that had passed, cutting through the barn's musty layers and settling deep in his lungs. It was sharper now, edged with something urgent, and Jimin fought the instinctive pull it exerted, the way it made his skin prickle and his breath hitch.

Jeongguk swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing visibly in the dim light. “You won’t train me,” Jeongguk said. “You won’t talk to me. You won’t even tell me what you want me to do differently.”

His eyes lifted then, locking onto Jimin's with an intensity that pinned him in place, dark and searching, stripping away the pretense of the task at hand. Jimin felt exposed under that stare. 

“But you kissed me back.”

“You crossed a line,” Jimin responded just as quickly. Fuck. He really didn’t want Jeongguk to bring this up right now, not when the day's failures still gnawed at him, not when the barn's confines amplified every unspoken word into something heavier.

“Yeah,” Jeongguk nodded once, the motion sharp, conceding without retreat. “Yeah, that’s—I did.” He stepped even closer, following as Jimin led Cheol into his respective sleeping stall, the horse's hooves thudding softly against the packed earth, a steady rhythm that did little to drown out the alpha's pursuit. Cheol settled with a low snort, his massive form a temporary shield, but Jeongguk's presence loomed, undeterred.

“But you let me—hell, you even kissed back,” he continued, more insistent. “And that’s the part you seem to be convincing yourself didn’t happen.”

The barn felt smaller now, the air thick with dust and heat and everything Jimin had been pushing down all week. He reached for the hoof oil, fingers wrapping around the cool glass bottle just to have something to do, something solid to hold on to amid the unraveling. He could feel Jeongguk’s eyes boring holes into him, unwavering, tracing the line of his back, the set of his shoulders, and it took every ounce of will not to flinch under the scrutiny.

“I made a bad call today,” he said tightly, voice strained as he uncapped the bottle, the sharp scent of linseed rising to mix with the pine. “I get it, okay? Areum got hurt because of it, and that’s on me.”

“And the kiss?” Jeongguk asked, pressing forward without mercy.

Jimin didn’t answer, his throat closing around the words he couldn't voice, the silence stretching taut as he knelt to apply the oil, focusing on the task with forced precision, the slick glide over Cheol's hoof a distraction from the chaos inside.

“You gonna tell me that was a bad call too?” Jeongguk pressed, stepping nearer still, his shadow falling across Jimin's crouched form.

Jimin’s hand stilled on the bottle, the liquid sloshing faintly, and for a second he didn’t turn around, staring at the dark polish on the horse's hoof as if it held answers. He hated that words still did that to him—how they reached straight under his skin, igniting a spark that raced along his nerves, how his body reacted before his brain caught up, a flush creeping up his neck unbidden. Heat flared low in his stomach, sharp and unwelcome, a traitorous response that clashed with the guilt and duty anchoring him, and he ground his teeth until it dulled into something he could stand, barely. 

When he finally faced Jeongguk, rising slowly with the bottle clutched like a shield, his control was already fraying at the seams, threads of restraint pulling loose under the alpha's gaze.

“You want to talk about that?” Jimin snapped, the edge in his voice sharper than intended, laced with the frustration. “Fine.”

He stepped closer than he meant to, invading the space between them, close enough to see the faint line at the corner of Jeongguk’s mouth where he’d split it weeks ago, a scar that tugged at buried memories. His gaze caught there before he could stop it, dragged back to the recollection of teeth grazing skin, hot breath mingling, the way Jeongguk had tasted like cold air and pine, raw and intoxicating.

He hated that his pulse jumped, thudding visibly at his throat, betraying the storm raging beneath his skin.

“I don’t understand it,” Jimin said, sharper now, like anger could cauterize the thought before it spread further. “I don’t understand what you think you see in me.”

Jeongguk’s jaw worked as he looked away, tongue pressed against his cheek in a tic that Jimin was beginning to recognize all too well, a sign of the alpha's own restraint cracking. “What is that supposed to mean?”

‘It means I don’t know how you got under my skin,’ Jimin thought, the words echoing unspoken in his mind, a frantic whirl of confusion. ‘It means I don’t know when it started, and I don’t know how to make it stop.’

“It means that you don’t get to psychoanalyze me just because you’re good at being so pathetic,” he said instead. His voice cracked slightly on the last word, betraying the effort it took to remain composed. 

“You’ve only been here for a few months—you don’t know shit about how this place works, what it costs when people screw up, or what happens when someone decides their feelings matter more than everyone else’s lives.”

Jeongguk scoffed, the sound sharp and dismissive, slicing through the charged quiet like a blade. “So now it’s all about protocol again?”

“It’s about you,” Jimin shot back, voice rising despite himself, the volume amplifying the tremor in his chest. He felt it slipping, felt the line of resolve wobbling under his feet, threatening to buckle under the weight of everything unsaid. His palms itched with the urge to push Jeongguk away physically, to reclaim the space that felt increasingly invaded. 

“You act like feeling something gives you the right to decide things for me. Like risking everything based on feelings is somehow justified instead of reckless.”

Jeongguk took a sharp step forward. “I didn’t decide that lightly.”

“You decided it far too quickly, and that’s worse.”

The barn felt too small, the air swirling with the scent of hay and woodsmoke and now something else—Jeongguk’s scent intermingling with his as both orange blossom and pine filled the space. Jimin’s shoulders stiffened, every instinct screaming at him to put distance between them, to break the invisible tether drawing him in. Cheol shifted in his stall, ears pinning briefly before he settled again, sensing the tension but unwilling to intervene, his soft snort a faint echo in the confined air.

Jeongguk dragged a hand through his hair, breath coming quicker, ragged edges betraying the frustration simmering beneath his skin. “You think I don’t see how you look at me?” he demanded, eyes locking onto Jimin's with a ferocity that pinned him in place. “Like I’m some ticking bomb waiting to go off?”

‘Because you might be’, Jimin thought, the fear coiling cold and tight around his ribs, a reminder of the chaos one unchecked impulse could unleash on the pack. He opened his mouth, then stopped himself, the unspoken warning dying on his lips as his throat tightened. His silence only sharpened Jeongguk’s expression, turning the alpha's features into a mask of barely contained intensity.

“You’ve already made up your mind about me,” Jeongguk went on, voice rough. “That I’m just some problem that needs managing. Some risk you keep at arm’s length so you don’t have to actually deal with it.”

“That’s not—”

“It is,” Jeongguk cut in, overriding him without pause, his tone unyielding. “You won’t even let me try.”

Jimin’s laugh came out harsh and humorless. “Try what—getting close? That’s exactly the problem.”

Jeongguk’s lip curled as he bit back a frustrated growl, defiant and fed up. “I’m fucking trying to know you,” he bit back. “You won’t even stay in the same damn room with me. You switch assignments, dodge conversations, act like I don’t exist—and still you want to act like me being upset about all of this came out of nowhere?”

Jimin clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms, the sharp pinch a grounding pain amid the emotional storm. “You’re acting like whatever you’re feeling is mutual.”

Jeongguk stared at him, the gaze piercing, unflinching. “It is and you know it.”

Jimin felt the alpha’s words burrow into his ribs, lodging there like shards of glass, scraping against the tender spots he’d armored over years of necessity. They clawed up into his throat, thickening the air he tried to swallow, and pierced the vault he’d sealed shut after that kiss—because once cracked open, it had exposed him in ways that left him adrift, defenses in ruins. His gaze betrayed him, darting involuntarily to Jeongguk’s mouth, the curve of it too near, too etched in his memory from that stolen moment, pulling at threads he’d sworn to sever.

“You’d have to be blind not to feel it,” Jeongguk said, voice shaking with frustration. “The way you look at me and then look away. The way you tense every time I get close—no one just  freezes like that around people that don’t affect them in some kind of way—around someone they want.”

Jimin’s chest heaved as he took a step back, anger flashing hot, something he knew how to wield. “Don’t you dare tell me what I want.”

“Then just fucking say it,” Jeongguk fired back. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re working real hard to pretend this,” he gestured between them with a sharp sweep of his hand. “This doesn’t exist.”

Jimin’s control fractured, splintering under the pressure like dry timber under a boot. The dam he’d built against the flood of everything—resentment, longing, fear—gave way in an instant.

“I don’t get it,” he yelled, words tearing loose before he could stop them. “I don’t get why it’s me. You barely know me. You don’t know what I’ve done, what I’ve lost, what I’ve had to become to keep this place standing over the past six years.”

His voice shook now, and that indication of his composure finally slipping away scared him more than the kiss ever had. 

“So really, what the hell makes me so appealing to you?”

The question dangled in the air, stripped and aching, a plea masked as challenge. Jeongguk just continued to stare at him, chest rising and falling in heavy pulls, eyes searching Jimin’s face like he was seeing past the rank, past the sharp edges Jimin kept honed for a reason.

“I don’t need to know every piece of your past to feel what I feel,” Jeongguk said, his tone steadying into something earnest. “And I’m not asking you to be anything else or change. I’m asking you to stop treating me like some disaster you have to outrun.”

Jimin shook his head, breath coming in uneven hitches. “Indulging in these petty little feelings is exactly how people lose sight of what’s important. That’s how people get killed.”

“So does pretending they don’t exist,” Jeongguk responded, exasperated.

Silence crashed down between them again, heavy and vibrating. The barn lights hummed overhead, Cheol shifting again, hooves scraping softly against the stall floor. Every nerve ending buzzed, overcharged and raw, sending sparks across his skin that made him feel scorched from within. His flesh prickled over his frame, sensitized to the proximity, the air thickening until it pressed against him like an unyielding grip, laced with that insistent pine and heat that coiled around his senses, choking off clear thought. Jeongguk stepped back first, carving out the space with deliberate retreat. Jimin loathed the wave of relief that washed over him—and the keener pang of disappointment that twisted in its wake, sharp as a hidden thorn.

He turned without a word, stalking toward the back storage room, each step a bid for escape from the tangle of emotions threatening to drag him under.

Jimin needed space. He needed something to do—anything to slice through the clamor echoing in his skull, to temper the feverish rush still surging under his skin. He shoved the half-latched door open harder than intended, the wood rattling in protest, and stepped inside, where the air hung cooler and dimmer, shadows pooling in corners like forgotten secrets, offering a fleeting illusion that the world outside had paused.

Jeongguk followed. Not immediately, but close enough—the hesitation before his footsteps breached the threshold stretched just long enough to hint at caution, as if he sensed that one wrong move would bar him entirely.

“I’m not trying to get in your head,” Jeongguk said, voice low and stripped of its earlier edge.

Jimin didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the shadowed shelves instead, refusing to grant the alpha that foothold.

“I just want you to fucking talk to me.”

Still, no response. Jimin crouched near the feed barrels, checking the lids of all the containers with unnecessary precision.

“Fine,” Jeongguk muttered, the word laced with resignation. “Keep pretending not to hear me.” He paused for a brief second, the quiet stretching taut.

“You’re a fucking coward, just so you know.”

Jimin stood rigid, heart slamming against his sternum, a volatile mix of rage and something far more dangerous twisting together in his chest. He turned to face the alpha slowly, the motion deliberate, each inch a gathering storm that made his fingers itch to lash out—or grab hold.

“You can pull rank all you want, pretend this doesn’t exist, but it’s—I’m not going away just because you want to act like a petulant child.”

‘Oh, fuck this guy.’ 

The thought ignited like dry tinder, fueling the blaze that had been smoldering since Jeongguk's last barb. Jimin’s vision narrowed, locking onto the alpha's defiant stance, the way his jaw set like he was daring the world to break him first. Enough. He was done with the prodding, the endless circling around truths neither could name without unraveling.

Jeongguk stood a few feet away, hands clenched at his sides, breathing hard. His lips were curled into a snarl, the line of his throat sharp in the dim barn light, corded with tension that mirrored the knot tightening in Jimin’s gut. His scent was rising again, sharp and needful, curling in the air like a goddamn dare, invading Jimin’s space and stoking the fire he’d tried so hard to bank. It wrapped around him, insistent, pulling at the frayed edges of his restraint until all he could think was how much he wanted to silence it—to make Jeongguk stop talking, stop pushing, stop making him confront the ache that had no place in his ordered world.

Jimin snapped, stepping in close, their chests nearly touching, the heat radiating off Jeongguk like a furnace he couldn’t escape.

“What the fuck is it with you, huh? Are you obsessed or some shit? You think provoking me is suddenly going to help you get to know me, you dickhead?”

“Goddammit Jimin, I’m trying because I want to,” Jeongguk growled back, loud now, furious, his eyes flashing with a fire that only fed Jimin’s own. “Because every time I’m near you, something pulls me in and I know you feel it too. I saw it in your eyes, I saw it when we were training!”

Jimin glared at him, breath ragged, chest burning with the effort to hold back the tidal wave crashing inside. ‘Shut him up.’ The impulse coiled tight, equal parts fury at the intrusion and a selfish hunger.

“What the hell is this ‘something’—this ‘pull’ you keep talking about? I keep asking and you can’t seem to give me a straight response.”

“I don’t fucking know!” Jeongguk shouted, the outburst echoing off the shadowed walls. “But it’s there and it’s real and you feel it too, so stop being a goddamn coward!”

Jimin didn’t think. The accusation sliced through the last thread of his patience, rage surging hot and blinding, propelling him forward. He grabbed Jeongguk by the collar, fingers digging into the fabric with bruising force, and slammed him back against the storage wall. The impact rattled tools on the pegboard, a metallic clatter swallowed by the heavy barn air, the vibration thrumming up Jimin’s arms like an extension of his own fury.

“You want to feel whatever the fuck is between us so bad?” Jimin growled, voice low and shaking as he pressed in, nose nearly touching Jeongguk’s, their breaths mingling in the scant space between. The alpha’s heat seeped into him, overwhelming, and in that crush of proximity, the anger twisted into something sharper— a need to dominate the chaos, to pour his frustration into contact that would quiet the storm, even as it fed the deeper craving gnawing at his core. 

“Is that what you fucking want? Huh?”

He grabbed a fistful of Jeongguk’s shirt, yanking him forward with a jerk that closed the gap entirely, slamming their mouths together before the alpha could answer.

The impact jarred through Jimin’s jaw, a sharp sting blooming on his lips from the force of it, but it was nothing compared to the wildfire that erupted in his chest—fury and want colliding fiercely. But Jeongguk kissed back immediately, rough and hungry, like he’d been waiting for it every second since that night in the training ring. Teeth clashed in the frenzy, lips parting with a wet drag that sent sparks skittering down Jimin’s spine. 

He hated just how good it tasted—how good Jeongguk tasted on his tongue. It was a swirling mixture of salty-sweet and defiance, pulling him under when he should’ve been pushing away.

Jimin pushed harder, crowding him into the wall until the wood groaned behind his back. Jeongguk’s sharp gasp when Jimin latched onto his lower lip—biting down until copper tinged his tongue—sent a thrill of dark satisfaction spiking through him, but it twisted quickly into something hotter, more punishing. He sucked the abused flesh into his mouth, rolling it with his teeth, intending to mark, to make the alpha ache like he did. 

But Jeongguk gave as good as he got—his grip on Jimin’s hips ironclad, dragging him flush until their bodies collided with a snap—chest to chest, thigh to thigh. The alpha’s cock was a rigid brand against Jimin’s hip, thick and pulsing with heat that seeped through denim, the unyielding girth pressing like a promise of invasion, heavy and insistent, making Jimin’s skin prickle and his own arousal surge uncontrollably.

A fresh wave of slick gushing from his folds, soaking the seam of his underwear until it soaked  his the cloth in a warm, insistent rush that left him trembling, the wetness sliding down his inner thighs like a shameful confession. God, he could practically picture it from that first night they’d stripped Jeongguk bare in the shed. Even when flaccid, Jeongguk’s cock had hung thick between his legs, flushed and heavy even then. And now it was rock-hard for him, the thought of it splitting him open causing him to clench around nothing, aching with an emptiness that demanded to be filled.

His body didn’t care about the rage screaming in his mind; it arched into the contact, clit throbbing with a needy pulse that made his vision blur at the edges. Jeongguk’s scent slammed into him then—crisp pine smoke sharpened by sweat and the musky edge of arousal—wrapping around his senses like smoke, choking off rational thought and leaving only the primal urge to press closer, to let it consume him. Jimin hooked his thigh between Jeongguk’s legs, grinding up with deliberate pressure, the friction against that hard length sending jolts of pleasure-pain racing up his spine.

Jimin can feel it twitch under him, and shit, he’s losing—he’s losing this battle so pathetically, because all he can think about is how it’d feel to have Jeongguk buried deep, finally pounding away this mess inside of him. He tore his mouth free to scrape his teeth along the hinge of Jeongguk’s jaw, the stubble rasping against his lips as he spoke.

“Is this what you wanted?” he hissed. “You get off on being told no so much you had to come crawling after me?”

The words burned coming out, laced with venom and the ragged edge of his own desperation—the thrill of finally unleashing this, even as guilt clawed at the back of his skull. But admitting that he craved it too—no, that was a line he wasn’t willing to cross. His dignity was only hanging by a thread. 

Jeongguk’s laugh was a fractured bark against his skin, hot breath fanning over Jimin’s cheek before hands cupped his face, thumbs pressing bruises into his cheekbones as the alpha hauled him back.

“You kiss like you’re trying to win a fucking fight,” Jeongguk growled, the vibration rumbling into Jimin’s mouth, words tasting of challenge. “And you’re still losing.”

The snarky little comment ignited a fresh snarl from Jimin’s throat as he crashed back in, the kiss devolving into a messy clash—tongues battling in wet, sliding strokes that left him breathless, saliva trailing down his chin. Jimin rocked against him harder, hips rolling, chasing friction with zero shame now. The way Jeongguk responded—greedy and rough and letting him lead—only pushed him further off the edge. 

His hands clawed at Jeongguk’s shirt, nails raking fabric, seeking purchase on the solid heat beneath. Jeongguk met him thrust for thrust, hips bucking up, chest heaving with labored breaths that ghosted over Jimin’s swollen lips. When the alpha caught his tongue and sucked, hard and insistent, a moan tore free from Jimin’s chest—low and broken, the suction pulling at something deep inside, making his nipples peak painfully against his shirt and his core flutter with empty want.

Jimin ground down harder, hips canting in a frantic rhythm, the seam of his pants rubbing his clit just right to build that coiling pressure low in his belly. Each roll sent sparks scattering through his limbs, but Jeongguk’s responses—the greedy arch of his back, the way his fingers dug into Jimin’s flesh like he was anchoring himself—only stoked the blaze higher, stripping away the last threads of restraint. It was intoxicating, this edge where anger bled into hunger, where leading felt like falling.

“You don’t even know what the fuck you’re asking for,” Jimin panted, wrenching away to sink teeth into the corded muscle of Jeongguk’s neck, the give of skin under his bite flooding him with a rush of power and shame. The alpha’s pulse hammered against his tongue, salty and alive, and the shudder that ran through Jeongguk’s frame made Jimin’s core tighten, slick leaking in a steady drip now, his thighs slick and sensitive with every shift. 

“You want this? You want to fuck your way into this pack like that’s how it works?”

“I want you,” Jeongguk shot back, voice fracturing on the edge of a groan, his hands sliding down to knead Jimin’s ass, yanking him so the alpha's cock aligned with Jimin’s soaked pussy through the layers of cloth—hot, insistent pressure that made Jimin’s breath stutter. Aligned like this, it's torture—the weight of it promising to rip away any resolve that’s still clinging to his mind for dear life. 

“I want you on top of me, around me, losing your mind because of me—so yeah, if that’s what this is, then fuck it. I’m asking for it.”

The raw confession hit Jimin like a gut punch, thighs quaking as another wave of slick coated him, ache spreading deep within in an insistent throb that bordered on pain. He was already so soaked, and it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. His body was a traitor, every nerve singing for release, the tension winding so tight he could snap. He didn’t want to want it so bad.

He fisted a hand in Jeongguk’s shirt, dragged it up, fingers grazing over hard stomach and slick skin. Jeongguk sucked in a sharp breath, eyes blazing. Jimin kissed him again—open-mouthed, biting, tongues sliding—and felt the rumble of a growl in Jeongguk’s chest that made his whole core pulse. This was wrong. So, so wrong.

And it felt so fucking right.

With a guttural sound, Jimin bunched Jeongguk’s shirt in his fists, ripping it upward and off in a tangle of limbs, the fabric whispering away to reveal sweat-slicked skin glowing under the lamp’s haze. His palm pressed flat to the alpha’s abdomen, dragging up over the taut ridges of muscle that jumped under his touch—hot, firm, the faint salt of sweat clinging to his fingers like an invitation. He skimmed higher, nails tracing the subtle hollows below the ribs, until they caught on the ragged line, puckered and vicious along Jeongguk’s side.

A scar.

Long and sharp, tucked into the side of his torso where it might’ve gone unseen in different light. Jimin’s thumb lingered, pressing into the raised tissue, a jolt of something unnamed—pity? Curiosity?—piercing the haze. But before the thought could settle—before he could even question it, Jeongguk struck.

His mouth latched to the side of Jimin’s neck, open and hungry. His tongue licked a slow, wet stripe just beneath Jimin’s jaw, hot and insistent, dragging saliva across sensitive skin that prickled under the assault. Then his teeth closed in—sharp and deliberate—far too close to the omega’s scent gland. Close enough that it burned, a white-hot sting radiating down Jimin's shoulder, his pulse jackhammering against the pressure. The growl Jimin let out wasn’t a warning, it was a threat, ripping from his throat raw and feral, his body coiling like a spring ready to snap.

His hand snapped up without thinking—crack sharp across Jeongguk’s cheek, tilting his head to the side with the force of it. The slap echoed in the dim space, skin stinging on Jimin's palm from the impact, and Jeongguk stumbled half a step, lips red and parted, pupils blown wide like black voids swallowing the light. But he only stared back at Jimin with a kind of reckless desire, chest heaving in sharp bursts, cheek already pinking under the faint lamp glow. And then he growled back with a smirk curling his mouth, low and guttural, the sound vibrating through the air like a challenge thrown down. Dangerous.

“Don’t you fucking dare put your mouth there again,” Jimin snarled, voice rough. His breath came in hot pants that fogged the space between them. “Unless you’re ready to pay for it.” The words tasted like ash on his tongue, laced with the truth he wouldn't voice—the bite had ignited something primal inside of him, his body humming with the nearness of a claim he both craved and despised with everything in him.

Jeongguk's teeth flashed, breath ragged and uneven, as he licked over the piercing in the corner of his bottom lip. Fuck, that tongue on his lip—it’s like a dare.

“Then make me.”

He stared at Jimin, chest rising fast, hair mussed from where Jimin had grabbed him earlier, strands sticking to his sweat-damp forehead. His lips were parted, slick and flushed from the rough kisses, and when he licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, Jimin saw it for what it was: hunger. Pure, unfiltered need that mirrored the storm raging in Jimin's veins, pulling him under despite every instinct to pull away.

And fuck him—Jimin gave in to it.

He grabbed the front of Jeongguk’s pants and yanked them open, rough and unceremonious, fingers hooking into the denim with a grip that promised no mercy. The button snapped loose with a sharp pop that echoed in the tight space, zipper dragging down in a harsh hiss that barely cut through the sound of their ragged breathing, heavy and synced like a shared heartbeat. Jeongguk let out a sharp breath, hips jerking forward involuntarily, and fumbled for Jimin’s shirt in return, hauling it up over his head in a swift tug that left Jimin's arms tangled for a beat. The cool air hit Jimin’s bare torso immediately, raising goosebumps along his arms and across his chest, his nipples tightening into hard peaks from the sudden exposure and the alpha's heated gaze raking over the toned cut of his stomach. 

Jimin’s fingers then slipped beneath Jeongguk’s waistband, knuckles brushing hot, smooth skin that jumped at the contact, and then he was pushing the pants down—briefs snagging with them—shoving the fabric past thick, muscled thighs until they caught at the knees in a crumpled heap. He wasn’t trying to be gentle—no, he wanted to humiliate him, to strip away that cocky edge and leave him exposed, vulnerable under Jimin's gaze.

Jeongguk groaned when his cock sprung free—long, flushed dark all the way to the base and leaking pre-come at the tip in a thick bead that glistened under the light. It curved slightly up toward his stomach, impossibly hard, so swollen it twitched just from being under Jimin’s gaze, veins standing out in stark relief along the shaft. 

The alpha surged forward, trying to catch Jimin’s mouth again—but Jimin twisted away at the last second, lips brushing in a ghost of contact that teased without giving, driving him insane. Jimin chuckled dryly, the sound edged with mockery, his eyes trailing down toward Jeongguk’s cock with deliberate slowness. Jimin let his gaze linger, taking in every inch with cool detachment—the heavy sway as it bobbed slightly, the way it strained upward, begging for touch, the slit weeping more pre-come that trailed down the underside—even as more heat pooled low in his own belly, a fresh gush of slick coating his folds in response.

“God, you’re so desperate,” Jimin muttered, low and cool as his fingers caught in the waistband of his own pants. He peeled them down without ceremony, briefs dragged with them in a slow slide over his hips, the fabric clinging wetly to his skin before dropping to his ankles. The air immediately filled with his scent, causing Jeongguk to falter, nostrils flaring as it hit him like a sucker punch—orange blossom warped by slick and heat, rich and obscene, blooming thick in the confined space. It clung to Jimin’s thighs, shone along the inner curves in slick trails that cooled slightly in the air, soaked through the fabric that barely cleared his knees before he kicked it aside. He was completely bared to the alpha now, folds swollen and glistening, clit peeking out hooded and throbbing, the entrance fluttering with every breath.

Jeongguk’s hands finally moved—hesitant at first, fingers twitching before they settled on Jimin’s ass, squeezing the firm flesh with a groan that rumbled from his chest, nails digging in just enough to sting. Then lower, his palm sliding between slick thighs, pausing when he felt it: hot, wet, and unrelenting, the evidence of Jimin’s need coating his skin in a warm, slippery sheen.

“Oh, fuck—” Jeongguk gasped, voice breaking on the words, his cock jerking visibly at the discovery.

His hand trembled, fingertips brushing the soft, soaked heat again, tracing the outer lips before pressing just a little further—toward the tight, fluttering slickness of Jimin’s entrance. He was drenched, arousal leaking in a humiliatingly steady flow that smeared against Jeongguk’s skin, the entrance yielding slightly under the pressure, pulsing with invitation. Jimin's hips twitched involuntarily, a soft whimper catching in his throat as the pressure sent sparks shooting up his spine, his clit aching for more direct friction.

“Let me—” Jeongguk started, voice rough and pleading, eyes flicking up to meet Jimin’s with raw need as his thumb began to circle closer to his clit. “Let me get you ready.”

Jimin’s hand snapped down and caught his wrist, the grip wasn’t cruel, but it was absolute, fingers locking like iron to halt the advance.

“Don’t need your useless prep,” Jimin murmured, eyes locked forward on Jeongguk's flushed face, voice steady despite the tremor in his limbs “you fucking knothead.”

Jeongguk stilled, tension tightening across his back, muscles coiling like a spring under his skin, the veins in his neck standing out sharp. He looked like he wanted to protest, lips parting on a breath that carried his pine-sharp scent, heavy with arousal—but one look from Jimin shut him up fast, Jimin’s glare cutting through the haze like a knife. That hesitation in his eyes, the way he swallows his words—it's almost satisfying, seeing the alpha force himself reel it in.

Jimin reached between them and grabbed Jeongguk’s cock, which was leaking so much it rivaled a damn faucet, the pre-come slicking his palm in a warm glide. He gave it one slow stroke just to feel the pulse of it in his hand, the rigid heat throbbing against his fingers, veins ridging under his grip as it jerked in response.

“Pathetic,” he said, voice low and scathing, laced with a bite that masked the way his own arousal throbbed in echo. “You’re dripping like you haven’t come in weeks.”

Jeongguk let out a guttural sound, raw and choked, head tipping back with a dull thud against the beam beside them, the wood creaking faintly under the impact. His jaw flexed, cords tightening as whatever words he had died somewhere in his throat, swallowed by the haze of need. Jimin gave one more stroke—slower, meaner—dragging his thumb across the head to smear the pre-come in a deliberate circle, the slit weeping more under the pressure. Then he let go and wiped his hand on Jeongguk’s thigh like he was finished with him, the alpha's skin hot and slightly damp with sweat, leaving a glistening trail that made Jimin's core tighten further.

“Getting off on being talked down to,” Jimin muttered. “You’re worse than I thought.”

That snapped something loose, and Jeongguk’s eyes shot open, dark and stormy, locking onto Jimin's with a spark of defiance. “You think I’m the pathetic one?” he rasped, voice gravel-rough, breath coming in sharp pants that stirred the air between them. “I can smell and see just how fucking soaked you are.”

Jimin’s smirk faltered.

“Shut the fuck up. You talk too much,” he growled, the snarl ripping out fiercely to cover the waver. Then, he grabbed Jeongguk by the hips—fingers digging into the firm muscle there, feeling the alpha's heat seep through—and shoved him back against the wall behind them again. The slap of wood and body rang through the barn, echoing off the rafters like a gunshot, Jeongguk's back hitting with a thud that forced a grunt from his lips.

“Stay right there,” Jimin commanded with finality.

He stepped away, forcing Jeongguk to release him, the alpha's hands dragging reluctant from his hips, leaving trails of warmth that lingered like brands. Then slowly, Jimin turned toward one of the wooden support beams of the shelf in front of them, the rough grain biting into his palms as he placed both hands against it, spine curving as he bent forward, legs spread just enough to stay grounded, the position arching his back and exposing the slick mess between his thighs to the cool barn air even more.

He didn’t look back, refusing to give Jeongguk the satisfaction of seeing the conflict warring in his eyes, the way his breath hitched at the exposure.

Jeongguk stood frozen for a second, staring—like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the omega braced and waiting, scent blooming stronger in invitation. Then he moved, drawn like gravity, footsteps heavy on the packed dirt floor. When he came up behind Jimin, his hands hovered for a beat, trembling with restraint, before landing at his hips, hesitant in a way that betrayed how badly he wanted to grab and rut and ruin, fingers flexing against the curve of bone. Jeongguk's hesitation—it was almost tender, but Jimin felt the tremor, the barely leashed force, his skin prickling under those palms, core clenching in anticipation of the thrust that could shatter him.

Jimin didn’t let him get that far.

One hand reached down and wrapped around Jeongguk’s cock again—still hot and heavy, still twitching with need, the shaft velvet-hard in his grip. He pumped it once, twice, the motion pulling a hiss from the alpha. He fit the flushed tip closer, pressing just enough to feel the broad head nudge against the soaked folds, parting them slightly. Jimin had to breathe through his nose just to steady his pulse, the pressure teasing without entering, sending jolts of heat racing up his spine. Right there—the heat of it kissing his entrance, so close to sliding in, stretching the ring of muscle that was already yielding, fluttering around the tip.

This is a mistake.

Every cell in his body screamed it—but the fever building under his skin drowned it out, the ache that had crawled through his veins for weeks now, worsening every time Jeongguk so much as looked at him with those dark, intent eyes. Jimin knew he should pull away, end this before it spiraled further into something he couldn't take back, but the pull was too strong.

The alpha’s hands desperately gripped at Jimin’s waist harder—claws nearly unsheathing before quickly retreating— desperate and anchoring, the alpha groaning low when the head of his cock continuously caught against Jimin's entrance, already glossy with slick but still too tight, too hot, too much for a smooth slide. The blunt pressure nudged insistently, parting the soaked folds just enough to tease, sending sparks of heat racing through Jimin's core.

“Jimin—fuck, you’re not even—” Jeongguk started, voice strained, rough with the effort to hold back.

“Shut up,” Jimin bit out. “You want this so bad? Here.”

His hand trembled, just slightly, as he held Jeongguk's cock steady. The tip pressed in, shallow and firm, and Jimin's whole body jolted with it. Too big—it burned at the edges, the stretch immediate and unforgiving, a warning that should have made him stop, should have made him shove Jeongguk away, yank his pants up, and storm out of the barn with whatever scraps of pride he had left. But Jimin didn't listen to that voice. Instead, he tilted his hips back, mouth dropping open on a quiet inhale, and pushed down, forcing the head past the tight ring of muscle.

The stretch was brutal.

The pressure punched the air right out of him—his walls fluttering wildly, struggling to accommodate the invading girth, the heavy weight of it. More slick gushed hot between his thighs in response, soaking the insides of his legs, dripping thick onto the hay-strewn floor beneath them. Jimin grit his teeth, hips jerking involuntarily as his body tried to force him to slow down—but he refused, pushing through the resistance. He didn't need prep, didn't need gentle fingers or sweet words; he just had to get this fucking need out of him, to fill the hollow ache that had been tormenting him since that first forbidden glimpse in the shed.

He began to sink down, the stretch biting sharp up his spine, making his vision blur at the edges. His body clenched around the intrusion, slick easing the way but not nearly enough to erase the pain, the raw drag of Jeongguk's cock splitting him open. Still, Jimin didn't stop. He wanted it—the burn, the ache, the overwhelming fullness that would blank out every other thought, every flicker of guilt and shame. Behind him, Jeongguk made a noise that barely sounded human, a guttural rumble that vibrated through Jimin's back where their bodies pressed close.

The stretch clawed up his spine, making his shoulders bunch and his hands brace harder on the shelf in front of them, fingers digging into the rough wood until splinters threatened to prick his skin. 

“Fuck—” Jimin exhaled, voice hoarse, head bowing forward as sweat beaded on his forehead. “Fuck, you’re thick.”

He hated the whine threading through his voice, the way it betrayed him. Hated the way his body shook around the cock buried deeper now, clenching down involuntarily like it craved more, like he'd been waiting for this exact moment.

Jimin continued to ease down slowly, breath ragged through gritted teeth, each inch a battle of will against his body's protests. Jeongguk’s cock felt obscene inside him—thick and pulsing, veins dragging against his sensitive walls, the heat of it searing deep. His thighs quivered around Jeongguk’s, muscles straining to hold the position, and still, he forced himself to take it—inch by stubborn inch—until he was fully seated, the alpha's hips flush against his ass, and Jimin was shaking with the effort to stay composed, stretched to his limit around the fullness.

Jeongguk groaned, fingers digging into Jimin’s hips like he couldn’t believe this was real, bruises blooming under the pressure. “Shit,” he breathed, sounding wrecked. “You’re so—fucking tight. God.”

Jimin could still feel himself fluttering around the intrusion, walls pulsing as he tried to adjust to the girth, the way it throbbed in time with Jeongguk's heartbeat. His nails scraped harder  against the wooden shelf, leaving faint gouges in the grain. The shame curled hot in his gut, twisting with the illicit pleasure, but he stayed there for a moment, both of them panting in the heavy air of the barn. Jeongguk’s forehead dropped to his shoulder, the warmth of his breath ghosting over Jimin's skin, hands flexing like he was fighting every instinct not to move, not to thrust up and claim.

His cock twitched deep inside, a subtle shift that sent a jolt through Jimin, making his knees buckle slightly, and he had to slap a palm harder against the shelf just to keep upright, the wood creaking under the force. The alpha leaned in closer, lips parted, tongue darting out to catch at the curve of Jimin’s jaw in a tentative lick, tasting the salt of his sweat. 

“You smell like you’re in heat,” Jeongguk growled into his ear through clenched teeth, his pine scent thickening the air, mingling with Jimin's orange blossom in a heady cloud that made Jimin's head spin, every inhale pulling him deeper into the haze of need that clawed at his insides.

Jimin’s free hand caught the back of Jeongguk's neck, fingers digging into the damp hair there, gripping tightly as if to anchor himself. “Then be useful,” he growled, the command rough and edged with desperation, "and fuck me like you mean it.”

Jeongguk didn’t need to be told twice.

He pulled back slowly—just a few inches—and Jimin nearly folded when the ridge of his cock dragged against his walls on the way out, the slow withdrawal leaving him aching, stretched open and slick, everything inside fluttering around the sudden absence like it protested the loss. The emptiness throbbed, a hollow pull that made Jimin's thighs tense, his breath catching sharp in his throat. Then Jeongguk pushed back in—slow, deep, like he wanted to feel every inch sink back into place, the thick length parting Jimin's folds again, filling him with a pressure that bordered on pain. A groan spilled from Jimin’s throat before he could swallow it down, raw and unbidden, vibrating through his chest as his walls clenched greedily around the intrusion.

They found a rhythm without speaking—shallow, searching thrusts at first, like both of them were teetering between control and collapse, testing the limits of what their bodies could endure. The wet slide of slick coated every movement, the obscene sound of skin meeting skin punctuating the air, the sharp breath Jeongguk let out every time he bottomed out echoing in Jimin's ears. It filled the space, too much and not enough all at once, the barn's stale quiet amplifying the lewd symphony until Jimin's face burned with it. He gritted his teeth and braced harder against the shelf. It still burned, the friction raw where his body hadn't fully yielded, every drag sending jolts up his spine. It was still too much—the girth splitting him, the heat pulsing inside like a brand.

And yet—he pushed back anyway, hips rolling to meet the next thrust like it might knock something loose inside him.

‘Fuck, it’s so deep.’

The thought sliced through his mind, unfiltered and frantic. He hadn’t been filled like this in—God—ever? The last time blurred into irrelevance, a distant memory overshadowed by the now, by Jeongguk's cock buried to the hilt, the alpha's pine scent curling thick and sweet around his head, invading every sense until he couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t even breathe steadily, each inhale ragged, chest heaving as his heart hammered against his ribs.

“Feel that?” Jimin rasped, voice trembling with the effort to sound cruel instead of wrecked, to cling to some shred of defiance amid the surrender. “That’s what your dumb fucking feelings got you.”

Jimin clenched again—slick drooling down his thighs in warm rivulets, as if his body was thankful for it, grateful for the stretch that drowned out the chaos in his head. He set his jaw, furious with himself for the betrayal, for the way he gripped tighter, pulling Jeongguk deeper like it hungered for more. But he was already too far gone to stop, the need overriding every rational protest. 

He bit down on another moan, teeth sinking into his lower lip until copper bloomed on his tongue, he moved one hand to claw at Jeongguk’s thigh behind him, nails dragging half-moons into the firm muscle, marking the skin in red welts. His legs burned from holding himself up, quads trembling with the strain, and the slap of skin-on-skin was filthy in the quiet barn, echoing off the wood and hay and stale air, a rhythm that mocked his attempts at control.

And still—he didn’t slow his hips pushing back. He couldn’t—not when Jeongguk was so hot and heavy inside him, hitting so deep it knocked every bitter denial straight out of his mouth, replacing it with gasps and half-formed curses. The alpha's thrusts grew surer, each one grinding deep into Jimin's core, the head of his cock nudging spots that made stars burst behind Jimin's eyelids, his vision blurring with the intensity.

“Shit—” Jimin hissed as his hips rolled back into the next thrust, angry at the way his body continuously betrayed him, the way his slick walls clamped down around the cock buried inside it like it never wanted to let go, milking the length with involuntary pulses that drew more low growls from Jeongguk's chest.

Behind him, Jeongguk was panting hard against the crook of his neck, face damp with sweat, chest slick where it pressed to Jimin’s back, the heat of him seeping through like a furnace. His hands roamed greedily, feverish and clumsy—one locked tight on Jimin’s waist, fingers bruising the skin in a vise grip, the other slipping over his stomach, tracing over his skin before brushing down, down toward the swollen nub peeking from Jimin's folds.

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” Jimin snapped, breath ragged, the warning laced with a whine he couldn't suppress as Jeongguk's fingers hovered, teasing the air just above his clit.

Jeongguk snarled in protest, the sound vibrating against Jimin's skin, sending shivers racing down his spine. “But you’re dripping like a bitch in heat.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re clenching like you need it—”

“I said shut up you stupid fucking mutt.”

He slammed his hips back to cut him off, hard enough that Jeongguk gasped and cursed, the alpha's rhythm faltering for a beat as his forehead thudded against the side of Jimin’s neck, breath hot and erratic. His mouth was everywhere now—panting against the pulse point, teeth grazing the skin before biting down lightly, sucking a mark into the flesh like he couldn’t stop, couldn’t help it, driven by the same feral instinct that had Jimin's body arching back into him. The sting of the bite mingled with the deep ache of being filled, pushing Jimin closer to the edge, him spasming around Jeongguk's cock in response, wet, slick juices easing the way for harder, faster snaps of hips that left them both trembling.

Jeongguk’s voice broke as he gasped behind him, the sound ragged and growing more desperate, pulling at something deep in Jimin's gut that he refused to name. “You feel—oh god, you feel so—”

“Just fucking shut up,” Jimin spat, the words sharp even as his own breath hitched. “You’re lucky I even—ah, fuck—let you do this.”

“Please,” Jeongguk moaned, hips stuttering up in uneven jerks, hands shaking. “Please—please let me—” His voice cracked, the alpha's usual confidence shattered, reduced to pleas that sent a twisted thrill through Jimin.

Jimin snapped his head around, strands of hair sticking to his sweat-damp forehead, eyes locking onto Jeongguk's flushed face. “You’re begging now?” The mockery dripped from his tongue, but inside, his mind reeled—the sight of the alpha so undone, cock throbbing deep inside of him, made the heat coil tighter in his core.

Jeongguk couldn’t answer—just groaned, face contorted in ecstasy and strain, sweat dripping down his neck in rivulets that traced the corded muscles of his throat, his cock pulsing deep inside the omega gripping him like a vice, Jimin's walls squeezing rhythmically, milking him without mercy. The pressure built, a heavy ache that made Jimin's thighs quiver, his body demanding more even as his thoughts screamed to pull away.

“You haven’t been touched in years, have you?” Jimin sneered, even as his voice shook. “Poor fucking thing.”

Jeongguk growled—tried to slam his hips forward, seeking deeper purchase—but Jimin held him there, muscles tensing to control the pace, grinding down in a slow, vicious circle that dragged the ridge of Jeongguk's cock against his sensitive walls, making them both shudder. The motion sent sparks up Jimin's spine, his clit throbbing untouched, slick coating their joined bodies in a messy sheen.

“You can’t even take it,” he whispered, cruel and breathless. “You can’t handle it.”

“I can.” Jeongguk’s voice was gravelly and raw now. “Let me—fuck, Jimin, let me—”

“Doesn’t even know how to handle an omega,” he muttered under his breath, venom soft and dripping. “What a waste of a knot.”

Jeongguk’s fingers twitched.

“Thought alphas were supposed to be impressive,” Jimin went on, voice laced with scorn, hips circling again to take Jeongguk deeper on his own terms, the drag making his vision blur at the edges. “All this build-up—and this is it?” 

The words were a spark to dry tinder

Jeongguk growled out a string of curses, the sound rumbling through his chest and into Jimin's back like thunder. Then, he grabbed Jimin and shoved him forward into the shelf—hard enough that the whole thing rattled, tools clattering softly in the dim light—and began to thrust with newfound vigor. The sudden force pinned Jimin against the rough wood, his chest scraping the edge, nipples hardening from the friction as Jeongguk's hips snapped forward. Jimin choked on a moan, loud and raw and ripped straight from his throat, hands flailing against the wooden frame in front of him as he tried and failed over and over to maintain a solid grip, fingers slipping on the sweat-slick surface.

Hard. Deep. Relentless.

Each thrust pounded into him, Jeongguk's cock slamming home with bruising intensity, the head battering against Jimin's cervix in a way that blurred the line between pain and ecstasy. His walls were seizing from the pace, slick squelching obscenely with every withdrawal and plunge. Jimin's legs trembled, toes curling against the hay-strewn floor, every inch of the surface digging into his palms as he braced, but it wasn't enough—the alpha's rhythm drove him higher, body jolting with the force.

“Still running your fucking mouth?” Jeongguk snapped, hot breath fanning over Jimin's neck. “Even now?”

Jimin tried to glare over his shoulder, twisting just enough to meet Jeongguk's darkened eyes, but his expression faltered the moment Jeongguk drove in again, deeper than before, his cock unyielding inside him, grinding against that spot that made Jimin's knees buckle. The stretch stung, raw and unbearable and perfect, a white-hot burn that coiled tight in his belly, threatening to unravel him completely.

Jimin bit down on a curse, knuckling white against the wood. “Oh f-fuck—” The word escaped fractured, his voice breaking on the next thrust that shook him to his core, slick flooding out to coat Jeongguk's balls as they slapped against his ass.

Jeongguk didn’t stop, he didn’t even slow by a fraction. He pistoned forward, each thrust shaking the shelf and driving Jimin higher on his toes, like he could be split open and remade all at once, the alpha's hands gripping his hips to hold him steady, thumbs pressing into the dimples at the base of his spine. The pace was punishing, Jeongguk's cock dragging out almost to the tip before slamming back in, filling Jimin so completely that air punched from his lungs in sharp gasps. His clit pulsed neglected, aching for touch, but the relentless pounding built the pressure anyway, coiling tighter with every brutal snap of hips. 

Jimin's thoughts fragmented—guilt flickering like a dying flame, drowned by the overwhelming need to be taken, claimed, fucked until nothing else remained. The barn echoed with their sounds: the wet slap of flesh, Jeongguk's grunts mingling with Jimin's stifled cries, the creak of wood under strain. Sweat slicked their skin, Jeongguk's chest sliding against Jimin's back, the alpha's pine scent overwhelming, marking him from the inside out as Jimin's own orange blossom bloomed sweeter, headier, in response.

Jeongguk’s voice sliced through the haze, a harsh hiss that vibrated against Jimin’s ear, sending a jolt straight to his core. “You think I don’t know what you want?” 

He pulled the omega up roughly, one arm banding across Jimin’s chest to plaster their bodies together, the alpha’s sweat-slick skin searing into his back like a brand. The hard planes of Jeongguk’s torso pressed flush, trapping heat between them, while his cock drove deeper with a punishing snap. “You think I can’t feel how bad you need this—how bad you fucking need my cock?”

Jimin shook his head, the motion frantic and futile, strands of hair whipping across his face as he bit down on his lip to stay silent, to cling to the fraying threads of his control. ‘He doesn’t know shit’, his mind snarled, but the lie crumbled under the onslaught—clenching greedily around the invading length. His legs quaked, muscles straining to hold him upright, head tipping back involuntarily against the alpha’s broad shoulder as cracks spiderwebbed through his resolve.

“Say it,”Jeongguk demanded, his pace turning savage, hips pistoning with brutal force. The alpha’s voice was shredded, raw from exertion and lust, each word punctuated by the wet slap of skin on skin. Jimin’s breath came in ragged bursts, the air thick and suffocating. 

“Say it, Jimin.”

A moan tore from Jimin’s throat—sharp, involuntary, and downright humiliating, echoing off the rafters like an admission he couldn’t take back. “F-fuck—”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought—all you needed was this pussy filled, hm?” Jeongguk’s chuckle was dark, triumphant, his free hand sliding back down to grip Jimin’s hip, nails scraping red lines into the pale skin as he angled deeper, the head of his cock grinding against that sensitive bundle of nerves inside.

When Jimin didn’t respond—couldn’t, lost in the relentless burn and slick slide, the obscene squelch of his arousal coating them both—Jeongguk grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back with a sharp tug, exposing his throat. His canines, now longer, grazed along Jimin’s jaw.

“Say it.”

Jimin tried to snarl something venomous, lips curling in defiance, but the next thrust obliterated the words, stealing his voice in a choked gasp. His knees buckled, thighs giving out under the onslaught, only Jeongguk’s iron grip keeping him from collapsing onto the floor. Slick completely drenched his legs now, a messy trail cooling against his heated skin, the lewd sounds amplifying in the confined space—wet, rhythmic, undeniable. Jeongguk fucked into him without mercy, hips snapping forward like he aimed to etch himself into Jimin’s very bones, to flood every inch until anger dissolved into nothing but need.

And Jimin—goddamn his stupid, desperate instincts—let him.

His body arched back, hips canting to meet each brutal drive despite the scream in his mind that he was giving in, that he was showing weakness. It felt too good, the fullness erasing the edges of his anger, the friction igniting nerves he’d long ignored. He couldn’t stop the way his mouth fell open, moans spilling out unbidden, raw and broken as Jeongguk pounded the sounds from him, relentless, unyielding, over and over until silence was impossible.

Jimin’s thighs burned so much with the strain, muscles screaming as they trembled under the force, body quivering with every impact that rattled the shelf anew, tools shifting with faint clinks in the shadows. He could barely hold himself up at this point, arms shaking, but Jeongguk’s hands owned his hips now, pulling him back onto that thick cock with possessive yanks. The alpha’s rhythm was ferocious, each slam driving Jimin back and forth with ferocity.

No more hiding the staccato moans that ripped from his chest, interspersed with snarls and half-formed curses, eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught as heat coiled sharp and vicious in his belly. It built with dizzying speed, a pressure mounting like a storm, shame licking at the fringes—this is wrong, he’s putting the pack in danger, everything—but it couldn’t halt the tide. Not when Jeongguk’s cock split him open so perfectly, raking over every slick, swollen nerve, the alpha’s body a furnace at his back, pine smoke scent searing itself into his lungs and wrapping around him like chains.

Jimin’s breath hitched in a ragged gasp, the word fracturing on his tongue as pleasure coiled tighter, a vicious twist in his gut.

“Sh-shit, I—” Jimin gasped, fingers clawing for something to brace against. “There, right fucking—there—”

Jeongguk groaned behind him, animalistic and broken, his hips stuttering in their rhythm, faltering under the strain of holding back. His hands roamed without restraint now, palms slick with sweat as they knead at his chest, thumbs brushing sensitive nipples that pebbled under the touch. Finally, one hand curled around Jimin’s throat, not squeezing, just holding, possessive and trembling, as if the alpha couldn’t anchor himself anywhere else amid the chaos.

“Fucking tight,” Jeongguk grit out through clenched teeth, his voice a low, wrecked rumble that vibrated against Jimin’s back, hot breath ghosting over his nape. The words dissolved into a hiss. “I can’t—I can’t think—”

Jimin’s mind reeled, a storm of heat and haze, but defiance surged through the fog like a lifeline. Jeongguk doesn’t get to break first—not if Jimin has anything to do with it.

“Then don’t,” Jimin snapped, throwing his hips back. “Just shut up and—fuck—keep going.” The command was half growl, half moan, his body betraying the steel in his words, walls sucking greedily at the invading shaft, craving the friction that blurred everything into white-hot need.

Jeongguk obeyed without hesitation, a low snarl escaping him as his pace renewed, hips snapping forward with renewed ferocity, the wet smack of their joining echoing in the dim space.

It shouldn’t feel like this—like surfacing from suffocating depths after endless days of denial, lungs burning for the rush of oxygen that was Jeongguk’s cock filling him, splitting him wide. Jimin’s blood hummed with it, every nerve alight, his body arching instinctively into the alpha’s hold, primal urges overriding everything. Their bodies crashed together in a blur of sweat and slick and frantic motion. Jimin’s nails scraped down the shelf in front of him, his vision going white at the edges. He clenched so tight around the thick heat of Jeongguk’s cock, every thrust hitting deeper, harder, leaving him raw and aching and so fucking close—

Then Jeongguk’s free hand dipped low, fingers finding the swollen nub of Jimin’s clit with shocking precision. The touch was sudden, rough—thumb circling the slick nub in firm, insistent strokes that sent a jolt straight to his core, amplifying the fullness of the cock splitting him open.

“You can pretend you’re better than me all fucking day if you want,” Jeongguk growled into his ear, voice thick with lust, filthy and unfiltered. “But don’t forget how good your pussy feels when I fuck it like this—you’ll be begging for more soon.”

The words hit like a spark to tinder, filthy promise igniting the fuse. Jimin’s world narrowed to that dual assault—the relentless pounding and the teasing pressure on his clit—his body betraying him utterly as the orgasm barreled through, a brutal force that locked his muscles and ripped a raw scream from his lips. His pussy spasmed wildly around Jeongguk’s length, waves of release crashing as slick poured out, drenching them both, his thighs quaking uncontrollably while stars exploded behind his clenched eyes.

Jeongguk’s rhythm shattered into chaos behind him, a broken moan escaping as he chased his own edge, hips grinding erratically.

“Jimin—fuck—I’m gonna—” His grip on the throat loosened slightly, but the alpha’s body pressed closer, rutting with abandon.

Reality crashed back in shards, guilt slicing through the euphoria. ‘No—can’t let him.’ Jimin wrenched free with a surge of will, twisting away and shoving Jeongguk off balance. The alpha staggered, eyes blown wide, cock bobbing heavy and coated in Jimin’s essence, still rigid and leaking.

“What the—?” Jeongguk panted, confusion warring with lingering haze, sweat carving paths down his neck.

“Don’t you dare come inside me.”

Jeongguk blinked, dazed and breathless. Jimin stepped toward him, grabbed him by the wrist, and yanked his hand down.

“Use this.”

“Wh—” Jeongguk didn’t move, his chest heaving, the pine smoke scent of him thickening the air like a desperate plea.

Jimin leaned in, lips nearly brushing his ear, his voice low and vicious. “If you’re gonna act like a needy little bitch,” he hissed, “then finish like one.”

Jeongguk’s mouth parted. His eyes fluttered, and then he obeyed, wrapping his own hand around his cock, still wet with Jimin’s slick and the sticky remnants of his release. He stroked—fast, desperate, moaning into his shoulder as he chased the edge, hips stuttering forward into the tight grip of his fist.

Jimin stood there and watched, unblinking, chest heaving, his own body still thrumming with the echo of that brutal orgasm. Still flushed and slick between the thighs, arousal dripping in warm trails down his skin, Jimin reached for Jeongguk’s jaw—gripping it tight, fingers digging in until the alpha shivered under the pressure, lips parting like instinct, like reflex. But Jimin didn’t stop there; his other hand shot up, palm pressing flat against Jeongguk’s throat, fingers curling around the thick column of muscle, squeezing just enough to feel the frantic pulse hammering beneath his touch. The alpha’s breath hitched, eyes widening further, a low whine escaping as Jimin’s hold pinned him against the wall, controlling the air, the space, everything.

“You like that, don’t you?” Jimin murmured, voice rough with the afterglow, his thumb stroking the edge of Jeongguk’s windpipe in a teasing drag. “Choking on your own desperation while I watch you fall apart.”

Jeongguk’s hand faltered for a split second, strokes slowing as his free hand came up to clutch at Jimin’s wrist—not pulling away, but holding on, like he needed the anchor. His cock twitched in his grip, leaking more pre-come that smeared along his knuckles.

Jimin dragged his fingers down the inside of his own thigh, gathering the slick that dripped between his legs, warm and viscous. He smeared it across Jeongguk’s mouth—coating his lips with the wetness until they glistened.

“Open.”

Jeongguk obeyed instantly, jaw slackening under the command.

Jimin shoved two fingers into his mouth, knuckles deep, and didn’t flinch when Jeongguk choked around them, throat working against the intrusion. His lips closed fast, sucking automatically, tongue lapping greedily at the taste of Jimin’s arousal, eyes squeezing shut as a muffled groan vibrated through his chest.

“That's what you wanted?” Jimin hissed, voice low and shaking with aftershock, his grip on Jeongguk’s throat tightening just a fraction more, feeling the swallow ripple under his palm. “Wanted to taste what you did to me?”

Jeongguk’s eyes rolled back, a desperate nod the only response he could manage around the fingers filling his mouth. His hand resumed its brutal pace on his cock, faster now, slick sounds echoing in the dim space as he fucked into his fist with short, erratic thrusts.

Jimin twisted his fingers, pressing down on Jeongguk’s tongue, watching the alpha’s body arch, hips bucking wildly. But he wasn’t done—his free hand, the one not buried in Jeongguk’s mouth, slid from his throat lower, surprising the alpha by cupping his balls, rolling them gently at first, then squeezing with firm pressure that bordered on pain. Jeongguk’s eyes snapped open, a choked gasp escaping around Jimin’s fingers, his strokes turning frantic, uneven.

“Gonna come all over yourself like a pathetic pup?” Jimin growled, leaning in closer, his breath hot against Jeongguk’s ear as he kneaded the heavy sac, feeling it tighten under his touch. 

“Bet you’d beg for my pussy again if I let you—beg to knot me, fill me up until it’s leaking out for days. But you don’t get that. You get this—jerking your worthless cock while I own you.”

The filthy words hit like a command, shattering what little control Jeongguk had left.

“Finish,” Jimin said. “Like a good fucking mutt.”

“Fuck—” Jeongguk gasped as Jimin finally pulled his hand away, strings of saliva and slick stretching between them. His breath caught.

“Jimin—”

“Do it.”

His body snapped taut, a muffled cry tearing from his throat around Jimin’s fingers as he came hard—thick ropes of come erupting from his cock, splattering across his knuckles, his stomach, and thighs in hot, messy bursts. He groaned through clenched teeth, the sound deep and wrecked, barely human, every pulse wrung out by the humiliation.

Jeongguk’s hand milked out the last drops, body slumping as the orgasm faded, his chest heaving against Jimin’s palm. Jimin released his throat slowly, stepping back, sharp-eyed and still naked, his own chest rising with the shallow remains of his breath.

When Jeongguk slumped back against the wall, spent and panting, hand a sticky mess at his side, Jimin was already walking away—picking his pants up off the floor with a vicious flick of his wrist.

Jimin buttoned his pants with shaking fingers, each movement sharp and clipped like he could scrub the shame off his skin if he just moved fast enough. His shirt stuck to his chest, damp with sweat, and his thighs still trembled faintly with aftershocks, the ache in his pussy a lingering reminder of how close he’d come to breaking completely.

Behind him, Jeongguk was still catching his breath, leaning one shoulder against the barn wall like it was the only thing holding him up. He looked dazed and flushed, like he’d just survived something holy and hadn’t yet decided if it was salvation or a curse—his cock softening against his thigh, come drying in streaks on his skin. Jimin didn’t look at him as he fastened the last button, the weight of what they’d done settling like lead in his gut, a mix of triumph and regret twisting inside.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he said. His voice had flattened again, the way it always did when he was sealing something shut. “You don’t talk about it to anyone.” Jimin’s hands trembled at his sides, fingers curling into fists to steady them.

Jeongguk let out a humorless chuckle under his breath, shaking his head as if he’d seen this coming from a mile away. His cock hung soft now between his legs, spent and glistening with the remnants of Jimin’s slick, but his body still radiated that alpha heat, muscles taut under sweat-slicked skin.

“Yeah,” he said, voice edged with something bitter. “I figured.”

Jimin paused, just barely—not enough to turn fully, but enough to catch the alpha in his peripheral vision, the way Jeongguk pushed himself off the shelf with a roll of his shoulders, like he was shaking off the weight of what they’d done. His jaw clenched tight, eyes burning with frustration he no longer bothered to mask, dark and piercing as they bored into Jimin’s back.

“You’re really good at this,” Jeongguk went on, the words slicing through the quiet like a knife. “Acting like you didn’t just lose control five minutes ago. Like none of that meant anything the second you got what you wanted.”

Jimin’s hands curled tighter at his sides, nails biting into his palms, the sting grounding him against the flush creeping up his neck. ‘He doesn’t get to throw that back at me’, he seethed inwardly. The barn felt too small, the wooden beams pressing in, hay crunching under his boots as he fought the urge to shove Jeongguk against the wall again, to silence him with tongue or yet another slap.

“Drop it.”

Jeongguk scoffed, the sound raw and disbelieving. “See? That. That’s what I mean.” He took a step forward, boots scraping the dirt floor, then stopped himself, breath flaring hot through his nose, chest rising and falling with barely contained anger. His hands flexed at his sides, knuckles white, as if he wanted to grab Jimin. “You can fuck me, drag me into your mess, and still pretend I’m the problem for standing here afterward.” 

Jimin turned then, sharp and defensive, eyes flashing with a mix of fury and something dangerously close to longing. For a second, his gaze dropped—trailing over Jeongguk’s flushed torso, the streaks of dried come painting his abs, the way his thighs flexed, still marked with faint bruises from Jimin’s grip. ‘Fuck, he looks wrecked’, Jimin thought, heat pooling low again, his slick starting to leak anew, soaking into the fabric of his pants. But he wrenched his eyes up, meeting Jeongguk’s stare, lips parting as if to lash out, to deny it all.

Jeongguk beat him to it, voice dropping to a weary growl. “Go,” he said, clearly not wanting to deal with the situation much longer, his shoulders slumping just a fraction. “That’s what you’re good at, right? Running after you get off on controlling every goddamned thing.”

The words stung a little. He hated the truth in them—the way his heart stuttered, the way part of him wanted to stay, to let Jeongguk’s hands roam again, fill the emptiness aching inside him. But the shame won out, hot and suffocating, pushing him toward the door.

Jimin looked away first, jaw tight, refusing to let Jeongguk see the crack in his resolve. “Forget this happened,” he said, already moving, boots thudding against the floor as he crossed the barn, the cool night air seeping through the cracks like a warning.

Jeongguk watched him go, eyes tracking every step—the sway of Jimin’s hips, the tension in his back, the way his shirt clung to sweat-damp skin. He didn’t follow, didn’t call out, just stood there in the dim light, breathing in the aftermath

“Yeah,” he muttered to the empty space once the door clicked shut, hands flexing uselessly at his sides, frustration coiling tight in his gut. “That’s going to be a fucking problem.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jeongguk lay on his back, staring up into the dark, one forearm slung over his eyes like that might block the thoughts if he pressed hard enough. It didn’t. They slid right through anyway, uninvited and relentless, circling back to the same place no matter how he tried to redirect them.

Jimin.

The memory of him rose with unfair clarity—the sharp line of his shoulders when he turned away after zipping up his pants, the way his mouth always set like he was bracing for something inevitable, the quiet authority that never needed to be loud to be absolute. Jeongguk could still feel the weight of him under his hands, solid and real in a way that made everything else fade out around them—Jimin's beautiful moon phase tattoos that trailed down his spine, the slick heat of him gripping Jeongguk's cock as he thrust deep, the omega's nails raking down his thigh in a mix of pain and plea. What they’d done in that barn hadn’t just felt good. It had felt right. So right in a way that left him hollowed out once it was over, his knot throbbing uselessly around his own fist as he’d been denied the lock his alpha instincts screamed for.

He swallowed thickly and turned onto his side, jaw tightening against the ache building in his groin.

What frustrated him most wasn’t the distance Jimin had immediately placed between them—it was really the denial. The way Jimin kept pretending there was nothing there, as if the air didn’t thicken with tension every time they shared a room, as if Jeongguk hadn’t caught him staring at the curve of his neck or the flex of his arms before snapping his gaze away like it burned. As if that pull between them wasn’t obvious, wasn’t mutual, wasn’t growing sharper the longer it went unacknowledged—like a wire pulled taut, ready to snap and drag them both under.

Jeongguk dragged in a breath through his nose, the faint trace of pine from his own skin mixing with the ghost of something sweeter, more intoxicating.

Orange blossoms.

The scent wasn’t really there anymore since he’d scrubbed himself raw under the outdoor pump, cold water shocking his overheated body—but his alpha didn’t seem to care. It responded anyway, heat stirring low and slow in his belly, tension coiling through his muscles as if the memory alone was enough to set him off balance. He’d never reacted like this to anyone before. Never felt this constant, magnetic urge to be near, to track someone’s presence without trying, to feel settled only when they were close—when he could bury his face in the crook of Jimin's neck and inhale that bloom-scented promise.

It scared him more than he wanted to admit, this loss of control, the way his alpha clawed at the edges of his mind, growling low and possessive whenever Jimin was in sight. Why him? Why this omega who treated him like a threat one moment and a tool the next, who ran hot and cold until Jeongguk’s instincts frayed? He’d bedded others in his time before Day Zero—omegas, even the occasional beta in passing—but none had hooked into him like this, none had made his blood roar with the need to claim, to pin down and fill until the world narrowed to just their scents mingling, pine and orange twisting into something unbreakable.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and the first moment he’d seen Jimin came back unbidden: the cold barrel of a rifle inches from his face, eyes sharp and assessing under that mop of dark hair, voice calm even with the world teetering on a knife’s edge. Even then—especially then—something had shifted inside him. Jeongguk had known it with the same certainty he trusted his instincts in a fight. This omega was different. Dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with weapons, but everything to do with the way he commanded a room without raising his voice, the subtle sway of his hips as he moved through the pack’s routines, the hidden strength in his frame that Jeongguk ached to test.

From that moment on, he hadn’t been able to stop watching him. Learning the rhythm of his movements. The way his scent lingered in spaces after he left. The way Jeongguk’s attention always snapped to him first, unthinking and immediate—like a compass needle finding true north. His alpha whined in the back of his skull now, restless and demanding, fixated on the omega who kept slipping away, leaving Jeongguk chasing shadows and half-remembered touches.

“What is wrong with me,” he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. He let out a slow breath and tried, genuinely, to sleep, forcing his mind to the pack’s duties, the horses in the paddock, anything but the curve of Jimin’s ass under his palms or the taste of his release on his tongue.

He rolled onto his back again, then onto his side, then onto his stomach, the thin cot creaking softly beneath him with each shift, the coarse blanket tangling around his legs. The shed was quiet except for the distant night sounds—wind brushing the outer walls like a sigh, something skittering across the roof, the low murmur of voices from whoever was on guard duty farther off, where the pack settled for the night. Familiar noises that had usually lulled the alpha into a peaceful sleep, his body heavy with exhaustion from the day’s labor.

Tonight, they scraped at his mind, amplifying the itch under his skin.

His body felt wrong. Too warm, like heat trapped beneath it with nowhere to go, his alpha pacing restlessly, urging him to seek out the source of its agitation—to stand beside the one person who made everything sharper, more urgent. He pushed the blanket down with a frustrated huff and lay there bare to the cool air, skin prickling as goosebumps rose, but it didn’t help. The heat followed him, spreading deeper instead of easing, pooling low in his spine and radiating outward in slow, uncomfortable waves that had nothing to do with desire anymore and everything to do with the gnawing pull in his chest.

Why couldn’t he shake this? Why did Jimin lure him in like this, drawing him closer even as the omega treated him like discarded trash—chewed gum stuck to the bottom of a boot, something to scrape off and forget? Jeongguk barely knew a thing about him: the scars hidden under his shirt, the stories behind those steady hands that calmed the wildest horses, the life that had forged someone so unbreakable. And yet, here he was, an alpha who prided himself on self-reliance, needing him in ways that twisted his gut. Jimin didn’t need anyone; he moved through the pack like a force of nature, holding them together with quiet resolve while keeping the world at arm’s length. Everyone leaned on him—the horses that softened under his touch, the younger members who sought his guidance, even Namjoon deferring to his judgment on the farm’s rhythms. But Jimin? He stood alone, unyielding, and that independence only made Jeongguk want to bridge the gap more, to prove he could match that strength, stand shoulder to shoulder without crumbling under the weight of it all.

It was infuriating, this enrapture with someone who saw right through him, who dismissed the spark between them like it was nothing. Jeongguk’s alpha howled in protest for recognition—for the chance to be seen as more than a fleeting mistake in the barn. He clenched his fists against the cot, the wood biting into his palms, willing the restlessness to fade, but it only sharpened the frustration coiling tighter in his core.

“Get a fucking grip, Jeon,” he muttered, voice rough in the dark, the words tasting like ash as the night stretched on.

He closed his eyes, but sleep refused to come. His thoughts kept looping, snagging on the same edges—Jimin’s voice, sharp and controlled, cutting through the haze of the barn like a blade. The way his scent had flooded the space without warning, thick and heady, pulling Jeongguk under before he could fight it. The look in his eyes when he’d finally snapped, something fierce and unguarded flashing through the guarded mask before the walls slammed back into place, leaving Jeongguk grasping at air. His chest tightened, a vise squeezing around his ribs, frustration bubbling up hot and bitter.

Then something shifted.

At first, it was subtle enough that he almost missed it—a deep, internal pressure building like a storm gathering in his core, his bones compressing from the inside out with a dull, insistent throb. He frowned, breath hitching as the sensation sharpened, crawling through his ribcage in jagged pulses that felt deeply wrong. He sucked in a breath—and gasped, the air turning to fire in his lungs.

Pain bloomed suddenly, white-hot and immediate, ripping through his torso as if invisible hands were wrenching his organs into new shapes. His back arched off the cot with a startled cry he couldn’t stifle, hands clawing blindly at the sweat-damp sheets as another surge hit, harder this time, twisting his insides with merciless precision. Every nerve lit up, screaming in protest as the agony clawed deeper, layering over itself in unrelenting waves.

“What—” His voice broke, fracturing into a ragged wheeze.

The pressure returned with brutal force, no longer vague or distant but a vise clamping down on his spine. Heat flared along every vertebra, joints grinding with a wet, sickening crackle that echoed in his skull, sending raw panic flooding his veins like ice water. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, erratic and thunderous, lungs burning as they struggled to draw in air amid the chaos. He rolled off the bed and hit the floor on his knees, breath tearing in and out in short, broken pulls, the rough wood scraping his skin as he braced against it.

Something cracked—loud and final, like a branch snapping under too much weight.

He screamed then—raw, involuntary, the sound ripping from his throat as agony tore through his legs, bones stretching and reforming with brutal force, muscles tearing and knitting back together in a frenzy of fire. The floorboards dug into his palms as his fingers spasmed uncontrollably, nails gouging deep furrows into the wood, splintering it with each convulsive jerk. His vision swam, edges blurring and fracturing, dark spots exploding across his sight like shattered glass as the world warped and tilted, refusing to hold steady.

“H-help—” he tried, but the word dissolved into a guttural snarl he didn’t recognize, his jaw locking as fresh torment surged through his shoulders, broadening them with pops and tears that made bile rise in his throat.

His muscles seized, then surged, body bulking and reshaping faster than his mind could process. Heat roared through him now, unbearable, his skin pulling tight as if it might split. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache, teeth grinding as pressure built in his skull, his face contorting as bones shifted with sickening pops and snaps. 

His muscles seized in violent spasms, then surged outward, body bulking and reshaping faster than his mind could track, skin stretching taut over expanding frames, pulling so tight it felt like it might split open along the seams. Heat roared through him now, an inferno scorching every inch from the inside, sweat pouring off him in rivulets that did nothing to cool the blaze. His limbs thickened, veins bulging under the strain, fingers elongating with cracks that reverberated through his bones. The air in the shed grew thick, heavy with the sharp tang of his own fear-sweat mingling with pine, but beneath it all, that phantom orange blossom lingered in his senses, mocking him even as his body unraveled.

Jeongguk collapsed forward, forehead pressing to the cool floor as another wave hit, this one targeting his skull—pressure building behind his eyes, temples throbbing like they might burst. His teeth ground together, canines sharpening with a grind that drew blood to his tongue, the metallic taste grounding him for a split second before the pain redoubled. 

Why now? Why this? 

His alpha thrashed wildly inside him, not in rage or hunger, but in terror, instincts screaming that this was wrong, that he needed—Jimin's voice, steady and unyielding, to anchor him through the storm. But the omega was miles away in the farmhouse, oblivious, and Jeongguk was alone with the monster his body was becoming, every shift amplifying the frustration into something primal and desperate.

Jeongguk staggered upright, his new limbs protesting with every shift, crashing into the rough-hewn wall of the shed with enough force to rattle the tools hanging from their pegs—hammers clanging against sickles, the metallic jangle piercing the haze in his skull like shards of glass. The world lurched violently around him, balance shattered and unfamiliar, his center of gravity skewed higher, heavier, as if his body had grown without permission, pulling him off-kilter in ways that made his stomach churn. 

He tried to step back, to create space, but his legs—longer now, corded with muscle that flexed involuntarily—refused to move the way they always had, joints locking and releasing in unpredictable bursts that sent him stumbling. Panic surged through him like a live wire, hot and electric, coiling tight in his chest as the reality sank in: this wasn't him anymore, not entirely.

His heart thundered in his ears, each beat a deafening drum echoing through a body that no longer felt like his own, ribs expanding wider with every ragged inhale, lungs straining against the unfamiliar cage. His breathing came out in harsh, broken bursts, chest heaving as sweat-slicked skin pulled taut over bones that still ached from the reshaping, every nerve ending raw and firing without mercy. Something deep inside him pulled, an insistent tug at the core of his being, urging him forward, outward, away from the confines of the shed and the farm that had held him captive in more ways than one. It wasn't just escape; it was a primal command, woven into the fibers of his altered form, drowning out the last threads of rational thought.

‘Get out.’

The thought wasn’t formed in words, not in the coherent way his human mind once shaped them. It didn’t need to be—it roared through him as a visceral imperative, a growl from the alpha that had always simmered beneath his skin but now clawed to the surface, feral and unyielding.

He lunged for the door, slamming into it shoulder-first with a strength that startled him even through the lingering pain, the impact vibrating up his arm like a shockwave. The latch splintered under the force, wood cracking with a sharp snap that echoed in the night, the door flying open on protesting hinges to release a rush of cold night air. It hit him like a physical blow, sharp and clean and overwhelming, flooding his senses with clarity that bordered on agony—crisp chill slicing through the feverish heat radiating from his skin, carrying scents he'd never noticed before in such brutal detail.

Grass, dew-kissed and earthy, rising from the yard in waves. Dirt, rich and loamy, churned from the day's tracks. Trees, their bark musky and resinous, whispering promises of shadow and cover. Life—pulsing, teeming, everywhere at once, a symphony of existence that made his head spin.

Hunger surged so suddenly it made him dizzy, a hollow gnaw twisting in his gut, sharpening his teeth against his tongue as saliva flooded his mouth. His vision sharpened in the dark, colors bleeding into grays and silvers under the moonlight, picking out the faint glint of eyes in the underbrush, the subtle shift of leaves stirred by unseen creatures. Jeongguk's alpha reveled in it, urging him onward.

He burst from the shed in a tangle of limbs and raw momentum, crashing through the yard without thought or direction, driven by the relentless pulse of instinct alone. The ground came alive under his feet—padded now, claws digging into the soft soil with each bound, propelling him faster than he could control. The fence loomed ahead, its splintered posts and taut wire normally an obstacle, solid and impassable to a man, but to whatever he was becoming, it was nothing. His body coiled instinctively, muscles bunching like springs under his skin, and he launched himself forward, clearing it in a single, powerful motion that left his stomach dropping and his mind reeling, the world tilting as he sailed over the barrier and landed with a thud that jarred his elongated frame.

The woods swallowed him whole.

Branches tore at him as he barreled through the underbrush, senses screaming with information he couldn’t parse fast enough. Every sound was too loud. Every smell was too vivid. His body moved with terrifying ease, muscles working in concert without conscious input, carrying him deeper and deeper into the trees. His thoughts scattered, human awareness slipping like water through his fingers. There was only the burn in his limbs, the thunder of his heart, the gnawing ache in his gut that demanded satisfaction. Hunger clawed at him, sharp and urgent, overriding fear, overriding pain.

Senses screamed with information he couldn’t parse fast enough—every rustle amplified to a crash, every whiff of decay or bloom hitting him like a fist. His body moved with terrifying ease, muscles working in perfect, predatory concert without conscious input, carrying him deeper and deeper into the trees, roots snagging at his legs only to be shrugged off as he adapted, leaping and weaving through the tangle with a grace that felt stolen. His thoughts scattered, human awareness slipping like water through his fingers.

There was only the burn in his limbs, fire licking along tendons stretched to their limits; the thunder of his heart, pounding like war drums in his broader chest; the gnawing ache in his gut that demanded satisfaction, twisting sharper with every stride. Hunger clawed at him, sharp and urgent, overriding fear, overriding pain, turning his mouth to water and his vision to tunnel on the shadows ahead. He didn't question it—couldn't—his alpha in full command, scenting prey on the wind, driving him to hunt, to feed, to survive this unraveling.

He didn’t know how long he ran, time fracturing under the onslaught, stretching into eternities of motion and snapping back in disorienting jolts. 

The woods blurred into a rush of dark shapes and silvered moonlight filtering through the canopy, the ground rising and falling beneath him in uneven surges as his body carried him forward without hesitation or mercy. His lungs burned with each inhale of the cool, pine-laced air, but it fueled him rather than slowed him, oxygen flooding his system like kindling to flame. His muscles screamed in protest, fibers tearing and reforming in micro-bursts of agony that blurred with exhilaration, sweat matting fur—fur?

Then the air changed.

It slipped into him without warning—rich, coppery, alive, threading through the myriad scents like a beacon. Blood. Warm, pulsing, carried on the faint tremor of a small life hidden in the brush.

‘Meat.’

Jeongguk skidded to a halt so abruptly that dirt sprayed up beneath his paws, claws raking deep furrows into the damp earth as his elongated body braced hard against the momentum, muscles locking in a tremor that rippled from haunches to shoulders. His breath stalled in his broader chest, nostrils flaring wide to drag in the night air, the scent flooding him fully this time—thick, intoxicating, wrapping around his senses like chains yanking him deeper into the beast.

‘Deer.’

Not the stale, congealed remnants of old blood from some forgotten hunt, nor the thin, metallic tang of dried rations scraped from tins in the dim farmhouse kitchen, or the flat, dead reek of canned meat that turned his stomach even in human form. This was fresh. Warm. Layered with the sharp green crush of leaves under fleeing hooves, the clean bite of night air chilled by dew, and beneath it all, the rich pulse of life thrumming just out of reach. It hit him low and deep, slamming into his core like a fist, straight through whatever scraps of restraint clung to the edges of his fracturing mind. His stomach cramped violently, twisting into knots.

He hadn’t eaten meat like that in years—not really, not the kind that came fresh from muscle still warm with life, from a body that had moved and breathed and ran through these same woods under the moon's indifferent gaze. The memory wasn’t even fully his—not the coherent recollection of a man who'd savored a rare steak at some distant pack gathering—but his body recognized it anyway, cellular and primal, responding with a ferocity that made his vision dim at the edges, black spots dancing like fireflies in the periphery. 

Hunger roared through him, a guttural thunder that drowned out the distant hoot of an owl, the rustle of wind through pines, turning them into white noise against the singular focus of prey.

His mouth flooded with saliva, jaw aching as his fangs extended fully, scraping against his lower lip with a dull throb that bordered on ecstasy. Instinct surged hard enough to drown thought entirely, wiping away the haze of pain from his shifting bones, the confusion of fur sprouting along his spine, the lingering echoes of human frailty. The alpha within clawed to the surface, raw and unyielding, its demands sharpening every nerve into a blade honed for the kill.

The ache in his gut sharpened into something unbearable, a demand that eclipsed pain, fear, confusion—everything except the scent ahead of him, winding through the trees like a promise of satiation, of blood spilling hot over his tongue and flesh tearing under his jaws. He turned toward it without hesitation, head swiveling on a neck thickened with muscle, ears pricking forward to catch the faint snap of twigs, the muffled snort of the animal grazing unaware.

Whatever part of him still knew fear tried to surface, weak and distant, but it was swept aside by something older and stronger. His body leaned into the direction of the smell, haunches bunching, claws flexing against the leaf-strewn ground as readiness coiled through him like a spring wound too tight. The world narrowed to the hunt: the deer's outline materializing in the silvered gloom, slender legs poised for flight, antlers catching moonlight in a brief glint.

Ready to hunt.

With a low, broken sound that might once have been his voice—half-growl, half-moan, ragged with the strain of transformation—Jeongguk launched forward again, paws pounding the earth in a blur of speed and silence, disappearing deeper into the forest as the scent of deer pulled him on. Closer. Closer. Branches whipped past, tearing shallow gashes in his furred sides that he barely registered, the sting blending with the exhilaration pounding in his veins. His heart hammered, blood singing with the thrill, every sense honed to the chase—the deer's sudden bolt, the thunder of its flight mirroring his own earlier panic, but now he was the pursuer, the alpha unleashed. The beast reveled in it, muscles burning with power, jaws parting in anticipation of the hot gush of arterial spray, the satisfying crunch of bone giving way.

The dark waited to receive him, vast and unyielding, but Jeongguk plunged into it without fear, hunger and motion the only truths left, the forest alive with the promise of the kill.

Absolutely stunning art by Meli on Twitter. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 7 : No Turning Back

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jimin jolted awake to the ragged tear of his own breath ripping from his lungs, as if hauled from the crushing deep depths of an ocean. A heavy pressure clamped his shoulder—fingers burrowing deep, registering in his nerves before his mind could surface. Instinct surged through him like a live wire.

He whipped toward the intrusion, elbow snapping back while his free hand dove beneath the pillow, knuckles rasping over the coarse cotton edge. Cold steel nipped his skin as he yanked the knife free. Eyes still sealed shut, his arm slashed upward in a lethal, honed sweep that stops only when it meets resistance. The tip of the blade pressed into warm skin and someone inhales sharply, the sound clipped off halfway like they’ve bitten it back.

“Jimin—”

The voice is low and urgent, close enough that Jimin can feel breath against his cheek. His eyes snap open to the room's hazy lantern glow, shadows pooling in corners like spilled ink. Taehyung's face loomed mere inches away, lines etched tight with strain, gaze unflinching yet wide with quiet plea.

The knife trembled at Taehyung's throat, near enough for Jimin to trace the frantic throb of his pulse, to sense the alpha's radiating heat across the scant breath between them. His grip tightens reflexively, wrist locking as his brain scrambles to catch up with what his body had already done. The lantern's flame danced erratically, etching hollows under Taehyung's eyes and sharpening the clench of his jaw. That same hand gripped Jimin's shoulder, digits vise-like, tethering him to the rumpled sheets as if to prevent any sudden flight. For half a second no one moves, and Taehyung doesn’t pull away. He just keeps his hand where it is, fingers digging in harder like he’s afraid Jimin might bolt.

“Hey,” Taehyung murmurs, barely audible. “Hey, Jimin, it’s me. It’s just me.”

Recognition comes in fragments. The voice, the face, the familiar weight of the alpha’s hand. Jimin exhales sharply and yanks the knife back, the motion jerky now that the adrenaline has somewhere to go. The blade scraped against his collarbone as he drew it protectively to his chest, blade pressed flat against his racing heart. He sucked in air through flared nostrils, then again, willing the thunder in his veins to ebb even as it rebelled.

“Fuck,” he mutters hoarsely. “You can’t just—”

“I know,” Taehyung cut in swiftly, releasing a measured breath he'd clearly trapped since the blade first met his skin. “I know. I'm sorry—I didn't mean to startle you. But we have to move. Now.”

Jimin raked a hand across his face, clawing at the stubborn haze clouding his thoughts. His pulse thundered in his ears, a relentless drum that seemed to vibrate the very air around him. The room felt off-kilter—patches of light glaring too harshly, voids of shadow swallowing the edges. The lantern's glow wavered across the opposite wall, erratic and fitful, casting restless silhouettes that danced without cause. Jimin blinked hard, eyes watering from the strain, and at last absorbed the full scene. Yoongi loomed just beyond the threshold, rifle pointed downward but primed, index finger aligned rigidly along the trigger guard, his frame canted toward the corridor as if straining to catch distant echoes. Hoseok hovered in his wake, fully kitted out—boots laced, jacket secured—fists unclenched yet coiled at his hips. Their stares pinned Jimin, keen and unblinking, and that's when dread coiled low in his gut, cold and insistent.

“What is it?” he demanded, gravel scraping his throat as he swung his legs off the mattress, the sheet snagging around his calves. Icy boards met his soles, the draft nipping upward to raise goosebumps along his bare skin, chasing away the last dregs of sleep with a sharp tremor. “What’s going on?”

Taehyung doesn’t answer right away. He glances over his shoulder toward the door, then back at Jimin, mouth opening and closing like he’s weighing which words to keep and which to throw away.

“We need you outside,” he says instead. “Right now.”

“Why?” Jimin pressed, hauling himself fully vertical, muscles protesting the abrupt shift.

Taehyung hesitates, just long enough for the silence to stretch. “We don’t know,” he says finally, “but we’ve got a problem.”

Jimin inhales sharply. “What the hell do you mean, ‘you don’t know’? You drag me out of bed in the dead of night and you don’t know why?”

Taehyung's gaze darted to the door once more, as if whatever’s waiting outside might hear them through the walls. “Minseok and Daehyun flagged us,” he says. “Something’s wrong, and we need to get outside. Now Jimin.”

“What the—”

“Something’s wrong with Jeongguk.”

Yoongi’s voice cuts cleanly through the room, flat and unembellished, and Jimin’s head snaps up toward the alpha.

“Fuck,” Jimin exhaled, the word slipping out on a deflate.

“Yeah,” Yoongi confirmed. He shifted his hold on the rifle, pivoting toward the hallway without another glance. “They spotted his shed door ripped from the hinges and a streak of blood leading away, so get off your ass and let’s move.”

Shit.

Jimin's gaze dropped to the knife gripped white-knuckled in his fist. He pried his fingers open, the blade's edge catching a glint from the lantern as he slipped it beneath the pillow, his hand hovering there a fraction too long, as if reluctant to let go of the security it promised. He snatched his boots next, jamming them onto his feet without pause, laces whipping against his ankles in hasty knots. His jacket came last, shrugged on in a fluid twist, the fabric rasping over his shoulders.

Hoseok advanced as the zipper rasped halfway up, thrusting the rifle's solid mass into Jimin's grasp. “Loaded,” he said under his breath.

Jimin nods once, accepting it without comment. He flicked the safety with a practiced thumb once his jacket sealed, then shouldered the weapon, its balanced heft anchoring the last frayed edges of his composure. Taehyung shifted aside to clear the path. No one lingered for further words; the quartet was already in motion as Jimin caught up, Yoongi's hand clamping the front door and hauling it wide, the night's edge crystallizing the peril into something tangible and immediate.

A gust of crisp air surged through the threshold, biting into Jimin's nostrils with a metallic tang that cleared the remnants of sleep from his lungs. He inhaled deeply, eyes sweeping the expanse ahead. The yard unfurled under their pooled lantern glow, erratic beams skimming hard-packed earth and the weathered flanks of the sheds, while the fence line dissolved into inky obscurity. The compound's hush pressed in oppressively—no blaring sirens, no frantic shouts fracturing the dark, just the unnatural void that amplified every scuff of boot and rustle of cloth. There wasn’t any movement beyond the small knot of bodies. 

Minseok and Daehyun lingered at the light's frayed border, huddled near Jeongguk's shed, and even from afar, Jimin can tell something’s off. The air thickened with their disarray, a silent testament to the blood-smeared path they'd uncovered.

Minseok keeps pacing in short, tight lines, heels grinding furrows into the same dirt square, palms rising to rake through his hair before plummeting back to his sides, adrift and undecided. He halted every third stride, pivoting toward the fence's gloom, then lurched onward, directionless, as if the shadows pulled at him without mercy.

Daehyun flanked him, statue-still save for the subtle hunch of his shoulders, warding off an invisible gale unrelated to the frost. His rifle dangled limp from the sling, fingers slack around the stock—too lax for a swift draw, teetering on the verge of dropping. His stare bored into the blackness past the barrier, jaw clenched like forged iron, lids narrowed in vigilant dread, braced for whatever nightmare might erupt from the void at any instant.

Neither man tears their stare from the fence as Jimin closes in, the crunch of his boots on the grit the only sound slicing the heavy quiet.

“Tell me,” Jimin demands, his scan already roving the yard's expanse, tracing the fence's ragged outline, the shadowed gaps between buildings as he stops in front of them. His eyes keep moving even as he speaks, counting distances, cataloging blind spots. “Start from the beginning.”

Minseok opens his mouth, then closes it again. He scrubs a palm across his features, digits digging into his sockets before falling away, a ragged breath hissing out, like he’s trying to get his breathing back under control.

“We—we were on watch,” he starts, then shakes his head. “I mean, obviously. Nothing was wrong, and it was quiet. Too quiet, maybe, but—”

Daehyun interjects, tone coiled yet firm. “We heard it.”

Jimin’s eyes flick to him. “Heard what?”

“Wood breaking,” Daehyun says. “Breaking, but not like someone prying at it with a tool or something. More like uh—” He lifts one hand and makes a short, sharp motion through the air, the movement abrupt enough to snap the lantern light.  “Like something hit it. Hard.”

Minseok nods quickly. “Once, and then again, right on top of it. A-and there was no pause—I honestly thought it was someone trying to break into the barn.”

Jimin’s gaze shifts toward Jeongguk’s shed without him meaning to. He feels it before he recognizes it—the way his attention narrows, the rest of the yard blurring at the edges.

“So we ran,” Minseok continued, words picking up speed now. “Didn’t even think about it. Just grabbed our rifles and ran to see what the hell was making all that noise.”

They move aside as Jimin steps closer, and the damage comes fully into view. The door hangs crooked, one hinge twisted out of alignment, the frame split down the middle as if it’s been forced open without hesitation or testing. The wood looks torn rather than broken, fibers exposed and jagged. Dark stains smear the dirt just beyond the threshold, uneven and dragged, catching the lantern light in dull, ugly patches that don’t reflect the way clean blood does.

Jimin stops just short of the threshold.

“And whatever did it wasn’t inside anymore,” Daehyun says quietly. “It was already moving.”

“Moving,” Jimin echoes, pivoting to face them, his pulse a steady thrum in his ears.

Minseok shakes his head, frustration flashing across his face. “Fast—far too fast for us to get a good look. All we really saw was the shape of it, and it was—it was like this huge, dark mass pulling away from the shed and heading straight for the fence.”

“It kept pretty low to the ground,” Daehyun says. “But it looked wide—heavy. Like it had some weight to it.”

Jimin studies their faces. “How big do you think this thing was?”

Minseok takes a moment before answering. “That beast was bigger than a howler, I’m pretty damn sure of that.”

Daehyun nods. “I’ve seen howlers hit the fence plenty of times, and they hesitate because they can barely scale it. This thing didn’t even have to climb.”

“It cleared it,” Minseok says quietly. “Didn’t slow down at all. Just fucking went right over it—I swear.”

There’s a brief lull, filled only by the faint creak of the fence in the wind and the soft crackle of the lantern.

“For a second,” Minseok adds, clearly unhappy with the comparison, “I thought it was a bear. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s the closest thing my brain could grab onto within the few seconds I saw it. I don’t even want to think about it being some fucked up super-howler-mutation or some shit.”

Daehyun grimaces as he glances at him, then gives a short nod. “Same here.”

Jimin shifts his stance slightly, weight rolling from heel to toe as his gaze tracks the faint smear of blood leading away from the shed and disappearing into the trees. His stomach tightens. “Did you see Jeongguk?”

Minseok’s eyes drop to the ground near the door. “No, I—we didn’t see him. We only saw the blood, and the door busted open.”

Jimin looks back at them sharply. “You’re certain?”

“Dead certain,” Daehyun answers without hesitation.

Minseok swallows. “If something that size can clear the fence,” he says slowly, “I don’t think it’s done with us.”

“And if it…if it killed him,” Daehyun adds, voice roughening just a little despite himself, “there’s no way it won’t come back for more.”

Jimin’s grip tightens on the rifle before he realizes it. He forces his fingers to loosen, rolling his shoulders once.

“You did the right thing alerting us immediately,” he says. “Both of you.”

The tension in Minseok’s shoulders eases just a fraction. Daehyun nods once.

“Get back to your post,” Jimin continues. “Stay sharp. If you hear anything else—anything at all—you let us know immediately.”

They peel away in silence, Minseok and Daehyun stealing final glances at the fence's silhouette before retreating toward the farmhouse's glow. Jimin lingers, rooted, his stare locked on the splintered doorframe and the impenetrable wall of trees swallowing the horizon. That colossal, blurring form lodges in his thoughts like a splinter, unrelenting and festering.

After a moment, he lifts the lantern higher and steps fully inside the shed. The light crawled over the interior, slow and reluctant, revealing damage in pieces. The cot was half overturned, one leg bent inward. The thin mattress was dragged sideways, its corner twisted like it was yanked mid-motion. The blanket was twisted into itself, bunched tight at one end, the fabric stretched and creased like it’s been clenched in a fist.

Jimin’s gaze drops.

Jeongguk’s shirt lies on the floor near the wall, torn open along the seam, the fabric shredded unevenly. It didn’t look like a clean rip—the kind that happened by accident when a fabric was simply too tight. He crouched and picked it up, fingers closing around the soft cotton before he realizes what he’s doing. The tear is rough beneath his thumb, threads pulled loose, the damage violent enough that the fabric almost curls. This was no accident. Jimin straightened slowly and took in the rest of the space. One boot was still by the cot, upright, while the other was knocked onto its side near the door. There were scratches all along the wall near the door, shallow in places and deeper in others, all clustered around shoulder height, overlapping like they were made in a moment of desperation.

The scent of iron hangs in the air, sharp and insistent, drawing his gaze to the dark smears along the floorboards—blood, smeared in erratic streaks toward the door. He leans closer, nostrils flaring as he draws in a deep breath. The scent hits him: coppery and warm, laced with that faint, unmistakable undercurrent of pine smoke, like embers in a winter forest. Jeongguk's. Unmistakably.

For a split second, a colder possibility claws at the edges of his mind—Jeongguk turning, the change ripping through him in the dead of night, twisting him into one of those mindless howlers that prowled the wilds. It would explain the violence, the sudden savagery in this confined space. But no. Jimin exhales sharply, the idea crumbling under the weight of logic. If Jeongguk had shifted, he would've lunged at the first sign of life—the night watch would've put him down before he cleared the fence, bullets finding flesh in the dark. Or worse, he'd have torn into one of them already, claws raking through skin and bone without mercy. This wasn't that. The blood was too human, too Jeongguk, carrying no feral rot or the acrid burn of the changed.

Something else had come for him. Grabbed him. Hurt him.

The scene assembles itself in his mind without permission—the door breaking, Jeongguk getting up too fast, fighting for space, fighting to stay on his feet against the large creature. Jeongguk being grabbed and dragged off into the night. The thought hits hard enough that Jimin has to brace a hand against the cot in order to stay upright. His chest tightens, breath pulling shallow as something sharp and hot cuts through him before he understands it.

If something that big took him—

Jimin swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling like it was closing on him. He gripped the edge of the cot and shoved it back into place harder than necessary, the wood banging violently against the wall, loud in the small space.

“Fuck!” he bit out.

Hoseok shifted behind him. “Jimin.”

Jimin barely registered Hoseok's voice, the anger surging like a live wire through his veins, shattering the fragile hold on his composure. His gaze snagged on a jagged shard of wood jutting from the splintered doorframe—rough, splintered edges catching the lantern's flicker. He snatched it up, the grain biting into his palm, and hurled it across the shed in a blind arc. It whistled through the stale air before slamming into the far wall with a brittle crack, fragments exploding outward like shrapnel, scattering across the blood-streaked floor. The echo hung, sharp and absolute, swallowed only by the lantern's steady hiss and the ragged pull of his own breaths rasping in his ears.

For a heartbeat, Jimin froze there, chest rising and falling in heavy surges, the heat of fury coiling tight in his gut. He didn't know where it erupted from—this raw, volcanic force—but it scorched away the numbness, demanding an outlet, funneling the terror into something sharper, more actionable. Then, like a tether snapping into place, his thoughts seized on a solid memory.

The depot. Jeongguk bloodied, hands shaking, still upright, still swinging. He staggered, his footing slipping on the debris-strewn concrete, but he swung anyway—wild, desperate arcs that connected with snarling jaws, sending howlers crumpling even as more clawed in from the shadows. Refusing to drop, refusing to yield, his breaths came in defiant gasps amid the chaos.

Jimin's fists clenched at his sides, nails digging crescents into his palms as the image burned brighter, fueling the fire. Jeongguk had fought then, tooth and nail against the end of the world, and he'd do it again now—had to, because Jimin wouldn't let this be the moment it all broke. The creature had taken him, yeah, but it had left a trail, a weakness in its haste.

“There’s no way he didn’t fight,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “He fought back there at the depot.”

Yoongi appeared at the doorway, eyes flicking from the torn shirt in Jimin’s hand to the state of the room. “But if this thing was as huge as they said...” He trailed off, the unfinished thought hanging heavy, laced with the unspoken dread of what that size could do to a man like Jeongguk.

“I know,” Jimin snapped, sharper than intended, the edge slicing through the stale air. He raked a hand through his damp hair, forcing his tone level, though his pulse hammered like a war drum. “I know. I’m just saying... there’s no way he didn’t put up a fight.”

He steps past Yoongi and out of the shed, boots scuffing the blood-flecked dirt as he emerges from the shed's stifling confines. The lantern light frayed at the edge, casting long, jagged shadows where the crimson trail petered out, veering toward the dense wall of trees. Fear coiled back into his chest, dense and icy, but it’s changed shape now. If Jeongguk fought, then whatever took him didn’t get away cleanly. It should likely be injured in some shape or form, meaning it could be tracked. The only issue, was that no one seemed to be picking up a scent, other than Jeongguk’s.

“We can’t leave whatever did this out there,” Jimin says, turning to them. “If something that size broke through once, it can do it again. Next time it won’t stop at this shed.”

Yoongi’s eyes lingered on the treeline, where branches swayed like whispering conspirators, then flicked back to Jimin. “Fucking hell—that thing really cleared a fence this high. Didn’t even slow it down.” The words carried the faint awe of impossibility, undercut by the rifle's weight shifting in his grip.

“Which means waiting gives it an advantage,” Jimin replies. “If it’s injured, it’s dangerous but manageable and close. If it isn’t, then it already knows it can get inside our perimeter. Either way, standing here doesn’t make anyone safer.”

Hoseok shifts to face him and Yoongi. “You’re talking about going into the woods in the dark after something we couldn’t even see clearly.”

“Yes,” Jimin pressed, throat tight with the truth of it. “I’m talking about ending it before it circles back for the rest of us. Or at least scouting the damage so we know the beast we’re up against.”

Silence stretches, the wind carrying the smell of blood farther into the trees. Taehyung steps forward, breaking it. “He’s not wrong,” he says. “If it’s mobile, it’s a threat. We can’t lose whatever chance we have to deal with it on our terms.”

Yoongi’s jaw tightens. “You’re backing this?”

“Damn right,” Taehyung replied, no waver, his rifle angling subtly toward the fence. “Small group, and we stay quiet—no calling out for Jeongguk since we can’t see shit out there. If he’s still alive, we’ll have to search in silence.”

“And if we can’t find him?” Hoseok says.

“Then we just focus on killing the fucker that took him,” Taehyung replies.

Hoseok exhaled a curse, face drawn taut with resignation. “We’re stumbling in blind as bats in this pitch. I hate it.”

“Neither do I,” Jimin says. “But I like the idea of it coming back even less.”

Another beat passed. Yoongi huffed through his nose, irritation flashing before he hitched his rifle strap higher. “Fine. We hit it quick,” he growled. “No chasing ghosts on noise alone, no fracturing the line, none of that reckless bullshit.”

Taehyung dipped his chin in agreement. “I’m with you.”

Hoseok hesitates, then swears quietly. “I’m not staying behind while you three walk into hell.”

Jimin doesn’t argue. He hoisted the lantern, its flame dancing wild as he oriented toward the fence, momentum carrying him forward like a current. Taehyung synced his stride without protest, barrel sweeping the void where the trail vanished into the murk. Whatever made it past the fence once won’t get another chance. Hoseok broke away before they reached the gate.

“I’m waking Namjoon and Jiwon,” he says quietly, already angling back toward the farmhouse. “They need to know what’s happening.”

Yoongi gives a short nod. “Three minutes.”

Hoseok turns and moves off at a quick, controlled pace, boots soft against the dirt as his silhouette slips between buildings and disappears into the dark. The rest of them slow near the front of the gate.

Up close, the fence feels even taller than it did from a distance. The metal bars are slick with condensation, cold enough that the lantern light skims over them instead of sticking. The wind threads through the gaps with a low, hollow sound that carries farther than it should. Beyond it, the trees stand packed tight together, branches interlaced so thickly that the forest looks less like an open space and more like a wall someone stacked deliberately to keep things in—or out. Jimin shifts the rifle strap against his shoulder and rolls his neck once, easing the tension there. He’s just about to signal them forward when he hears his name.

“Jimin.”

He turns.

Jiwon stands at the porch steps, jacket slung haphazardly over rumpled sleepwear, her hair a wild cascade from hasty fingers. Her breaths come in shallow pulls, the rush of half-dressed haste still clinging to her like frost. Hoseok hovers a step behind, his voice a low rumble feeding details to Namjoon, who's wedged halfway through the farmhouse door, palm flat against the splintered frame as he absorbs the beta's report. Namjoon's face is a mask of coiled focus, gaze piercing the dim even at this witching hour.

Jiwon wastes no breath. She strides across the yard, gravel crunching under her boots, halting inches from Jimin. Her hand dives into her pocket, emerging with a clutch of syringes, their translucent barrels glinting faintly in the lantern light.

“Take these.”

Jimin's eyes drop to the bundle, then lift to hers, confusion sharpening his tone. “For what? What is this?” 

Her expression doesn’t soften. If anything, it firms the way it does when she’s already made a decision and is working backward through the logistics.

“In case you find him alive.”

The implication lands like lead in his ribs, yanking his mind inward, away from the treeline's pull, no matter how he fights it.

“And not thinking clearly,” Jiwon continues. “Or at least not thinking like himself.”

Jimin forces a slow exhale through flared nostrils, the air tasting stale. “You think I’m going to need to sedate him?”

“I think there’s a strong possibility you might,” she replies evenly. “Based on what Hoseok just told me—whatever happened out there was violent enough to break through a reinforced shed door and drag him into the woods. That’s severe trauma, layered on top of everything else he’s already been through.”

His teeth grind, jaw locking against the surge.

“I also heard about what happened at the depot,” Jiwon adds, more solemn now. “You saw how close he came to losing control.”

The memory surfaces whether Jimin wants it to or not—Jeongguk shaking, eyes unfocused, breath coming too fast, his body still braced for a fight that had already ended.

“If he’s alive,” she continues, “there’s a chance he’s injured, in shock, or running on nothing but pure instinct. He might not recognize you right away—he might not recognize anyone.”

Taehyung stirs at Jimin's side, a subtle weight shift, but he holds his tongue.

“And if he’s feral,” Jiwon finishes, “you and I both know it won’t be smart to try and restrain an alpha his size with just your hands.”

Jimin eyes the syringes a beat longer, the plastic cool and unyielding, before claiming them. They sink into his palm heavier than their slim forms suggest, a chill seeping through his skin like omen.

“How strong?” he asks.

“Enough to knock him out without stopping his heart,” she answers. “Or at least long enough to temporarily stabilize him. But given that these are a few years past expiry, it's possible the effectiveness has gone down. Be ready to use more than one.”

Jimin nods once and slips them into the inner pocket of his jacket. The weight settles there, a grim talisman, as the night presses closer, the woods' murmur a siren call laced with peril. Namjoon's nod from the porch seals it—no turning back now, just the push into the dark, syringes a silent vow against the what-ifs clawing at Jimin's edges.

Jiwon watches him carefully. “Be careful.”

He doesn’t respond right away. Then, “We will.”

She steps aside, clearing the path. Before they move, Jimin switches the lantern off. The sudden absence of its glow feels wrong for half a second, the yard dimming into shadow, but he doesn’t hesitate. He hooks it onto the fence post anyway, a quiet decision made without explanation. Lantern light spreads too far, spills where it doesn’t belong. Out there, he needs control.

He pulls the flashlight from his belt instead, thumb brushing the ridged edge before he clicks it on low. The beam snaps into place, tight and contained, cutting a clean path across the ground instead of flooding it. White light skims over dirt and grass and the base of the fence, precise enough to show detail without announcing them to anything listening farther out.

The gate opens with a faint scrape of metal, and Jimin steps through first, flashlight angled down as his eyes track the ground ahead. The blood trail inside the compound is easy to follow, dark against the packed dirt, smeared in long, uneven strokes that speak more of dragging weight than purposeful movement. Near the outside of the fence, the soil is churned badly, indeterminate prints overlapping with impressions that sink deeper than they should, wide and misshapen enough to make his jaw tighten as he studies them. He slows there, crouching just enough to get the angle right.

The impressions aren’t clawed. They aren’t clean. Whatever made them didn’t move delicately or carefully. It hit the ground hard and pushed off harder, the earth torn up beneath it as it went over the fence rather than through it. Further away from the fence, the trail thins almost immediately. Leaves and roots swallow it up, damp soil drinking the rest until only the suggestion of direction remains. The forest doesn’t keep evidence the way the compound does. It absorbs, erases, closes ranks behind anything that passes through. They cross the threshold one by one.

The temperature had dropped as soon as they slipped under the trees, the cold settling heavier there, pressed down by branches that blocked the wind but trapped the chill. Moisture clung to bark and dead leaves, the air thick with the scent of soil and something faintly metallic that Jimin tried not to dwell on yet. They moved the way they had been trained to move, the habits ingrained so deeply that even his fear couldn't disrupt them. He kept his spacing consistent—no crowding Taehyung ahead, no drifting too far from the others behind. His rifle stayed up but not raised to fire, finger disciplined off the trigger, movements swift and controlled. Every step he took landed deliberately, weight rolling from heel to toe to muffle the sound, his boots lifting cleanly instead of scraping through the leaves.

As they pushed farther from the farmhouse, Jimin grew acutely aware of what wasn't there. He slowed his pace, his flashlight dipping slightly as he drew a deeper breath through his nose, then another, careful and measured. The cold air filled his lungs, stinging with every inhale. 

There was no stench of rot or sourness clinging to the back of his throat. He didn't catch the sweet-sick decay of infected flesh, the kind that usually announced itself long before a howler appeared. No ammonia bite, no rank undertone that made him want to breathe through his mouth. Howlers never smelled neutral. Even in the cold, even when the wind shifted wrong, there was always something—a lingering sour note, a spoiled sweetness that seeped into clothes and hair and lingered long after he'd left the area. Jimin had tracked enough of them to know the difference between distance and absence; this felt like the latter, and it gnawed at him.

It didn't rule out a howler entirely—there were always anomalies, bodies that decayed differently, conditions that altered how the infection spread. He'd learned not to dismiss possibilities just because they didn't align neatly, but the doubt twisted in his gut anyway.

Still, the absence weighed heavier with every step he took. His grip tightened on the flashlight, the plastic biting into his palm.

If this thing wasn't leaving behind rot, then whatever had dragged Jeongguk from the compound likely wasn't breaking down the way howlers did. It fed differently, healed differently, existed in a way that didn't depend on constant scavenging to stave off decay and keep it moving. The thought crawled unpleasantly up Jimin's spine, making his skin prickle despite the chill. Whatever lurked out here didn't smell like death, and that, more than anything so far, told him they might be facing something worse—something that could outlast them all.

The blood trail grew spottier as they ventured deeper, the wretched scent sharpening in the air, now mingling with that faint pine smoke that still marked Jeongguk's essence. Jimin's pulse thrummed in his ears, each snap of a twig underfoot echoing like a warning in his mind. He glanced at Taehyung flanking him silently, the younger man's breath steady but shallow, his rifle sweeping the shadows with practiced ease. The syringes in Jimin's pocket pressed against his chest like a cold weight, a grim reminder that this wasn't just a hunt for the beast, but for the man it might have broken. He scanned the underbrush ahead, eyes straining for any flicker of movement, the unknown coiling tighter around his resolve, urging him onward even as fear clawed at the edges of his focus.

Jimin angled the flashlight lower, its beam grazing the forest floor like a hesitant finger tracing a path. He swept it methodically, left to right, the light picking out the chaos left behind: clumps of soil churned up like fresh wounds, brittle twigs splintered under unimaginable weight, broad swaths of ferns and brambles crushed flat where the undergrowth had given way to brute force. Each sign pulled at him, a silent map etched by desperation and violence, leading them deeper into the black heart of the woods.

He halted every few paces, breath held shallow in his chest, ears straining against the night's deceptive symphony. The forest breathed around him—tiny claws scraping over bark as rodents darted for cover, the faint rustle of leaves brushing in the faint breeze, the occasional groan of a limb contracting in the frost. It all blended into a low, relentless murmur, a veil that muffled the world and turned every shadow into a potential ambush. Jimin hated how it played tricks on him, how a distant crack could spike his heart rate before he pinpointed it as nothing more than settling ice on a branch.

His mind wandered despite his efforts to lock it down, circling back to the howlers like a bad habit he couldn't shake. The missing rot in the air made them an unlikely threat here, but logic didn't erase the chill that thought brought. As winter dug its claws in, they always pushed southward, drawn to the crumbling skeletons of the city—subways and basements where the concrete trapped what little warmth lingered. Their hides were pitiful shields against the freeze, mottled and sparse, leaving ribs and spines stark under taut skin no matter how ferociously they bulked up. Jimin remembered the ones he'd put down in past seasons, their movements sluggish after the first hard frosts, breaths fogging in ragged bursts as the cold sapped their frenzy.

But not all of them buckled the same. The outliers stuck in his memory like thorns—the massive variants, the ones that must have been powerhouses in their human days, now twisted into hulking nightmares. He'd faced a few, felt the ground shudder under their charge even when the air bit like knives. Those didn't falter; they powered through, rage fueling them where insulation failed. Jimin flexed his fingers around the rifle's grip, the cold metal seeping through his fingers, a reminder that exceptions could turn a hunt into a slaughter. He pushed the image aside, focusing instead on the trail ahead, the faint glint of blood catching the light like scattered rubies.

What unsettles him more is the absence of chaos. There was no secondary breach in the compound. No sign of whatever did this doubling back for easier prey. No scattered evidence of panic inside the compound beyond Jeongguk’s shed. It went straight for him, dragged him out, then left.

Why?

Did Jeongguk fight hard enough that it wasn’t worth it for the beast to stay? Did whatever take him get injured and retreat, deciding the risk outweighed the reward as it abandoned the alpha in the woods? Or worse—maybe it had succeeded. Taken what it wanted without a backward glance, content to vanish before the compound stirred. Jimin's pulse thrummed in his temples, each unanswered possibility twisting the knot in his chest tighter, turning resolve into something rawer, more desperate. And then his mind, unhelpfully, dragged him backward to the barn, five hours earlier.

The smell of hay and sweat trapped between old wooden walls, the way the cold air had pressed in around them without quite touching. Jeongguk’s hands shaking where they’d held Jimin’s hips, the way his breath had hitched when Jimin told him to keep going, to stop hesitating. It hadn’t been soft, but it had been pretty damn close. Closer than Jimin has let anyone get in over a year without heat or survival forcing his hand. No biology to blame it on. Just a choice. Just desire.

And Jimin had been cold to the alpha. Controlled in the way he always is when something starts to matter too much, when it edges too close to vulnerability. He’d left Jeongguk alone in that barn afterward, hadn’t looked back, and hadn't checked in on him later. The thought sits wrong now, heavy and sour as it churned in his stomach. If Jeongguk is dead, or dying somewhere out here, his last clear memory might be of Jimin’s hands on him, his voice in his ear, and then the door closing behind him. Jimin swallows, throat tight. He adjusts his grip on the flashlight and keeps moving, the beam cutting a narrow, deliberate path through the dark as the trees close in around them. 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The forest swallowed light like it was starving for it. 

Far behind them, the farmhouse's feeble glow had vanished entirely, eclipsed by trunks too dense to pierce, leaving no trace of the world they'd left. Above, the canopy clamped down like a coffin lid, limbs twisted and fused, erasing stars, moon—any hint of the sky. Darkness didn't merely arrive; it smothered, compressing the air until it clung to their skin, heavy and nearly suffocating, muting even Taehyung's exhales to faint whispers absorbed by the void.

A crisp crack shattered the hush from their right.

They all halted, bodies locking in place.

The sound was too clean for falling debris, too loud for it to be a small rodent, like a rabbit, skittering around with careless movement. Whatever broke that twig had weight behind it—enough to crush instead of bend. The silence that followed pressed in hard, brittle with tension, ringing in Jimin’s ears as he moved his finger to hover over the trigger.

Then it rolled in, prolonged and menacing, encircling them—a rumble devoid of prelude, pure purpose. It slithered through the foliage like fog, thrumming up through the ground into their soles, thick and wet and so guttural it didn’t sound natural. It sounded big. Too big. Jimin paused, stilled, every muscle pulled tight as wire, and killed the flashlight without hesitation. The night swallowed them whole.

The blackness hit all at once, disorienting and complete. It felt damp, almost physical, like slipping underwater. The temperature dipped again—just enough to register—and the air turned sharp in his throat, dense and unmoving, as if something massive nearby had drawn a breath and hadn’t let it go yet.

“Formation,” Jimin said, voice barely more than a whisper.

They moved silently. Boots pivoted through fallen leaves without scraping, bodies aligning with practiced efficiency as rifles came up in unison, barrels trained on a threat they couldn’t see. Taehyung’s shoulder brushed Jimin’s on the left; Hoseok and Yoongi shifted behind them, closing the circle. The quiet stretched thin and unforgiving, broken only by the faint hiss of breath from someone fighting the urge to inhale too loudly.

For a few suspended seconds, they held there—back to back, lungs tight, pulse pounding hard enough to feel in their throats. Cold air slid along their spines where sweat had already started to bead. The forest, which moments ago had been alive with small, ordinary sounds, had gone utterly still, as if it were listening along with them. Then came the rustle, from the left this time.

Another low growl—closer.

It didn’t carry evenly. The sound shifted—sliding left, pausing, then drifting again—slow and deliberate, tracing a wide arc around them. The forest floor barely stirred, but the vibration traveled through the soil and into their boots, heavy enough to register in bone. The cadence was wrong—too slow for a howler, too controlled for a rager. Nothing about it matched any predator Jimin had tracked before.

Jimin's fingers clenched harder around the rifle's stock, his knuckles bleaching pale under the strain. He could feel Hoseok's presence just behind him, the man's shoulder a solid but tense anchor, his breaths coming in short, ragged bursts that Jimin tracked without turning. To his left, Taehyung shifted ever so slightly, inching his body to shield Yoongi from the direction of the noise, all without a single utterance. Beyond their tight circle, leaves rustled faintly in the impenetrable black, a whisper that clawed at the edges of Jimin's awareness.

This thing—whatever the hell it was—hadn't charged. No, it was playing with them, probing the boundaries of their formation, forcing them to hold still while it mapped their vulnerabilities. Jimin's pulse thrummed steady in his ears, a counterpoint to the void, but he kept the flashlight doused and aimed at the dirt. Every instinct screamed at him not to betray their spot until he had a clearer picture of the threat—size, speed, intent. Yet the pitch-black pressed in, eroding his edges, sharpening his other senses to a razor's edge as he fought to pierce the nothing: ears straining for every nuance, breaths measured and shallow, muscles coiled like springs ready to unleash.

A soft crackle of foliage sounded ahead, distant but deliberate. Then another, right at their backs, and Jimin's gut twisted into a cold knot.

‘Fuck. Is there more than one?’

He forced himself to focus, counting the spacing, the timing.

‘No—just fast. It’s making a wide circle.’

Another growl followed, slinking from behind them now, pitched lower, scraping like claws on soaked stone. It rippled through the air, and Jimin felt the vibration shudder up Hoseok's frame, the man whispering something low—maybe a plea to whatever god still listened, or a string of filth aimed at the dark. Taehyung held firm, no tremor in him, but Jimin caught the subtle grind of his boot sole against the leaf litter as he pivoted for optimal footing. Steady, but prepping to move. Not afraid. Not quite. But the edge was there, sharpening.

Then the smell slammed into him.

Blood. Thick and metallic, not the faint trace of a cut or the sour tang of infection—this reeked of slaughter, saturated and vivid, coating his tongue like hot iron. It carried a wild undernote, primal and untainted by rot or disease, just pure, ripped flesh. Ahead, in the murk, came the slick sounds of feeding—jaws tearing into gristle, a moist snap that churned bile up Jimin's throat. His mind flashed to Jeongguk, to the blood trail they'd followed, and a fresh wave of fury mixed with dread knotted in his chest. Then a heavy thud, the unmistakable weight of a body hitting the ground.

A breath followed, though this time, it was right next to them. Hot air brushed Jimin’s cheek, close enough to register as touch, and instinct surged through him hard and fast. His thumb hit the switch of the flashlight, and a beam exploded into the dark, landing on the mass in front of them.

Black fur swallowed the beam instead of reflecting it, the coat dense and almost oily around its face where blood had soaked deep. Its muzzle glistened, slick with gore, strands of meat clinging in thick ropes that stretched when it moved and snapped loose to spatter the leaves. Its paws were dark and matted, pressed into the torn earth beside the carcass beneath it. Jimin’s mind scrambled for scale, for something familiar to anchor to—bear, howler, anything—but the shape refused to settle. The word wolf surfaced too late, half-formed and useless for the vision that lay before him. This was a presence. A wall of muscle and bone crouched over a deer split open at the belly, ribs cracked wide, steam curling faintly from exposed organs into the budding autumn air.

Copper flooded Jimin’s mouth as he sucked in air too hard, coating his tongue like he'd bitten his own lip. A harsh gasp cut the silence nearby, raw and unchecked, and it took a beat for him to register it as his own ragged exhale. The group had frozen solid, every muscle seized in that paralyzing terror that funneled the world down to just the monster before them, blotting out the forest, the cold, even his pounding heart.

The wolf lifted its head.

Its eyes caught the beam and threw it back in a hard reflective flash—amber-green, round with blown pupils—eyes that tracked each of them in a smooth sweep as if it was counting, measuring distance, recording the angles of their rifles. It didn’t look dazed from feeding; it burned with sharp intelligence, like it'd been attuned to their whispers and steps for ages, biding time until the beam forced the reveal, sizing up what manner of prey—or threat—they posed.

When it breathed, the sound rolled low and steady from deep in its chest, a resonance that vibrated through Jimin’s ribs and settled there. They just stared—four rifles leveled and trained forward, four sets of lungs stalled somewhere between breaths. Jimin stood caught between orders that wouldn’t come. Shoot. Lower the light. Run. Stay. But he was staring into the face of something that shouldn’t exist. Something that, for a split second, looked right at him, and only him.

“Holy shit,” Jimin rasped, the curse dragging rough and broken from his dry throat.

Hoseok's breath escaped in a whisper, faint as the stirring breeze through the branches, but it sliced through the silence like a blade. “That’s— that’s—” He jerked his head side to side, as if shaking off a nightmare, desperate to dislodge the sight burned into his eyes. “That’s not real.”

Jimin barely registered the words, his focus locked on the beast, but Taehyung's sharp hiss cut in next. “Shut up,” he snapped, then faltered, his jaw clenching tight. Jimin caught the tremor in his friend's voice, the way disbelief seeped through even as Taehyung squared his shoulders and firmed his hold on the rifle. “Just—just keep your eyes on it.”

The wolf's lips curled back then, exposing fangs that gleamed wet in the flashlight's beam. A growl unfurled from its throat, low and relentless, laced with intent—like a challenge etched in sound, daring them to make a move. The wolf stared straight at them—through them—like it could see past flesh and gear and straight into the soft meaty parts underneath. It dragged its tongue over its muzzle, slow and deliberate, smearing more blood across its fur while it watched them the way soldiers watch each other: alert, assessing, waiting for the first mistake. Jimin's muscles seized, his body turning to stone in that suspended heartbeat, every instinct screaming to flee or fight while fear rooted him in place.

“Jimin,” Taehyung murmured, his tone strained and urgent, the sound of his name feeling fragile, insignificant against the enormity looming before them. “Just say it. Say the word and I’ll shoot.”

But Jimin couldn't look away, couldn't stop cataloging the brute power in its form—the broad shoulders tensed like coiled springs, the forelegs planted firm and unyielding, the thick neck bulging with raw strength, the entire frame primed to explode into motion. On all fours, it dwarfed anything natural; up close, its head would brush his neck, maybe even higher. One snap of those jaws, and it'd rip through him like tissue soaked in rain.

A deeper rumble built in its chest next, gravelly and profound, vibrating the ground beneath Jimin's boots and sending loose soil pattering down like distant rain. The forest seemed to contract around them, the shadows pressing in, the trees themselves holding breath to witness. This defied every drill, every survival manual he'd ever cracked—there were no protocols for a thing like this, no words to tame the chaos churning in his gut. As their leader, he knew he had to seize control, bark an order to shatter the standoff, impose some shred of order on the madness. Yet he stood frozen, the flashlight quivering faintly in his white-knuckled grasp, his mind still grappling with the impossible scale of it, the eerie poise in its stance, the aura of dominance that filled the clearing like smoke.

“Jimin,” Taehyung pressed through gritted teeth, his eyes never leaving the wolf. “Say it.”

Then the wolf shifted.

Leaves crushed under its paws with a slow, heavy crunch that sounded like someone stepping on brittle bones. It took one step toward them, then another. The movement was controlled and frighteningly smooth for something that big, muscle rippling beneath its coat as it gathered itself. Hoseok inhaled sharply, boots scraping as he shifted his footing.

“It’s— it’s coming—”

Yoongi's voice cracked out in a flurry of muttered swears, his rifle inching upward in Jimin's peripheral vision, raw survival overriding caution—the primal urge to eradicate the danger before it breached the fragile boundary their line had etched into the dirt. The wolf's shoulders hunched low, and in a blur of fury, it launched itself straight at them.

The world exploded into motion—a blur of midnight fur and razor fangs hurtling toward them, closing the gap in a heartbeat that Jimin’s brain barely had time to register motion before the wolf was inches from his rifle. 

“Fuck—” Hoseok cursed, beside him, the beta’s boots skidding across the leaf-strewn ground as he lurched backward, panic etching sharp lines into the night.

The gunshot shattered the air first, a deafening boom that echoed off the trunks like lightning splitting the sky. Jimin felt the vibration through his bones as Taehyung's rifle bucked hard against his shoulder, the bullet ripping into the wolf's rear leg just as it lunged. The beast's trajectory twisted violently, its massive frame slamming into the nearest tree with a sickening crunch of splintering bark and thudding flesh. That agonized yelp—it pierced Jimin like a blade, raw and fracturing, twisting something deep in his ribs.

The wolf thrashed to regain its footing, talons gouging furrows into the soil that sprayed dirt in all directions. Crimson welled from the mangled limb, spilling hot and unchecked, matting the coarse hair and drenching the underbrush below. Its flanks rose and fell in ragged bursts, labored gasps tearing from its throat as it whipped its head, jaws clashing on nothing but shadows between them. The wolf bared its teeth, lips curling back again to reveal a mouth made for killing. Red foam clung to its muzzle now, thick and wet, breath coming harsh and uneven. 

Then the atmosphere shifted, thick and electric, like the forest itself recoiled.

That scent hit Jimin next—pine smoke, sharp and insistent, slicing through the scent of blood, the loamy chill of the earth, the bite of frost in the air. It flooded his lungs unbidden, so intense his inhale caught midway, a stutter in his chest that froze him solid. His heart hammered wildly, vision tunneling at the periphery, every beat a thunderous echo in his ears. That scent did not belong here. 

No rot clung to it, no decay to mark it as just another monster in the wild. If anything, the fragrance burned brighter, more vivid than memory allowed. The wolf's gaze pinned him then, those luminous eyes drilling into his own with an intensity that struck like ice water to the spine. Recognition—unwanted, uninvited—coiled tight and heavy, yanking the ground out from under his thoughts. His thoughts fractured, grasping for denial, for reason, for any anchor that could halt the inexorable pull toward one horrifying truth reshaping everything around it.

“Wait—” The word clawed its way up and tore out of him raw, even as the wolf dragged itself upright again, body shaking, breath breaking unevenly from its chest. With the movement, the scent flared sharper—pine smoke stripped raw with panic, flooding the space between them. It invaded his senses completely, clogging his mind and silencing all other noise until only the frantic thud of his pulse remained, alongside the nauseating conviction swelling inside him.

It fit together in a cruel, undeniable way that twisted his gut.

From the moment Jimin met Jeongguk, the alpha had been off in ways that didn’t show unless you looked too closely—too fast, too quiet when he should’ve been frightened beyond belief, instincts honed past what training alone should allow. Aside from the fact that Jimin was now aware of how he was clearly withholding his strength when Jeongguk trained with Jimin—he took hits that should’ve dropped him, and stayed standing. He healed at a faster rate than any human Jimin knew. He had survived things other people didn’t—hell, the alpha had retractable claws and canines.

And woven through it all was the inexplicable draw that bound them.

Jeongguk had always tracked him effortlessly, as if drawn by an invisible thread. The atmosphere thickened whenever he entered a space Jimin occupied, charged with an undercurrent that raised the hairs on his neck. Over the last week, that aroma had grown bolder, embedding itself deeper into Jimin's awareness, refusing to fade as it should have from simple shared tension or heightened nerves born of closeness. He'd dismissed it as the grind of their world, the rush of survival instincts, the mere accident of being near one another. The oversight burned now, a sharp sting of self-reproach.

The deer was dead, that much was clear. He could still smell it—a fresh kill, the kind of scent that made a predator’s mouth water at the prospect of a clean and quick death, and a human’s stomach churn. But the wolf didn’t carry a stench of sour death and rot with it. It carried hunger and pain and something frantic and unmoored. It carried everything that screamed at Jimin that this was Jeongguk.

Jimin’s chest felt unbelievably constricted with this realization, like his body was bracing for a blow that hadn’t landed yet. Because if this wasn’t Jeongguk—if it was just a beast that had rolled through their territory wearing another man’s scent like a stolen hide—then Jeongguk was still out there somewhere, bleeding and alone. He couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t.

Yoongi snapped his rifle back into position, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. “Again—shoot it again—”

Jimin's heart lurched, the words barely registering before instinct shoved the plea from his lips. “Wait, don’t—”

The wolf surged ahead on three legs, its bulk propelling it forward despite the mangled limb, sheer ferocity eclipsing the agony in a surge that made Jimin realize that there was no way in hell the wolf would go down without a fight. Blood sprayed as the wounded limb buckled again, but the creature didn’t slow. Its jaws snapped wide, breath ripping out of it in a raw, broken roar that shook loose something primal in the dark.

The next gunshot exploded sharper than the last, echoing off the trees and slamming into Taehyung's frame with visible recoil. The round ripped into the wolf's flank, the force crumpling its torso mid-leap, ribs heaving under the brutal entry. What escaped its throat wasn't a snarl anymore—it was a raw wail of torment that clawed at Jimin's ears.

The wolf collapsed hard and sideways into the dirt, its massive body skidding through leaves and loam, tearing up the ground as it tried to recover. It fought to rise—claws gouging deep, shoulders straining—but its front leg folded, then the other, strength bleeding out in jerky, uncoordinated movements. Blood smeared the forest floor in wide, ugly streaks beneath it.

“Jesus—” Yoongi breathed, horror stripping the words down to nothing. His rifle stayed up, hands locked tight around it. “That should’ve—”

Through gritted teeth and reflexive snaps of its jaws, the wolf dragged itself backward, each rasp of breath a labored wheeze echoing from its core. It refused to break contact, even as tremors wracked its frame and it sagged lower. Those luminous eyes held steady, pinning Jimin in place amid the unraveling.

That fixation snagged his heartbeat, stuttering it—not the resilience against the bullets, the relentless seep of life from its wounds. No, it was the singular intensity in its gaze, unwavering and purposeful, as if he anchored its fading world.

The aroma spiked once more—scalding, desperate—slicing past the blood and the chill of wet soil to burrow deep into his chest. The wolf shifted its weight and faltered, claws scraping uselessly for purchase. Its head dipped for a fraction of a second, more from strain than intent, and something in Jimin twisted hard enough to hurt. The space between them felt taut, pulled tight like a wire stretched too far. 

Jimin didn’t look away.

The wolf’s chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, its breath catching sharply, those piercing eyes still fixed on Jimin’s. Whatever cunning had lingered there before was gone now, stripped away to reveal only a desperate, exposed hunger, gleaming and vulnerable, as if it braced for the end or salvation—whichever struck first. Beside him, Taehyung shifted his weight, boots crunching softly into the underbrush, the rifle inching upward to complete its aim. His tone held steady, but the tremor beneath it clawed at the air.

“It’s still moving,” Taehyung said, the strain twisting his words. “I’m going to put this fucker down—”

“Stop.” The command tore from Jimin’s throat, sharper and more forceful than he intended, slicing through the charged silence before anyone could react. “Don’t shoot.”

Taehyung halted, his body locking in place mid-raise, the barrel hovering uncertain.

“What?” Yoongi’s whisper cut in like a whip, low and urgent. “Jimin, it just took two—”

“I know,” Jimin said, and his voice didn’t sound like his own. It came out rough, threaded tight with something close to panic. “I know.”

The wolf staggered another step back, sides heaving, eyes wild and bright and wrong in a way Jimin couldn’t ignore anymore.

“Lower your guns,” he ground out, the order pushing past gritted teeth, even as it echoed hollow and insane in his own mind.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Taehyung’s retort cracked like thunder, raw disbelief shattering his restraint. “Jimin, it just tried to tear us apart!”

“Lower them,” Jimin repeated, the volume rising unbidden, a frayed edge sharpening his demand. “Now.”

The wolf froze in its retreat, one paw suspended, its ears twitching once—quick, hesitant—and then the pine smoke scent flooded back, scorching and urgent, saturating the gap between them like a living force. Jimin’s gaze stayed riveted to its muzzle, unable to tear free. Fear stared back at him, stark and bare. Fury simmered just under it, wound tight. And deeper still, something nameless pulled at him, a thread of recognition that unsettled his bones. The woods fell into a suspended hush, as if the trees themselves leaned in. Foliage rustled faintly as the beast inched away, sparing the damaged limb, fresh blood staining the soil in its wake.

Jimin’s fingers quivered on the flashlight and rifle grips, a fine tremor racing through them. His heartbeat hammered wildly in his ears, but the world narrowed sharply around him, plunging into a crisp, isolated clarity that bypassed his racing thoughts. Behind him, voices erupted—harsh, clashing fragments—but they washed over him as distant echoes, formless buzz without meaning. Nothing pierced the bubble. Only the flashlight’s glow at the periphery held him. The wolf’s labored breathing. The way it lingered there, broken yet vigilant, a shadow etched against the night.

Understanding settled within him, heavy and undeniable, then flared with something that burned too close to relief to be ignored. He could deal with this. He could chase this. He could fix this.

‘Alive’, a voice in his head insisted, fierce and stubborn. Whatever form this took, whatever Jeongguk had turned into, the alpha was still breathing.

“Jeongguk,” Jimin whispered, the name scraping past his clenched teeth, barely audible in the charged air.

Then the wolf shifted, muscles bunching under its fur, and Jimin launched himself forward, legs pumping before his brain could catch up.

A shout cracked behind him—Taehyung's voice, or maybe Hoseok's—but the forest swallowed it whole, splintering it against trunks and leaves until it faded to nothing. Jimin didn't glance back. The wolf surged ahead, crashing through the underbrush with brutal force, no trace of elegance in its gait. Its wounded leg caught on a gnarled root, yanking it off balance, but it barreled on, body plowing into thickets that whipped and tore at its sides, branches cracking like gunfire in the quiet night. The noise of it—thudding paws, ragged huffs, the frantic rustle of foliage—tugged at Jimin, a relentless pull lodged in his chest, urging him deeper into the dark.

All the rules he'd drilled into himself surged up in protest. Don’t break formation. Don’t chase into unknown terrain. Don’t let panic write the plan for you.

He shoved them down, buried them under the roar in his veins.

Icy air clawed at his lungs as he ran, each inhale a burn that stole his breath in jagged bursts. His boots skidded over slick moss and fallen leaves, toes jamming against hidden stones, the uneven earth bucking beneath him like it wanted to drag him under. The trees closed in tighter, their shadows blurring into a tunnel of endless black, low branches snatching at his arms and thighs with thorny fingers. Up ahead, the wolf powered through, its pace fueled by a primal drive that ignored the agony rippling through its frame—something raw and unbreakable.

Panic radiated off the wolf in waves, bleeding into the cold night until it crowded Jimin’s chest, until it threaded itself through his thoughts and refused to let go. It didn’t feel foreign. It felt intimate. Close enough to hurt.

Jimin's thoughts turned against him, pulling him under with memories that refused to stay buried.

Jeongguk's scent lingered on his palms from earlier that night, a mix of heat, smoke, and sweat that stuck to his skin even as he yanked on his clothes in a rush, turning his back and pretending separation meant mastery. Jeongguk had frozen beneath his fingers, his breath snagging when Jimin ordered him to quit holding back. The silence that followed hung heavy, signaling a change Jimin wouldn't acknowledge, even as a faint pull nagged at the edges of his awareness. He hadn't returned to face it.

The truth slammed into him, jolting his step and sending his boot snagging on uneven ground. If this beast ahead—if this ragged, wounded form ripping through the branches—was Jeongguk, the one he'd abandoned, then Jimin had abandoned him twice in a day. Once by choice. Once out of fear.

Choi Minji’s face surfaced without warning, pale and unmoving, blood dark against the old floral bedsheets, her face forever stuck in an expression of despair. Nabi’s scream followed, sharp enough to cut through him like glass shards, the sound echoing off memory instead of walls. He had stood there then too, heart racing, lungs burning, convincing himself there was still time to fix the mess he’d made, pressing hard on the wound on her neck. There hadn’t been.

“Shit,” Jimin hissed, vaulting a fallen log and barely sticking the landing. The ground dropped out beneath him moments later, pitching him into a shallow ravine choked with brush and snapped saplings. He slid down the slope, heels digging in vain, his shoulder crashing into rough wood with a force that jarred his jaw. Hurt bloomed sharp and brief, then faded as momentum carried him onward. The light from his flashlight whipped erratically in his fist, its glow scattering shadows uselessly. He clicked it off while still moving, relying on instinct over sight—on the ingrained rhythm of his limbs when doubt clouded his head. He pushed faster.

The wolf tore through a thicket and burst into a narrow clearing, skidding sideways as the injured leg buckled again. Jimin followed without slowing, boots pounding, lungs burning, heart trying to rip free of his chest from the exertion. The wolf spun to face him and bared its teeth in defense, chest heaving so violently it, too, looked close to coming apart. Moonlight spilled down through a break in the canopy, a cold, silver wash that cut the clearing into sharp edges and shadow—but it was enough. Enough to see the way the wolf’s size broke the space, how it seemed to fill the clearing rather than stand in it. Enough to catch the sheen of blood along its flank, the dark fur clotted and matted where it had soaked through. Enough to see its chest hitch and shudder with each breath.

It tried to lower itself into a crouch and failed the first time, weight pitching wrong before it corrected. The injured leg shook, muscle fluttering beneath the skin, claws biting into dirt as it forced itself steady again. The snarl that tore out of it sounded thinner now—still dangerous, but frayed around the edges. It gathered itself anyway, clearly ready to fight until there was nothing left in it to give. Jimin didn’t hesitate. The wolf lunged and Jimin met it head-on.

The impact hit like a collision between bodies meant to break each other. Jimin slammed into its shoulder with everything he had, the force knocking the breath out of him in a sharp, blinding burst of pain. Bone crashed into muscle as dense as packed stone, the force snapping through his torso and lighting up every nerve at once. They went down hard, bodies tangling as the ground rushed up to meet them. Dirt and leaves burst skyward. Something tore with a sharp, ugly sound—fabric giving way beneath claws—and heat flared white-hot along Jimin’s side as teeth grazed too close.

His shoulder was struck first, then his back.

Pain lanced through him, brutal and immediate, pulling a harsh sound from his throat before he could stop it. He felt the tug at his stitches a heartbeat later—too sharp, too deep—pressure blooming fast and wet beneath his clothes as the wound protested violently. He held on anyway.

Momentum carried them through a rough roll, Jimin barely managing to twist before the wolf’s weight crashed down again. He drove them into the churned earth with everything he had left, knee slamming into the dirt beside its ribs. His arm locked around the wolf’s neck on instinct alone, muscles screaming as it thrashed beneath him, strength surging in panicked, uncontrolled bursts.

Claws raked his forearm.

He hissed through his teeth as skin split, heat streaking down to his wrist. Blood slicked his grip almost immediately, making everything harder. The wolf’s jaws snapped reflexively, teeth clicking close enough that he felt breath ghost across his throat. A low, furious sound tore from its chest, vibrating through Jimin’s bones. Moonlight washed over them in a pale spill as the wolf bucked again.

Jimin shoved his wrist forward with a rough, desperate motion, forcing it into the animal’s muzzle. Pain flared bright as teeth scraped skin, but he pressed harder, grinding bone against bone, ignoring the burn tearing up his side and the hot pull at his arm where his stitches threatened to give. Orange blossom burst into the air, sharp and overwhelming, bright enough to drown out the blood for a split second. 

“Smell me,” he snarled, breath sawing in and out of him, voice shredded raw. “C’mon, you stupid bastard!”

It was insane. Reckless. The kind of gamble that Jimin would’ve never taken had he been given a moment of clarity, because doing something this stupid only guaranteed a gruesome death. But he’d seen it work before—those rare moments when Jeongguk slipped, instincts surging faster than thought, and Jimin’s scent was the one thing that had managed to reach him in the cloud of noise. The idea made his stomach twist now, dread and hope tangled too tight to separate, but it was all he had.

The wolf thrashed harder for a second, growl ripping out of it in a sound that shook Jimin’s ribs. He dug his heels in, held fast, and shoved his wrist closer, closer, until the scent drowned out blood and dirt and fear alike. Then the resistance faltered, and the snapping stopped.

Its body still trembled beneath him, muscles locking and unlocking in confused surges, but the snapping stopped. The growl collapsed into a rough, broken sound that dragged out of its chest in shallow bursts. Breath stuttered through its teeth, fogging in quick, panicked clouds as it pulled air in too fast, too deep. Jimin stayed where he was, chest heaving, arm burning where claws had split skin, side screaming and his stitches straining under the pressure of his weight. He didn’t loosen his grip. He couldn’t. Blood slicked his wrist, warm and real, and he shoved it back against the wolf’s muzzle anyway, grinding bone to bone.

The scent of orange blossoms flooded the space between them, making the wolf freeze. The wolf flinched—not away, but inward—its head jerking slightly as its nostrils flared wide. It dragged in another breath, then another, the scent flooding it faster than instinct could keep up. Jimin’s vision blurred at the edges. Pain pulsed in time with his heartbeat, each thud tugging hard at his side, heat spreading where fabric had torn and skin had followed. He tasted iron when he swallowed, jaw locked tight enough to ache.

‘Please, Jeongguk.’

Its eyes found his again—wide, unfocused, reflecting moonlight in fractured flashes. They were hesitant, caught between instincts it didn’t understand. The muscles beneath Jimin tightened again, then eased, then tightened once more, like the animal couldn’t decide which way to move.

“That’s right,” Jimin growled, shoving his wrist harder against its snout, ignoring the pain where teeth grazed skin. “You know that scent. You know it all too well, mutt.”

As pine smoke tangled thickly with orange blossom in the cold air, he stayed there pressed against it, breath coming fast and uneven, teeth clenched hard enough that his jaw ached. His heart slammed so violently he thought it might give out, but he didn’t care. He was done watching people die because he hesitated.

The wolf held there, trembling, eyes flicking between his face and the space just past his shoulder, as if listening for something else that never came. Its jaw worked once, then stilled. If this was Jeongguk, then Jimin would drag him back alive, no matter what it took. So he didn’t wait for any doubt in his mind to catch up.

He tore one injector free from his pocket, stuck it between his teeth to uncap it, and drove the needle into the dense muscle behind the wolf’s shoulder, burying it to the hilt. The animal convulsed with a sharp, furious sound, body jerking hard enough to wrench a grunt from Jimin’s throat as he braced and stayed on it.

“Sorry, you’re going to hate this,” he muttered, meaning none of it. “But you don’t get a choice.”

He yanked the needle out and plunged the second in lower, arm locked tight as the wolf surged again, claws ripping shallow trenches through the dirt. The strength burned hot and fast, then sputtered. The fight drained unevenly, movements losing coordination, weight sagging beneath him in sudden, dangerous lurches.

Jimin stayed planted until it couldn’t push back anymore. The snarl faded into a thin, unsteady noise, more breath than sound. The muscles beneath Jimin’s grip spasmed once, twice, then slackened as the sedative finally took hold in earnest. The massive head slumped against the forest floor, jaws parting on a breath that shuddered and slowed, the noise bleeding out of it like air from a punctured lung. The teeth were still bared, but there was no intent left behind them, just a matter of reflex. Just the body catching up to what had already been decided. 

“Stay,” he ordered hoarsely. “Just—stay.”

He stayed crouched there, one knee dug into the dirt, one hand still buried in thick fur at the wolf’s scruff, feeling the heat of it, the steadying rhythm of breath under his palm. His other hand shook openly now, adrenaline burning off in harsh, unglamorous waves. He kept his eyes on the wolf’s face, watching the tension bleed out of its frame in slow increments, muscle by muscle, until there was only heat and weight and breath beneath Jimin’s hand. The omega dragged a hand down his face, smearing dirt and sweat across his skin, then looked back at the wolf—Jeongguk—once more, unconscious now and bleeding, terrifyingly real even at rest.

He clenched the empty injectors tightly in his hand and swallowed hard.

“You absolute idiot,” he said under his breath, voice wrecked. “You’re lucky I didn't kill you myself.”

Then, finally, he shifted back onto his heels, chest heaving, eyes still locked on the wolf as if it might vanish the second he looked away. Its jaw still hung slack, breath puffing warm into the cold night air, blood slicking the fur along its leg and muzzle.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed.

Branches snapped, and footsteps followed by voices crashed through the trees.

“Jimin?”

 “What the fuck was that sound—”

 “Oh my god—”

Jimin looked up just as Taehyung burst into the clearing first, eyes wild and scanning until they landed on Jimin standing over the unconscious wolf. He skidded to a halt mid-step, boots tearing up leaves as his rifle came up on instinct, eyes blown wide. Yoongi and Hoseok came up fast behind him, breaths sharp, weapons still up until the shape on the ground registered. Hoseok swore under his breath, the sound thin and shaken. Yoongi didn’t speak at all at first, just stared, jaw tight, eyes flicking from the wolf to Jimin like he was trying to reconcile the two images into something that made sense.

“What the fuck—” Taehyung choked. “Holy shit.”

Jimin stayed where he was, turning his focus back onto the wolf. “Don’t shoot,” he said, the command rough and firm in his throat.

Taehyung’s gaze flicked from the wolf’s blood-matted muzzle to the needles discarded near Jimin’s knee, then back again. He lowered his rifle halfway, disbelief flooding his face. “Jimin,” he said, voice tight. “Tell me you didn’t—”

Jimin didn’t look at him. His attention stayed on Jeongguk’s chest, counting breaths like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

“He’s sedated,” Jimin said. “Both needles took pretty well, given the size of this fucker.”

“He?” Taehyung repeated, slowly and incredulously. “Jimin—what the hell are you talking about?”

Hoseok's jaw clenched visibly in the faint light filtering through the trees, and he inched forward with deliberate care, his rifle dipping toward the ground but not fully relaxed. His breaths came steady, controlled, as he scanned the sprawled form, then fixed on Jimin. “You want to explain why the fuck you’re also bleeding,” he said, voice level but probing, “before this thing decides to wake up again?”

Jimin’s head snapped up, eyes sharp and furious.

“This thing,” he said, biting off every syllable, “is Jeongguk. Don’t worry about me, and instead  take a fucking second and actually look at him.”

A heavy quiet dropped over the clearing. Jimin felt it settle like a weight, his pulse thundering in his ears as he watched their faces—waiting, willing them to see what he already knew in his gut.

Yoongi stared, eyes jumping between the blood-slicked leg, the heaving chest, Jimin’s face. “You’re saying—” He cut himself off, dragging a hand across his mouth, smearing dirt or sweat or something darker. “That doesn’t—that doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t fucking get it either,” Jimin said, the edge cracking through now. His fingers dug deeper into the coarse fur without conscious thought, grounding himself in the warmth still radiating from the body beneath. “But he’s alive. And that scent—” His throat tightened, forcing a hard swallow. “That’s him.”

Taehyung moved in gradually, his grip on the rifle loosening enough to let it hang at his side, though his knuckles stayed white. He leaned in, nostrils flaring as he pulled in a cautious inhale. Jimin caught the shift in his features immediately—the way his brows furrowed, recognition dawning like a reluctant dawn.

“…Pine,” Taehyung murmured, the word soft but weighted. “Pine smoke.”

Hoseok mirrored the motion, drawing air in with precision, only to freeze midway, his frame going taut as if braced for impact. His posture straightened, muscles coiling under his jacket. “That’s his,” he said, the words laced with stunned certainty. “That’s not on the fur. It’s coming from him.”

“I just don’t understand how this could be possible,” Yoongi muttered as he stepped closer, leaning down just a fraction to inhale as well. The skepticism lingered in his tone, but Jimin saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes, the unwilling acceptance creeping in. “It shouldn’t be possible.”

“Tell that to him,” Jimin shot back, a bitter twist pulling at his lips despite the ache in his chest. “He’s been wrong since the day he showed up, so of course he’d end up in this situation.”

Then the wolf stirred—a faint tremor rippling under the pelt. Jimin's breath caught, his body locking in place as every nerve fired in alarm. He wasn't alone; the others went still too, their stares riveted to the ground, the air thickening with shared tension.

A brutal convulsion tore through the massive frame, limbs twitching erratically, breaths hitching into shallow gasps that devolved into something labored and uneven. The furred muscles clenched and released in waves, as if the body beneath was unraveling from within. Nausea twisted in Jimin's gut, cold dread pooling low as he watched, helpless against the rising panic.

“What—” Hoseok started.

The word died in his throat as a grotesque crack echoed through the clearing—wet bone splintering too near, too violently. Jimin's heart slammed against his ribs, his gaze locked on the wolf's convulsing form, every muscle in his body coiling tighter as it twisted inward at impossible angles. He saw Yoongi flinch beside him, the older man's hand shooting out to clutch Taehyung's sleeve in a reflexive grip.

The creature's jaws gaped wide, unleashing a guttural keen that clawed straight into Jimin's chest—not a beast's snarl anymore, but something raw and human, laced with agony. Then the muzzle compressed with brutal speed, fangs clashing as the skull reshaped itself in a barrage of sickening pops that reverberated in Jimin's skull like gunfire.

Hoseok cursed sharply, spinning away to press a palm against the rough bark of a nearby tree. Jimin caught the heave of his shoulders, the way he clamped his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to retch into the underbrush. The sight twisted something in Jimin's own gut, bile rising hot and sour, but he couldn't look away—couldn't tear his eyes from the horror unfolding before him.

Fur surged along the spine in frantic ripples, then withdrew in patchy retreats, exposing raw skin that stretched taut over shifting contours. Muscles writhed beneath, uncertain and rebellious, as the colossal frame shrank in erratic spasms. Jimin felt the air thicken with more blood and sweat, his fingers still buried in the thinning pelt, now slick and matted. Taehyung stood transfixed a few paces off, his rifle dangling limp from one hand, face drained of color as he watched the impossible unfold.

When the last of the fur dissolved, Jeongguk lay there—exposed, incomplete, his skin pulled drum-tight over bones that hadn't fully realigned. Dark veins pulsed visibly under the surface, angry and insistent. The bullet holes gaped obscenely in his side and leg, oozing crimson, but even now, Jimin saw the edges knit together in sluggish, deliberate pulls, flesh sealing itself with a whisper of unnatural resilience.

Relief crashed through him like a wave, tangled with revulsion and a bone-deep ache he couldn't name. Jeongguk—alive, changing, but Jeongguk. 

Jimin's breath shuddered out, his voice slicing through the heavy quiet like a blade. “Yoongi.”

Yoongi forced his eyes off the body with visible effort. “Yeah.”

“Get back to the compound,” he ordered, his eyes fixed on Hoseok. “Warn Namjoon and Jiwon. Tell them it’s Jeongguk. He’s alive, but he’s bleeding and unstable.” His gaze flicked to Hoseok, holding the man's wide-eyed stare for a beat longer than necessary, a silent command laced with the weight of everything unsaid. “You’re with him.”

Hoseok pushed off the tree, the color still drained from his face as he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, determination hardening his features. “Jimin—”

“Go,” Jimin snapped, the word lashing out like a whip, born from the frantic pulse hammering in his veins. He couldn't afford hesitation, not with Jeongguk sprawled there like a broken thing, not when every second stretched the risk of losing him all over again.

Hoseok nodded once, curt and resigned, and the two of them pivoted, boots crunching through the underbrush as they bolted back the way they'd come. The forest swallowed their footsteps almost immediately, leaving the clearing wrapped in a suffocating quiet that pressed in on Jimin from all sides. His breath came shallow, ragged, as his attention snapped back to Jeongguk—naked and bloodied on the cold ground, unconscious under the sedative's grip. The transformation had left him... off, somehow. Muscles bunched unnaturally beneath skin that seemed too taut, too raw, as if his body hadn't quite clawed its way back to humanity. Even sedated, Jeongguk's jaw was set tight, a faint furrow etching his brow, his chest lifting and falling in measured rhythms that Jimin latched onto like a lifeline, counting each one to steady his own racing heart.

A curse slipped past Jimin's lips, low and bitter, the reality crashing over him in waves.

“Shit,” Taehyung rasped from a few feet away, his voice thick with horror as he stared at the wounds. “He’s bleeding bad.”

“No shit,” Jimin fired back, the edge in his tone sharper than he meant, aimed at the absurdity of it all—at Taehyung, at himself, at the gunshots still echoing in his mind. “You fucking shot him.”

Guilt twisted in Taehyung's eyes, but Jimin had no time for it. His hands were already moving, shrugging off his jacket with jerky efficiency, the chill air biting at his bare arms as he yanked his shirt over his head. His fingers trembled—just enough to ignite a spark of fury in his gut—and he gripped the fabric hard, tearing it down the middle with a savage rip that echoed in the stillness. He didn't pause to inspect the jagged edges, just split it again and again until strips of cloth bunched in his fists, rough and makeshift but all he had.

He dropped to his knees beside Jeongguk, the damp earth soaking through his pants, and pressed the wadded fabric against the gash in his side. Blood welled up instantly, hot and viscous, seeping through to coat his palm in a sticky warmth that made his stomach lurch. The overwhelming scents flooded his senses, mingling with the faint pine smoke that still clung to Jeongguk's skin, a reminder of the beast he'd been moments ago.

“Pressure,” Jimin muttered, the word half to himself, half a mantra as he bore down harder, willing the bleeding to slow. “Just—hold.”

Jeongguk didn't stir, his breathing unchanging, oblivious in sedation as if the agony tearing through him belonged to someone else. Jimin leaned into it, knee digging into the dirt for leverage, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. He wrapped the strip around Jeongguk's torso with brutal efficiency, pulling it taut and knotting it off in short, forceful yanks that sent fresh jolts of pain through his own strained muscles. Shifting lower, he bound the leg wound high and tight, his fingers now slick with crimson, the iron scent thickening the air until it coated his throat. Every press, every tie, was a desperate bid to anchor Jeongguk here—to pull him back from the edge before it was too late.

Taehyung lingered at the edge of Jimin's vision, frozen in that useless half-second before he jolted into action, his voice cutting through the thick silence. “Tell me what to do.”

Jimin didn't spare him a glance, his focus locked on the makeshift bandages as he ripped off another strip from his ruined shirt. “Here,” he said, thrusting the fabric toward Taehyung's chest. “Hold that and don’t let up. If you feel it pulse, you push harder.”

Taehyung dropped to his knees beside them, his hands clamping down on the wound without hesitation, his breath coming in shaky bursts that Jimin could hear over the pounding in his own ears. “You were right,” Taehyung murmured, voice low and edged with something like awe or fear—Jimin couldn't tell which. “About it being him.”

Jimin's throat tightened, but he swallowed the response, his mind a whirlwind of jagged thoughts: Jeongguk alive, Jeongguk broken, Jeongguk here under his hands, bleeding out because of him. He didn't trust his voice not to crack, so he checked the bindings instead, fingers probing the knots with clinical precision, tightening where blood still seeped through. The flow had eased, at least—not gushing anymore, not pooling beneath them like an accusation—but it was far from stopped.

“Okay,” Jimin said under his breath. “Okay.”

He slid his arms under Jeongguk's shoulders, the skin there cool and slick with sweat and blood, and hauled upward with a grunt that tore from his gut. The weight hit him like a blow—solid, unyielding, Jeongguk's body sagging against him without resistance, all that alpha strength reduced to this limp burden.

“Help me,” Jimin grunted.

Taehyung shifted closer, gripping Jeongguk's legs, and together they dragged him toward the treeline, the forest floor uneven under their feet. Jimin fixed his gaze ahead, picking each step with deliberate care to avoid jolting the wounds, his muscles burning from the strain. He refused to look down at Jeongguk's face, at the slack features that still carried echoes of the wolf—the too-sharp jaw, the faint scars twisting unnaturally. The body dragged heavy between them, pulling at Jimin's arms, forcing him to readjust constantly, teeth grinding as he hoisted Jeongguk higher to ease Taehyung's hold under the knees. Blood smeared across his sleeve, warm and sticky even against the night's chill, a constant reminder seeping into his skin.

“Fuck,” Taehyung muttered, his breath ragged as he tripped over a protruding root and caught himself, boots skidding in the dirt. “He’s—he’s still bleeding through the cloth.”

“I know,” Jimin ground out, the words tasting like gravel, his own lungs heaving with the effort. “We’ve got to move, Taehyung.” The urgency clawed at him, every drip of blood a ticking clock, every rustle in the branches a threat waiting to pounce.

They pressed forward, branches whipping at their sides, snagging in Jeongguk's dark hair and raking red lines across his bare skin. Jimin twisted instinctively, angling his body to take the brunt, shielding Jeongguk's head without a second thought, his ribs protesting with sharp stabs of pain. The stitches on his arm pulled taut, a hot burn under the strain, but he shoved it down, pace steady, jaw locked until his face throbbed. His body screamed for rest, for mercy, but he wouldn't stop—not now, not when Jeongguk's life hung on these labored steps.

The forest had gone eerily still around them, the earlier pulse of danger faded into an oppressive quiet, broken only by the crunch of their boots on frost-crusted leaves and the wet, labored rasp of Jeongguk's breaths between them. Blood pattered down in steady drops, staining the ground dark, warm against the cold earth that numbed Jimin's fingers.

“Jimin,” Taehyung said suddenly, his voice slicing through the rhythm, sharp with worry. “Listen to me.”

“I am,” Jimin replied, though his focus wavered, split between the path ahead and the man bleeding in his arms.

“He shifted once already—if he does it again inside the compound, we’re boxed in. People are asleep. Pups are asleep.” Taehyung's swallow was audible, his grip tightening on Jeongguk's legs, knuckles whitening. “That thing—he—was bigger than any wolf I’ve ever seen. You saw it. If he loses control again—”

The words hit Jimin like a punch, stirring the dread he'd been burying—the image of claws raking through the compound, screams cutting the night, Jeongguk's eyes wild and empty. But he shoved it back, the denial fierce.

“He won’t,” he said, voice flat, certain in a way that brooked no argument.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that I’m not leaving him out here, that’s for damn sure.” The truth burned in his chest, a fierce protectiveness that overrode the fear, the guilt twisting like a knife

They reached a fallen log blocking the path, its bark rough and moss-slick under the moonlight. Jimin absorbed the jolt as they lifted over it, the impact slamming into his shoulder and hip, forcing a rough exhale from his lungs. Pain flared bright, but he didn't falter, didn't slow, his hold on Jeongguk unwavering as they pushed deeper into the trees.

Taehyung's voice edged with rising panic, the words tumbling out as they trudged through the underbrush, Jeongguk's weight dragging heavier with every step. “Jimin,” he pressed, the containment cracking now, fear bleeding into his tone like the blood still seeping through the bandages. “We can just stabilize him here, okay? We’ll patch him up enough to keep him alive, then move him once daylight hits. Once we’ve got more people, more space—”

Jimin's jaw clenched, the words igniting a fresh surge of frustration that coiled tight in his gut. He could feel the warmth of Jeongguk's blood soaking through his own clothes now, a sticky reminder of how little time they had, how every second wasted here in the cold dark was another drop spilling onto the forest floor. 

“He’s bleeding out right now,” he cut in, his voice sharp enough to slice through the night air. “You put two rounds in him and then he shifted through it. You want to gamble that he doesn’t crash and die before the morning, or are you going to help me save the man you almost killed?”

Taehyung fell silent, the only sound between them the labored rasp of their breaths and the faint, wet drag of Jeongguk's body over roots and leaves. Jimin exhaled sharply through his nose, the cold air burning his lungs, his mind racing with the what-ifs that clawed at him. He knew—God, he knew—why Taehyung had fired those shots. In that split second, with the beast lunging from the shadows, teeth bared and eyes glowing feral, any one of them would’ve pulled the trigger. Hell, Jimin had been a breath away from doing it himself before Taehyung fired first. 

When something that big comes at you out of the dark, you don’t wait to ask questions, you put it down. That was survival, etched into their bones after years of howlers and worse—you didn't hesitate, you put it down. But knowing that didn't loosen the knot in his chest; it twisted it tighter, because if the scent hadn't hit him like a punch, if recognition hadn't flickered in that impossible moment—Jimin would have been the one to pull the trigger. He would have killed Jeongguk without ever knowing it was him, just a monster in the wrong skin, all claws and fury. The guilt of that near-miss gnawed at him, sharper than any wound.

A broken, ragged sound tore from Jeongguk's chest then, pulling Jimin's gaze down despite himself. The sedative was fading too fast, Jeongguk's body jerking in their arms, muscles rippling under the pale, stretched skin that still bore the faint ridges of the shift—like it was warring inside him, the wolf clawing to break free again. Jimin's heart stuttered, fear spiking cold through his veins.

Taehyung flinched visibly, his grip faltering for a heartbeat. “Listen—”

Jimin leaned in closer, his hands clamping down harder on Jeongguk's shoulders, fingers digging into the slick, cooling flesh as if he could anchor him here, keep the beast at bay through sheer will. “Stay with me,” he muttered, the words rough and more order than plea, his voice low against Jeongguk's ear. He wouldn't let him slip away—not after everything, not like this.

Taehyung's stare bored into him, those sharp alpha eyes probing, searching for cracks in Jimin's resolve. Jimin felt it like a weight, the familiar scrutiny that had marked their friendship for fifteen years, Taehyung always reading him like an open book, no matter how hard Jimin tried to shutter his thoughts.

“You’re not thinking straight,” Taehyung said, his voice dropping to a quiet murmur that cut deeper than a shout.

Jimin kept his eyes fixed ahead, on the faint glow of the compound lights filtering through the trees, a beacon pulling him forward. “I’m thinking clearly enough.” The lie tasted bitter; his mind was a storm, thoughts fracturing between the man in his arms and the monster he'd become, between the past they'd shared and the blood now staining his hands.

“This is clearly personal for you.”

The words halted Jimin mid-step, his boots digging into the soft earth as fury ignited hot and immediate. Taehyung nearly collided with him, the sudden stop jarring Jeongguk's limp form between them. Jimin whipped his head around just enough for Taehyung to catch his expression in the dim light spilling from the compound—teeth gritted, eyes blazing with a rage that made his vision tunnel, his breaths still coming in harsh pants from the relentless carry.

“Personal?” he repeated, the word a snarl, tasting the accusation like ash. How dare Taehyung throw that at him now, when every fiber of his being screamed to get Jeongguk safe, to fix what they'd broken? 

“What’s personal is letting someone bleed out because you feel like it’s inconvenient.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“That’s what it comes down to.” Jimin surged forward again, forcing Taehyung to scramble and match his pace or risk dropping their burden. The motion pulled at his own injuries, stitches tugging like fire across his arm, but he ignored it, the anger fueling him. 

“You want to leave him here because you’re scared of what he might do, but I’m not.” Deep down, the fear echoed in him too—the what if he shifts again, the what if he's not Jeongguk anymore—but he crushed it, refused to let it paralyze him.

Taehyung's voice fractured, raw with the strain. “I’m scared of what he already is.”

The admission mirrored the dread Jimin had been shoving down since the wolf's eyes met his in the dark. “So am I,” he shot back, the truth ripping free, unfiltered and fierce. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon him out here before I figure out just what the fuck is going on. You told me to give this man a chance when I told you something was off about him—you practically begged me to. So shut up and eat your fucking words.”

They pushed forward, the pace quickening as the farmhouse compound gate rose into view, its rusted metal glinting under the faint spill of lantern light from within. Jimin's arms burned from the strain, muscles screaming with each jolt over uneven ground, but he refused to let the exhaustion show, his focus locked on the labored rise and fall of Jeongguk's chest against his side.

Taehyung shook his head, his breath coming in short, ragged hitches that mirrored the chill seeping through Jimin's jacket. “If he shifts again in there—”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Jimin said. “Together, all of us awake and armed.”

Taehyung searched his face, really looked this time. Whatever he saw there made him go quiet.

“…You won’t back down on this,” Taehyung murmured, the words more statement than question.

“No.”

“Even if Namjoon loses his mind?”

A bitter huff escaped Jimin, the sound swallowed by the rustle of leaves underfoot. “He can yell after Jeongguk’s breathing stops sounding like his lungs are about to quit on him.” The wheeze from Jeongguk's throat underscored his point, each inhale a wet rattle that twisted something deep inside Jimin, a reminder of how close they teetered on the edge.

They covered a few more steps in tense quiet, Jeongguk's form growing heavier between them, his body finally yielding to the sedatives with a slackness that both relieved and terrified Jimin. The breaths evened out, slow and deep, a fragile rhythm that Jimin clung to like a lifeline, willing it to hold.

Taehyung shifted his hold once more, fingers flexing against Jeongguk's side, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that cut through the night. “I know why you’re doing this.”

Jimin's jaw tightened, his palms pressing harder into Jeongguk's cooling skin. He didn't respond—didn't want to dissect the tangle of emotions churning in his chest, the fierce protectiveness that bordered on something deeper, more personal. All that mattered was keeping Jeongguk breathing, getting him inside where they could unravel the nightmare of what he'd become. Answers could wait; survival couldn't.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

They come in fast, and the gate barely has time to protest before it’s forced wide enough to shove Jeongguk through.

“Move—move—move,” Hoseok snaps as he slams the gate shut and locks it. He runs ahead of them, already peeling off toward the shed.

Lantern light spilled across the yard like a hesitant dawn, casting long shadows that danced over Namjoon's face as he strode forward. Whatever question had been forming on his lips died the instant his eyes locked on the crimson stain blooming through Jeongguk's pants and the unnatural slackness of his head against Jimin's shoulder. The sight twisted something sharp in Jimin's gut, a fresh wave of panic he swallowed down hard.

“Inside,” Namjoon commanded, his voice cutting through the night like a blade. “Get him inside now!”

The shed door flew open with a violent slam, the patched wood rattling on its uneven hinges, splintered frame shuddering from the force. A rush of icy air swept in as Jimin and Taehyung hauled Jeongguk over the threshold, the floorboards creaking and bowing under the sudden burden. Jimin's arms screamed in protest, sweat stinging his eyes, but he didn't falter, his grip ironclad around the alpha's torso.

Jiwon was already there, sleeves shoved up to her elbows, her hands steady and empty, as if she'd been braced for this catastrophe all along. Her gaze swept over Jeongguk in a clinical flash—leg, ribs, the pallor of his face—before she sprang into motion, all precise efficiency.

“Put him down,” she directed, her tone calm but laced with steel. “Careful—watch the leg, watch the—okay, there.”

Jimin eased Jeongguk onto the cot with care, his fingers lingering on the alpha's skin until Jiwon took over, reluctant to sever that fragile connection. The moment Jeongguk's body met the thin mattress, he twitched—a weak, involuntary jerk that ripped a guttural rasp from his throat. The sound clawed into Jimin's mind, raw and agonizing, like shards of glass embedding deep, forcing him to confront how close they'd come to losing him out there in the dark.

“Hold him,” Jiwon ordered, her knife already slicing through the sodden fabric of Jeongguk's clothes.

“Are those gunshot wounds?” Namjoon's voice sliced in, edged with disbelief.

“Two,” Jimin replied, the words snapping out sharp and terse, his eyes fixed on the wounds as if staring could will them closed. “Leg and side. He shifted through it too, so he’s a fucking mess.” The admission burned on his tongue, the memory of the wolf's form twisting back into human flesh flashing vivid and grotesque behind his eyes.

Namjoon halted mid-motion, gloves dangling half-on in his frozen hands, his mouth parting in shock before clamping shut. “He what?” The question pitched high, incredulity cracking through his usual composure. “Jimin—what do you mean shifted?”

Jimin's jaw clenched, irritation flaring hot alongside the fear churning in his chest. He couldn't afford this now—not the questions, not the unraveling. “We can discuss that later,” he ground out, not sparing Namjoon a glance, his focus locked on Jeongguk's paling face. “He’s bleeding, so let’s get a fucking move on.”

Namjoon swallowed hard, the bob of his throat visible in the lantern's glow, before he wrenched himself back to action. A curt nod, and the shock was buried, replaced by the leader Jimin needed right then—decisive, unyielding.

“How long since he was shot?” Jiwon interjected, her blade working methodically.

“Twenty minutes. Maybe less,” Jimin answered, the timeline blurring in his mind, each second since the shots rang out feeling like an eternity stretched thin.

She hissed a breath through clenched teeth. “Okay. Okay—yeah. Pressure here—no, you’ve got to put way more than that. Hoseok, don’t ease up on it.”

Jimin pressed down as directed, the remnants of his own ruined shirt now draped over Jeongguk's wounds. Jiwon's hands moved with frantic precision, peeling back layers to expose the damage, her fingers delving into the thigh wound without hesitation. “Pulse is stronger,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone, pressing firmly. “But now it’s too strong. He’s running hot.”

The words sent a chill racing down Jimin's spine, even as sweat beaded on his brow from the shed's stuffy confines. Too strong—unnatural, like the beast he'd chased through the trees. But Jeongguk was here, breathing, fighting. Jimin wouldn't let go until he stabilized, no matter what secrets clawed their way out next.

Jeongguk's body jerked under the needle's prick, a fractured groan ripping from his throat that sliced through Jimin like a fresh wound. Shit. The sedative was fading too fast, the alpha's unnatural resilience burning through it already. Hoseok flinched beside him, then bore down harder on the pressure, his face draining of color as he leaned against the shed wall for support, knuckles whitening against the rough wood.

“He shifted back ten minutes ago,” Jimin said, his voice steady despite the knot twisting in his chest. He couldn't tear his eyes from Jeongguk's face, the way his lashes fluttered against pale cheeks, the faint sheen of sweat beading on his brow. 

“I sedated him in the woods with both needles—I think that calmed him just enough to trigger the switch back.” The words tasted bitter, a reminder of the frantic chase through the trees, the wolf's form melting into this vulnerable human shell.

Namjoon hesitated for a split second, his gaze flicking to Jimin before he nodded curtly and refocused. “Right. Okay, Jiwon, focus on the leg first. That’s bleeding heavier.”

“Already on it,” Jiwon replied, her voice clipped as she packed gauze deep into the ragged hole in Jeongguk's thigh. “Hoseok—more pressure. Bring it up higher over here, that’ll stop it quicker.”

The beta does as he’s told, knuckles white, jaw clenched so tight it looks like it might crack. Hoseok lingers near the wall, pale, one hand braced against the wood like the room might tilt. Jeongguk groans. It’s pained and broken, barely more than air forced past clenched teeth, but it freezes the room all the same. His head turns slightly, brow furrowing, fingers and arms twitching against the table as if his muscles haven't decided what shape they’re supposed to be yet.

“Easy now,” Jiwon mutters automatically, pressing down harder on the wound. “Stay with me. Don’t move.”

Jimin moved on instinct, closing the gap to press his palm flat against Jeongguk's shoulder, the heat seeping through his skin like a fevered brand. He didn't ease up, feeling the subtle tremor vibrating beneath, a reminder of the power coiled there—the same power that had torn through the forest like a storm. Blood matted Jeongguk's thigh in dark, congealing clumps, sticky under the lantern's harsh glow.

“Hold him,” Jiwon instructed, her eyes never leaving her work. “If he bucks, I can’t stitch him up properly.”

Jimin rooted himself there, a barrier against the chaos. “He won’t.” The certainty in his voice surprised even him, born from something deeper than logic, a pull he couldn't name but wouldn't question now.

Namjoon shot him a quick look, then shifted his attention back to Jeongguk. “How sure are you that he’ll stay in his human form?”

Jimin doesn’t answer, because in all honesty, he’s not sure in the slightest. He just tightens his hold when Jeongguk shifts around again, leaning his weight in like he’s bracing against a current. The shed smells like blood and antiseptic and cold metal. Jiwon works fast, readministering another dose of the sedative before continuing her work, needle flashing in and out of torn skin with practiced efficiency. Jeongguk’s breathing evens out gradually, the sedative keeping him under despite the pain, though his muscles still twitch now and then, rippling and rolling strangely beneath his skin in ways that make Hoseok grimace as he turns his head away.

“How bad are the wounds?” Namjoon’s brows furrow as he leans over Jiwon’s shoulder.

“Bad,” she replies. “But it’s all fixable if he doesn’t decide to do something insane again.”

“I have a feeling this wasn’t a decision he made.”

Jimin exhales through his nose at that, short and sharp. Jiwon, an ER doctor finally in her element—though the circumstances grim—continues to work fast, hands steady despite the mess. She cleans the wound along Jeongguk’s side, fingers probing gently but thoroughly, and that’s when Jimin notices it—the resistance. Not muscle tensing, but something else.

The gash didn't splay open like it should have. Blood welled around her touch, yet the edges seemed to contract, pulling inward with a sluggish pull. Beneath the skin, muscle fibers shifted, dense and unyielding, as if an invisible force braced from within. When Jiwon peeled back the gauze to check, the tear looked... diminished. Still raw and oozing, but tighter, less cavernous than moments before. Jimin's pulse stuttered, a mix of hope and dread flooding him—this wasn't normal healing; it was something feral, echoing the beast they'd dragged from the woods.

“Hold on.”

Jiwon frowned, her fingers still buried against Jeongguk's ribs, and Jimin leaned in closer, his pulse thudding in his ears as the lamplight flickered over the gash. There it was, clear as day—the muscle pulling itself together in tiny, deliberate tugs, layers realigning like they remembered their place without her help. The blood's flow stuttered, ebbing with each passing heartbeat until it was just a sluggish seep.

“That’s… not right,” Jiwon mutters, not looking at anyone. “He shouldn’t be—”

“Just sew it up, goddamit,” Jimin says immediately.

She hesitates for half a second, then obeys, needle piercing skin. As the thread pulls the wound together, something beneath it moves to meet it, the tension easing unnaturally fast. Jiwon has to adjust her stitching, spacing it closer than she normally would, because the skin keeps tightening under her hands.

Yoongi swallows audibly from the corner.

From the corner of his eye, Jimin caught Yoongi's throat working, a dry swallow echoing in the tense silence. Namjoon was watching too—Jimin could tell from the sharp line of his jaw, the way his gaze locked on the wound like he was committing every unnatural twitch to memory. He didn't say a word, just passed Jiwon another tool, his voice tight and even, as if speaking too freely might shatter the fragile calm.

Jiwon finished the last knot and pulled back, exhaling slowly, her chest rising and falling like she'd run a marathon. She didn't stray far, though, her needle still clutched in one hand, her stare fixed on Jeongguk's leg as if daring it to betray her. The injury was a mess—red-rimmed and puckered around the black thread—but the bleeding had stopped cold, the skin already drawing flush, no longer a ragged tear. When she prodded the muscle lightly, it yielded firm and unyielding under her fingers, whole in a way that twisted something deep in Jimin's gut.

“He’s stable,” she says at last, but the word feels insufficient. 

Namjoon’s hands braced against the edge of the cot. “How stable?”

Jiwon glances up at him, then back down again. “Stable enough to not die in the next five minutes,” Jiwon replies. “Beyond that—” Her mouth tightens. “I don’t have an explanation for what his body’s doing.”

The shed fell quiet, the weight of her admission pressing down on them all. Jimin kept his palm planted on Jeongguk's shoulder, unwilling to break the contact, feeling the steady heat radiating through his skin, the rhythmic lift of breaths beneath. Jeongguk lay heavy now, the sedation dragging him into stillness, the wild energy finally leashed. Under Jimin's fingers, the muscle felt solid, unbreakable—a reminder of the strength that had both terrified and drawn him in the forest. His chest tightened with a mix of relief and unease; this healing wasn't human, wasn't safe, but it meant Jeongguk was fighting back, clinging to form.

Jiwon stepped away at last, peeling off her gloves with deliberate movements and tossing them into the basin, the wet smack echoing. She turned to the sink, scrubbing her hands raw, as if she could erase the sight of flesh mending itself from her mind. That's when the door creaked open, letting in a rush of cooler air.

“What—Namjoon-ah?” 

Seokjin’s voice cuts into the shed, sharp with confusion and edged with concern. He stops short just inside the threshold, eyes scanning fast, counting bodies, counting blood. His gaze snaps to the cot and his breath leaves him in a sharp, involuntary sound.

“Oh my god,” he says. “What happened—what the fuck happened?”

He moves without waiting for an answer, crossing the room in quick strides, hands hovering uselessly for half a second before he forces them down. Blood everywhere—on the cot, on the floor, soaked into gauze and cloth. Jeongguk lies still beneath it, too still, chest rising but slow, skin pale under the lantern light.

“Is he breathing?” Seokjin demands, already leaning in. “Namjoon, tell me he’s breathing—”

“He is,” Namjoon says, steady but strained. “He’s sedated and stable, for now.”

“For now,” Seokjin repeats, sharp. His eyes flick over the stitches, the leg, the way Jeongguk’s body looks heavy and wrong against the mattress. “Jesus—what did this to him?”

“Gunshots,” Jiwon says, not looking up as she cleans the area around Jeongguk. “Two.”

Seokjin’s head snaps toward her. “Gunshots?”

Jimin shifts at the sound, shoulders tightening. That’s when Seokjin finally looks at him, the color draining out of his face so fast it’s almost frightening.

“...Jimin?”

He takes one step closer. Then another.

“You’re—why are you shirtless,” he asks stupidly, like his brain has latched onto the wrong detail because the right ones are too much all at once. His eyes drop, landing on the dark smears of blood and scratches that were raked across his arms and bare torso. There were fresh tears in the skin that’s already been stitched once. Jimin’s ribs are taped sloppily, red bleeding through white gauze that he’d absentmindedly placed there himself in the midst of the commotion surrounding Jeongguk. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d done it, his mind completely operating on autopilot. His hands are shaking just slightly, fingers curled tight at his sides like he’s holding himself together by force.

Seokjin makes a broken sound in his throat.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I’m fine,” Jimin says automatically, already turning back toward the cot.

Seokjin grabs his arm.

The motion snaps attention across the room.

Yoongi straightens instantly, gaze sharpening as it drops to Jimin’s side. Hoseok’s head comes up, expression shifting and his eyes narrowing as they follow Seokjin’s line of sight. Taehyung looks over and goes very still immediately.

“Shit,” Taehyung breathes. “Jimin.”

Hoseok swears under his breath, low and tight. “You’re still bleeding pretty bad.”

Jimin jerks his arm once, irritated. “It’s nothing.”

Seokjin does the exact opposite, tightening his grip instead.

“Do not,” he says, voice pitching hard now, “do not start that bullshit with me.”

Jimin opens his mouth to dismiss the attention once again, but Seokjin doesn’t let him. Jimin jerks, irritation flaring, but Seokjin’s grip tightens instead of loosening. And as much as he tries to hide it, he knows that Seokjin sees it then—how pale he is under the grime, how tight his jaw is, how his breathing keeps hitching shallow like it hurts to draw a full one.

“You’re bleeding,” Seokjin says, words coming faster now. “And you’re shaking like crazy. You didn’t even notice, did you?”

“I noticed,” Jimin lies flatly.

Yoongi steps closer, eyes sharp, taking him in the way he does during post-fight checks. “Jimin, your ribs are literally covered in blood and tears,” he says quietly. “You definitely tore something.”

Jimin exhales, tongue pressing into the side of his cheek as he struggles to find an excuse. Seokjin hauls him back toward the corner before he can argue again. “Sit,” he says. “Now.”

“I don’t have time—”

“You absolutely do,” Seokjin snaps, shoving him down onto a crate with more force than necessary. “You are not adding yourself to this pile of mess.”

Jimin resists for half a second, but then the pain catches up. His breath stutters, sharp and shallow, arm flaring hot where the stitches have pulled, red and swollen with irritation. Seokjin feels it immediately and swears, hands tightening reflexively.

“Fuck,” Seokjin mutters, hands already shaking as he reaches for clean cloth. “You absolute—why are you like this?”

Jimin exhales through clenched teeth. “You should be thanking me right now, because Jeongguk’s alive.”

“I know,” Seokjin says, voice breaking despite himself. “I can see that. That doesn’t mean you get to fall apart on us now.”

Hoseok is already there by the time Jimin’s lowered onto the crate, pressing clean cloth into Jiwon’s hands without needing to be asked. Taehyung hangs back a step, restless and tight, hands flexing at his sides like he’s trying to decide where to be useful. His gaze keeps jumping—Jimin, then Jeongguk, then back again—never settling, as if staying still might mean choosing wrong. Jiwon drops into a crouch in front of Jimin, fingers assessing with brisk efficiency. 

“These scratches are fresh—holy shit, Jimin, were you fighting a beast?” she says. “And this—” She presses near his ribs. “Goddammit, Jimin, you stressed the stitches pretty badly.”

Pain flares sharp and immediate, causing Jimin to suck in a breath through his teeth before he can stop it. Seokjin reacts like he’s been struck. His hand tightens on Jimin’s shoulder, grip firm and grounding, his voice dropping without him meaning it to. “Jesus,” he says again, quieter now. “You really didn’t notice, did you?”

Jimin doesn’t answer, nor does he lift his face to meet the older man’s concerned gaze. His eyes are still on Jeongguk. Across the room, Jeongguk shifts faintly under sedation, a quiet, pained sound catching in his chest. It’s barely anything—barely a sound at all—but Jimin’s body responds instantly, muscles locking as if someone pulled a wire tight inside him.

“I’ve got him,” Namjoon says at once, and he’s already there, palm settling solidly against Jeongguk’s shoulder. His voice stays steady even as his grip firms. “He’s going to be okay.”

Jimin doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t move, either. He stays where Seokjin put him, eyes locked on the slow rise and fall of Jeongguk’s chest like it’s the only thing tethering him to the room. Jiwon doesn’t give him time to spiral. She works fast, efficiently and unsentimental, cleaning, pressing, re-stitching where she has to. There’s no room for debate in her movements. Seokjin hovers too close, pacing half a step and stopping again, watching every time Jimin’s jaw tightens, every breath that goes shallow when pain slips past his control. When Jiwon finally tapes the gauze down and leans back on her heels, the silence that follows feels heavier than the chaos did.

Seokjin exhales then, long and shaky, like he’s been holding it since the moment he walked in. “You scared the shit out of me,” he says quietly.

Jimin swallows, throat tight. His voice comes out low, stripped down to truth and nothing else. “I just—I needed to make sure he came back alive.”

Seokjin’s gaze drifts to the cot, to Jeongguk’s slack hand, the slow, even rhythm of his breathing. When he looks back at Jimin, there’s no anger there—just fear, still echoing. “I know,” he says. “But we need you to, too. Try to keep it that way, okay?”

Jimin doesn't nod or promise the beta anything. He just stays sitting there, less-bloodied and still bare-chested, eyes fixed on the cot as if looking anywhere else might make something slip through his fingers.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jiwon moves quietly as she cleans, the scrape of metal against metal and the soft slosh of water from a small pale filling the pauses no one knows how to step into yet. She wipes blood from the floorboards first, then from the edge of the table, her motions efficient and practiced, like if she keeps her hands busy the night won’t catch up to her all at once. The shed has settled into a low, tense quiet—Jeongguk breathing slowly and deep on the cot, lantern light humming faintly, the smell of blood and antiseptic still heavy in the air. Taehyung has taken a position outside. The others have been pushed away and back towards the farmhouse under the excuse of needing rest.

Namjoon doesn’t sit. He stands near the fireplace instead, hands braced against the mantle, his posture deceptively calm. He waits until Jiwon has wrung the bloodied cloth out for the last time before he speaks.

“Jimin,” he says quietly, eyes trained on his hands as he picks at a nail. “I know you’re exhausted. And I know tonight’s been… quite a lot, to say the least.” He drops his hands and finally turns to face the omega, meeting Jimin’s eyes. “But I need you to explain what you meant earlier. When you said he shifted.” He hesitates, then adds, careful, “Is it— is it what I think you’re saying?”

Jimin sighs slowly. His ribs pull tight when he shifts around on the crate, the ache finally registering fully now that everything isn’t on fire anymore. He keeps his gaze on Jeongguk as he answers.

“Yes, hyung,” he says. “He shifted into a wolf.”

Namjoon blinks—not because he doesn’t understand, but because some part of him is trying to reject the words coming out of Jimin’s mouth.

“…A wolf,” he repeats breathlessly.

“The very kind they told us about in history class when we were pups,” Jimin says. “Y’know, the stuff that always sounded like a bunch of horseshit.”

Jiwon looks up sharply from where she’s setting instruments aside. Namjoon takes a half-step back, hand coming up to brace against the wall behind him. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes. “How—” He stops, swallows, then tries again. “What did he look like?”

Jimin doesn’t answer right away. He takes a moment to think, unsure of how to proceed. He was still trying to process what he’d witnessed only an hour prior, so trying to put it into words felt foreign on his tongue.

“He wasn’t a normal wolf,” he says after another few seconds. “Not even close. I mean, he really was massive—bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.” His jaw works. “If I hadn’t caught his scent when I did, I would’ve killed him with no hesitation. He wasn’t even in his right mind when we found him.”

Namjoon’s mouth opens, then closes again.

“I’m serious,” Jimin adds, voice rougher now. “I don’t really know what else to say—other than he was a fucking beast, and I still can’t wrap my head around it.”

The shed goes quiet when no one responds. Then Namjoon straightens, the shock giving way to something sharper—something alive behind his eyes.

“Jimin,” he says, slower now, “do you realize what this means?”

Jimin nods his head and huffs, disbelief layered in the dry chuckle he lets out. “I think I’m starting to.”

“The shifting gene hasn’t shown up in humans for centuries,” Namjoon continues, voice gaining momentum as the pieces start snapping together in his head. “Centuries. We’ve documented remnants of it in our blood here and there, but a full shifting gene—no, not in people. Not like this.” He shakes his head once, incredulous. “It shouldn’t be possible anymore, because we’ve long since shed the necessity to shift as a form of survival.”

Jiwon steps closer. “But this would explain the effects of his bite,” she says. “And why he didn’t turn into one of those disgusting howlers.”

Namjoon looks at her immediately. “Exactly.” He turns back to Jimin. “If Jeongguk carries a dormant version of that gene—something ancient, something we assumed had ultimately disappeared so long ago—then it makes sense why the infection wouldn’t have taken in him the same way.”

Jimin frowns. “Because his body already knew how to shift.”

“Not exactly—more-so like it knew how to survive this dormant gene waking up and changing his body’s entire chemical makeup,” Namjoon corrects. “So if you’re bitten without that genetic framework, the transformation breaks you, and you end up stuck halfway.” He gestures vaguely, frustration bleeding into his tone. “Howlers.”

Jimin lets out a sharp breath. “Shit.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That actually makes sense.”

Jiwon nods slowly. “Could also explain why Jeongguk is able to retract his claws and canines. Perhaps he was able to enter a hybrid state as his body slowly began to adapt.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says. “Yeah, it could.”

The weight of their realizations settle over the room. Jiwon folds her arms. “But this is all still a hypothetical—so what do we do with that?” she asks. “We can’t exactly build a cure around the crazily-narrow luck of genetics.”

Namjoon hesitates. “…I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, just really difficult, considering our lack of proper equipment. We’d have to find an actual lab in the city and get it up and running—”

Jimin’s head snaps up. “No.” His voice is firm now, cutting clean through the thought. “That’s not where this goes, not tonight.”

Namjoon looks at him.

“Right now,” Jimin continues, “the only thing that matters is that he’s alive and stable. We can argue about science and cures later—much later.” He glances back at Jeongguk, hand unconsciously tightening at his side. “He almost died out there. We’re not turning him into a project on top of that.”

Namjoon studies him for a long moment, then nods once. “You’re right.”

Jiwon blows out a long puff of air, hands going to rest on her hips. “Yeah, he needs rest, and so do you.”

Jimin nods once. Somewhere in the middle of Namjoon still talking, he realizes he’s sitting again, but in a different spot. He doesn’t remember deciding to move, only that the crate is closer now and Jeongguk is within reach. His hand rests against Jeongguk’s shoulder, fingers spread there like they belong.

He presses his thumb down briefly—testing, maybe—then leaves it there. Warm. Solid. His stance has shifted too, without him noticing, a knee angled toward the cot, his shoulder turned slightly inward, body placed where it would take the hit first if something were to go wrong. He doesn’t think about why, and he’s not sentimental enough to ponder it. He just keeps listening to Namjoon ramble more about their ‘miraculous discovery’ with half an ear, eyes tracking nothing in particular, attention looping back to the steady movement under his hand. 

‘This is just what people do when someone is hurt and they’re still standing. You’re supposed to stay close, and make them your responsibility. You keep track of them until you know for certain that they’ll be okay.’

It isn’t until Jiwon brushes past him that Jimin blinks and finally looks down, fully registering where he is. His hand tightens once, reflexive, before he stills it again—like he’s been caught doing something private without realizing it was visible at all. He doesn’t move away. Namjoon then moves closer and presses two fingers briefly to Jeongguk’s neck to confirm the pulse again, then straightens with a slow exhale through his nose. His gaze lifts, tracking the line of the room—and pauses, just slightly, when he realizes how close Jimin has drifted to the cot. He doesn’t say anything.

“We’re going to need more supplies,” he says finally, voice pitched low so it doesn’t carry outside the shed. “Antibiotics, fluids, more gauze, you know the works. And something for you that isn’t torn fabric held together by spite.”

Jimin gives a short huff that might almost be a laugh, then nods. The motion pulls at his ribs, and he shifts his weight, jaw clenching for half a second as he winces, before smoothing his expression again. Namjoon hesitates, then continues, choosing his words carefully. 

“You can stay here, if you want—just for now.” His eyes flick briefly to Jeongguk, then back to Jimin’s face. “Whatever’s happening with him, it’s very clear now that your presence seems to… help.”

Jimin doesn’t answer right away. The words register, but they don’t land as a decision in his mind. His body has already made it for him. The thought of leaving—of stepping away while Jeongguk is unconscious, injured, vulnerable—sets something tight and unpleasant coiling in his chest. He’s felt this before, and he never wants to feel it again.

“I’m staying,” Jimin says, the words coming out flat and certain.

Namjoon nods, the corner of his mouth curving up ever so slightly, as if he’d already expected that answer from him.

“I’ll have Taehyung stand guard outside until dawn,” he says. “If anything changes—anything at all—you call out for him.”

Jiwon is already collecting her supplies in her arms, her movements brisk but tired. “We’ll grab what we can and be back fast,” she adds. “Ten minutes if Mr. Park organized the storage properly like I asked him to this time around.”

They move toward the door together, the shed filling briefly with the scrape of boots and the rustle of fabric. Before Namjoon steps out, he glances back once more—at Jeongguk, then at Jimin sitting like a sentinel beside him. The door shuts behind them with a muted thud, sealing the space back into quiet. The silence that follows is heavier than before. No shouted instructions, no clatter of tools and frantic footsteps. Just the low hum of the lantern and the steady sound of Jeongguk breathing. Jimin exhales slowly and finally lets himself look. Really look.

Jeongguk lies sprawled across the cot, half-covered now, chest rising and falling in deep, even pulls. The sedative has smoothed some of the tension from his body, his eyebrows no longer knitted in a perpetual grimace. But there’s still something off in the way his muscles sit beneath his skin—too defined in some places, as if everything underneath hasn’t quite finished settling into the shape it’s supposed to hold. Every so often, a faint ripple moves under the surface, subtle enough to miss if you weren’t watching closely.

Jimin’s gaze moves with quiet focus as he slightly shifts the blanket off his lower half. The bandaged leg was wrapped tight and already darkening with old blood. The stitched wound along his side was shaded an angry red, but holding well. Bruises bloomed along his ribs in deep purples and blues, spreading in real time, even as he watched the alpha. Scratches were littered across his shoulders and collarbone—some from the forest, some from Jimin himself, he realizes with a dull twist in his gut. He looked way worse than Jimin.

His gaze drifts lower, following the familiar map of Jeongguk’s body, and stops where he already knows it will. The scar. He’d felt it earlier in the barn—his palm catching on the uneven line without looking, registering it only as old damage before everything else had spiraled out of control. Now, in the steadier light, he can see it clearly—though he isn’t sure how he managed to miss it when they first stripped him many weeks ago. Perhaps the bite had been too much of a distraction.

The scar was long and slightly jagged, signs of a rough healing process. The edges were pulled tight in a way that suggests it was closed up fast, or without proper care. Without a doubt, it’d been caused by a large blade. Jimin had seen more than enough knife wounds during his service to know the difference at a glance. This one wasn’t shallow, and it hadn’t been a clean jab. Someone had meant to hurt him. Badly.

His brow furrows slightly.

‘What were you doing before you found us?’

The question hangs there, unanswered. Another loose thread in a picture that refuses to settle neatly in his mind—the quiet alpha who mostly took orders well, healed too fast, endured too much without complaint. Jimin doesn’t have time to chase the thought further, because the shed door opens again, softer this time.

It’s Taehyung who steps inside, carrying an armful of blankets and a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He shuts the door behind him with his heel and pauses when he takes in the scene—Jimin standing close to the cot, shirtless and stitched and dried blood-smeared, eyes fixed on Jeongguk like the rest of the room doesn’t exist. Taehyung’s expression shifts, something unreadable flickering across his face.

“I brought clean bedding,” he says quietly. “And whatever Namjoon could grab without waking half the compound.”

Jimin nods without looking away. “Set it down there.”

Taehyung sets the bundle down where Jimin indicated, movements careful, almost deliberate. The bedding barely makes a sound as it hits the floor. He straightens slowly, then stops. It’s subtle at first—the way Taehyung’s brow creases, the way his gaze drags over Jimin’s bare shoulders, down his ribs, then back up again. The adrenaline has finally burned off enough that the damage has nowhere left to hide. The scratches that raked red across his skin stung sharply now. 

He doesn’t comment on the blood still drying along Jimin’s arms, or the way his shoulders are set too rigid, as if his body hasn’t realized yet that the immediate danger has passed. He doesn’t ask if the stitches hurt, or why Jimin hasn’t bothered to lean back and rest. Instead, he pauses, draws a breath in through his nose and lets it out. Then he does it again, slower. Jimin feels it—that subtle shift, the way Taehyung’s attention sharpens. He doesn’t turn his head as the alpha takes a step closer and reaches down, fingers catching the clean shirt folded nearby.

“Arms up,” he says quietly.

Jimin lifts them without thinking, used to the alpha taking care of him like this. There was no point in arguing with him anyway when Jimin got himself hurt—it’d simply go in one ear and right out the other. Taehyung works the fabric over his head, careful around the bandaging, adjusting when Jimin tenses. His hands are familiar in the way only their long history allows—efficient, unceremonious, grounding. When he’s done, Taehyung doesn’t immediately pull away. He stands there for a beat too long.

“You smelled different earlier,” he says at last.

Jimin’s eyes stay on Jeongguk. “Everyone smelled like blood tonight.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

There’s another pause, and Taehyung doesn’t say anything else when he turns away and begins to set the bedding down. He moves through the shed slowly, methodical in the way he always is when something’s wrong and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He shakes the blanket out once, twice, then spreads it over the makeshift bed he’s constructed in the corner with careful hands, smoothing the edges like Jimin will suddenly care enough to complain about the wrinkles. He checks that there’s clean water in the small basin, lines the supplies up where Jiwon left space, and adjusts the lantern so the light isn’t in Jeongguk’s eyes.

Jimin watches him without really meaning to. His attention keeps drifting back to Jeongguk, but he tracks Taehyung in his peripheral vision all the same, aware of every small movement, every shift of weight on the floorboards. When Taehyung straightens, he stops again. Not because of Jeongguk—that part is expected. Everyone keeps checking the cot. Everyone keeps counting his breaths. This time, his attention lingers on Jimin.

He steps closer, just near enough that the air shifts, then he inhales. It’s quiet, almost unconscious. A slow breath through his nose, the kind you take when you’re trying to orient yourself in a new space. Then he does it again, and Jimin’s shoulders tighten before Taehyung even opens his mouth.

“It’s not as strong as it was when I woke you up,” Taehyung says.

“What?”

“Your scent earlier. When you were still sleeping.” Taehyung’s gaze doesn’t leave his face. “I thought it was maybe remnants of blood from training or maybe touching something he’d had his hands on, or even just stress messing with my nose. Y’know, with everything tonight stacking on top of itself.”

He swallows, throat working.

“But it wasn’t that.”

The shed hung in heavy silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of Jeongguk's breaths and the occasional groan of the wooden walls shifting in the night chill. Jimin kept his eyes fixed on the alpha's still form, the weight of the conversation pressing against his chest like an unwelcome hand.

“I smelled him on you,” Taehyung continues. “Same pine smoke scent. The same way scents start to linger when someone’s been close for a while.”

Jimin didn't shift, didn't lift his gaze from Jeongguk's pale face, the sharp lines softened by sedation. Heat crept up his neck, but he forced his body to stay rigid, unwilling to let Taehyung see the flicker of discomfort in his eyes. The alpha's words hung there, pulling at threads Jimin had tried to bury.

Taehyung's tone dipped lower, intimate in a way that twisted something in Jimin's gut. “The same way I used to smell myself on you.”

Shit. 

There’s no edge to it, no accusation—just a statement threaded with their memories. Memories flooded in uninvited—nights tangled in sheets with Taehyung and Yoongi, bodies pressed close, scents mingling until they blurred into one. No judgments, no explanations needed. His fingers dug into his thigh now, nails biting through fabric into skin, grounding him against the pull of the past.

Taehyung exhaled slowly, the sound rough, and Jimin heard the subtle shake of his head. “I’m not stupid,” he continued. “I know what that scent means. I know what it feels like when it lingers like that.”

Jimin swallowed, his throat tight, and after a beat, the words forced themselves out. “It was consensual,” He says after a moment. “If that’s what you’re trying to figure out.”

Relief washed over Taehyung's features in an instant, softening the tension in his shoulders before anything darker could take root. He nodded, quick and firm. “Yeah. That was my first question.”

Then he eased back against the rough wall, arms folding across his chest, his eyes flicking to Jeongguk for a heartbeat before settling back on Jimin. The alpha's gaze felt heavy, searching.

“But that’s—that’s, yeah. That’s good,” he says. Then, more softly, “Because if it hadn’t been, we’d be having a very different conversation.”

Jimin's jaw clenched, a spark of defensiveness flaring. “You know better than anyone that I can hold my own just fine. I’m not helpless.”

“I know,” Taehyung replied, his voice softening further, “but it won’t stop me from trying to protect you.”

Jimin dropped his stare back to Jeongguk, tracing the faint rise and fall of his chest, the way his dark hair stuck to his forehead with drying sweat. Anything to avoid the intensity in Taehyung's eyes. His own jaw locked tighter, muscles aching from the strain.

“But, Jimin,” he mutters, and now there is something underneath it—hurt, restrained and controlled, which is almost worse than if the alpha had just started cursing at him. “You’ve spent weeks acting like he’s an inconvenience—a problem. Like you can barely stand him breathing in the same room as you.”

Jimin’s shoulders draw in, almost imperceptibly. He knows it’s not a fair summary, and he doesn’t need Taehyung spelling it out to understand why the situation looks exactly the way it does. Distance had been easier than admitting the truth—that Jeongguk unsettled him in ways he didn’t have language for, that keeping him at arm’s length felt safer than acknowledging how much ground he took up in Jimin’s head. That it felt simpler than admitting there was something about Jeongguk he didn’t know how to handle.

Because Jeongguk was dangerous. Tonight had made that impossible to deny. There was no clean way to reconcile that with the pull that kept tightening in his chest, no switch he could flip that made any of it safe or simple.

And now—worse—he was something else, too.

Jimin hadn’t said it out loud. He wasn’t even sure he believed it himself. But the image is forever ingrained in his mind: Jeongguk’s body forcing itself through a change that shouldn’t exist anymore, healing wounds that should’ve killed him, standing on the wrong side of centuries of dead history and somehow still breathing through it. Namjoon had looked at Jeongguk like he was staring at a ghost and a miracle all at once. ‘A key,’ his brain supplies, unbidden.

‘A fluke. An answer—or at least the start of one.’

Jimin hates that thought almost as much as he hates the way it lingers.

Because believing that means accepting the possibility of hope, and hope has never been kind to people like him. He’s buried too many bodies for that. Choi Minji. Nabi. Futures that almost worked until they didn’t.

“And now I wake you up, and you smell like him the same way you used to smell like me.”

Taehyung's words landed like a quiet punch, and Jimin felt the silence stretch taut between them, heavy with unspoken history. Jimin’s pulse ticked up, a familiar heat rising under his skin—not anger, but the sharp edge of exposure. He waited, breath held, until he finally broke it.

“Are you really mad at me for fucking him?” Jimin says, a short, humorless breath leaving him. He knows exactly what he’s doing—twisting it, sanding it down into something easier to push back against. Easier than admitting the truth buried underneath Taehyung’s words.

Because Jeongguk isn’t just a risk anymore. He’s become another one of Jimin’s responsibilities. And whether Jimin likes it or not—he’s something that might matter far beyond the two of them.

“I’m not mad,” Taehyung replied, his voice steady, almost too even. He paused, then let out a sigh that seemed to drag from deep in his chest. “I’m just… I don’t know—trying to line this up with the version of you I’ve been dealing with for weeks. I’m trying to understand how you managed to shut me out so completely.”

Jimin's throat tightened, the denial rising hot and automatic. “I didn’t shut you out.” But even as he said it, the lie tasted sour—he had, walls up high, pushing Taehyung away to keep this mess contained.

“Well, you haven’t exactly let me in either.”

Jimin parted his lips, the retort forming sharp on his tongue, laced with justifications he didn't fully believe. But it died there, coiling inward like a snare, because Taehyung would see right through it, dismantle it before Jimin could even finish. He clamped his mouth shut, jaw aching from the restraint.

“And for the record,” Taehyung pressed on, his tone hardening just a fraction, “it’s not fair to treat someone like shit and fuck them at the same time. You know that, Jimin. You’re not some angsty, self-centered teenager.”

The words stung, a flinch rippling through Jimin—not in his body, but in the subtle pinch around his eyes, the way his vision blurred for a split second. Guilt twisted low in his gut, mixing with the defensiveness that made him want to snap back, to list every reason Jeongguk had grated on him, every clash that justified the distance. But Taehyung wasn't finished, his voice dropping lower, insistent.

“If you don’t want him, that’s one thing. Fine. Whatever. But you don’t get to act like he doesn’t matter and then leave your scent tangled with his like that.”

Without meaning to, Jimin's gaze snapped back to Jeongguk, drawn like a magnet to the still lines of his face—the dark sweep of lashes against pale skin, the slow, untroubled rise of his breaths. It was a reflex, betraying more than he intended, and he felt Taehyung's eyes on him, tracking the shift. When he glanced up, the alpha's expression had changed, easing into something deeper, more weighted, like sorrow settling in.

“I just thought—after all this time—that if you were carrying something this heavy, you’d at least know you could set it down with me.”

Jimin's gaze wandered, blurring into the dim space between the cot and the scarred wooden floor, as if staring hard enough might pin down the chaos swirling in his head. His mind refused to cooperate, thoughts slipping through his grasp like wet soap—every attempt to grab one only sent it darting away, leaving him grasping at nothing.

“I didn’t—” The words caught in his throat, rough and incomplete. He tried again, forcing them out, but they tangled uselessly, dissolving before they could form. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes from the strain, and in a surge of irritation, he pressed his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth, tipping his head back to stare at the shadowed rafters. Taehyung's presence loomed at the edge of his vision, patient and unyielding, his face a mask of calm that only amplified Jimin's discomfort—like being watched under a spotlight he hadn't asked for.

“I didn’t know what to say,” he murmured at last, the admission landing flat and inadequate, barely scratching the surface of the mess inside him. He fidgeted on the rough bench, his body betraying the restlessness coiling in his limbs; one knee jerked up once, sharply, before he clamped it down with a conscious effort, fingers digging into his thigh to hold still.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says after a moment. The word is quiet, rough around the edges. “Okay.”

He feels like he’s fucked up yet again, because Jimin does see him as a safe space—he always has. For years, when the world pressed in too hard, when frustration built like layers of barbed wire around his thoughts, Taehyung had been the one to help unravel it all, patient hands sorting through the knots without judgment. Trust had never been the issue; it was the blind spots in his own head, the way he couldn't even name the shadows chasing him, let alone ask for a light to see by.

“And before you say it,” Taehyung continued, his tone measured but laced with that quiet insistence, “I know you don’t owe me every thought in your head. But fifteen years is a long time to suddenly start feeling like I’m being locked outside of the room.”

Jimin dragged his eyes up then, locking onto Taehyung's properly, the alpha's gaze steady and searching in a way that made his stomach knot. There was no accusation there, just a raw honesty that mirrored his own turmoil.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Taehyung says, cutting in gently. “You never mean to.”

Jeongguk shifts faintly on the cot, a small sound catching in his throat. Jimin’s body responds immediately, attention snapping back to him with a hand hovering near Jeongguk’s arm like he might need to steady him again. Silence stretches between them, thick with everything unsaid. 

“I’m staying outside, but call out if you need anything, Jimin-ah,” Taehyung says after a moment. “We’ll have to talk about this later—I’m starting to realize that neither of us are in the right headspace for this conversation tonight.”

Jimin doesn’t argue as the alpha turns to walk away. at the threshold, his back to them, the pause stretching Jimin's nerves thinner.

“And for what it’s worth,” Taehyung murmured, the words soft but weighted, not glancing back, “I don’t think you’re purposely lying to yourself, or to me. And you know I love you, but please—don’t make me side with Jeongguk on this.”

The door creaked open and shut with a finality that echoed in Jimin's ears, leaving the shed swallowed in stillness once more. Alone now with Jeongguk's shallow breaths the only rhythm breaking the hush, Jimin felt the quiet close in like a vice, his posture locked toward the cot—drawn there by some invisible pull, as if every fiber in him refused to look anywhere else, refused to let go even as doubt clawed at the edges of his resolve.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8 : Threads of Solace

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The water pump groans through the first few pulls before it finally gives up anything worth collecting, the rusted handle shuddering under Jimin’s grip as he works it in steady, controlled strokes. He braced his boot against the base and leaned his weight into it, feeling his shoulder and back engage automatically, his breath fogging faintly in the brittle morning air. Water sputtered out in uneven bursts before settling into a steady stream, striking the metal bucket with hollow slaps that echoed too loudly in the quiet yard.

Dawn lingered in that colorless in-between, where everything looked half-formed and washed out. Through the dim light, Jimin saw the fence posts casting faint, skeletal shadows across the packed dirt, and the trees beyond the gate stood stripped nearly bare, their branches rattling softly whenever the wind slipped through. That wind found its way under his collar, threading cold fingers along his spine—sharper now, with teeth that bit deeper than last year. It slicked his fingers with icy dew before he could warm to the task, and he hunched against it without thinking, his jaw tightening as he hissed softly. The chill seeped beneath his shirt, settling into muscles already stiff from a night of poor sleep on that damn wooden chair beside the cot.

Autumn is thinning faster than it usually would over the previous years. The air smells of damp earth and rotting leaves instead of late-harvest dust, and the rain. The months are passing without much regard for Jimin or the rest of the pack. The morning's slow progression into unwelcoming iciness causes not just the birds that once claimed the fence lines to grow sparse, but the pack member's usual early head-starts as well, bodies reluctant to leave the warmth. 

He remembered how he'd always savored these colder months before day zero, back when the world still turned on simple comforts. There was something comforting about bundling up in layers of sweaters and scarves, the weight of them pressing close like a second skin, warding off the world. He'd watch the leaves shift from green to fiery reds and golds, their colors vivid against the graying sky, a quiet beauty that didn't demand anything from him.

And in winter, he'd stare out the fogged window of Choi Minji's cafe, snowflakes drifting down in lazy spirals, while Taehyung rambled on about the ideal marshmallow-to-hot-chocolate ratio—too many and it drowned the cocoa, too few and it wasn't indulgent enough. Taehyung would stick close, their shoulders brushing, his warmth seeping through as the cafe's drafty corners nipped at their ankles. Those were the only times Jimin hadn't felt so utterly miserable, like the cold wrapped around him instead of clawing in.

Now, though, there was barely any warmth left to make these months enjoyable. No flicking a switch to crank up the thermostat, no stroll to the department store for the latest fluffy winter coat. Staying warm demanded relentless effort—hunting down fuel for fires that never quite chased the bite from the air, layering on whatever scraps of clothing they could scavenge. Coats came riddled with mold stains or holes gnawed by moths, brittle fabrics that offered little against the relentless frost. Everything tasted bitter now, the cold seeping into bones without mercy, turning autumn into just another grind.

When Jimin shifted his grip on the handle, the stitches beneath his shirt tugged—a persistent pull that no longer spiked into sharp pain but refused to fade entirely. It served as a stark reminder that he hadn't fully earned back the freedom to move as he pleased. He pushed it aside, as he always did. Pain wasn't something to negotiate with; he absorbed it, cataloged it, assessed it, then dismissed it. It’s either tolerable or it isn’t, and this still fell firmly in the first category.

He kept his expression even as the bucket filled, shoulders squared and posture steady, just in case anyone glanced out from the farmhouse windows. That had been his quiet strategy these past two days: stay visible, stay useful, move through the yard like nothing had shifted under the surface. If they saw him hauling water, checking fences, speaking in measured tones at meals, they were less likely to question why he spent so much time in that shed at the far end of the yard.

The explanation had been delivered before sunrise the morning after they’d dragged Jeongguk from the woods, while the sharp tang of adrenaline still blunted the raw edges of what Jimin could only call disbelief. His body ached from the night's chaos, stitches pulling tight under his shirt with every shallow breath, but he'd stood there in the dim yard, arms crossed to ward off the pre-dawn chill that clawed at his exposed skin.

Namjoon had laid it out first: a migrating pack of howlers, pushed south by the brutal temperature drop that had hit like a hammer overnight. Their perimeter check—just Jimin and Jeongguk, scouting the treeline—had put them too close when the pack veered in. Shots rang out in the dark, frantic and echoing, and because nothing in this world bent to fairness, injuries followed. Jeongguk's worse, of course, but Jimin had taken his share, the gash on his side a burning reminder as he shifted his weight now, careful not to let the discomfort show.

The seven of them clustered together under the faint glow of a lantern hung from the porch rail—Namjoon, Taehyung, and Yoongi handling the bulk of the words, their voices weaving the story into something that almost sounded plausible. Shoulders aligned in that unspoken front, expressions locked down tight, eyes scanning the group without inviting deeper digs. Jimin had mirrored them instinctively, chin lifted, gaze steady on the frost-kissed ground, feeling the collective weight of their united front settle over the yard like a shroud.

It worked; howlers breaching the line made a grim kind of sense in this endless grind of survival. The streaks of blood that had smeared the front of Jeongguk's shed, hastily scrubbed away in the hours after? Explained. The heavy, tight silence that had trailed them back through the gate, weapons still hot in their hands? Made perfect, heartbreaking sense.

Relief had rippled through the others almost immediately once the full picture landed—no fatalities, just wounds that time and rest could stitch back together. Jimin had felt it too, a loosening in his chest amid the persistent throb of his injury, but he'd kept it buried, nodding along as the group dispersed into the graying light. Taehyung had clapped a hand on his shoulder before turning away, the brief pressure a silent check-in that Jimin returned with a quick squeeze of his arm. No words needed; they all carried the same scars from nights like that.

Minseok and Daehyun, though—they'd hung back by the porch steps a beat longer than the rest, their postures shifting in ways that snagged Jimin's attention even through the haze of fatigue. He caught Minseok's eyes narrowing just a fraction, that sharp glint cutting through the morning mist as he pieced together the gaps in the tale. Daehyun's gaze had flicked once toward Jeongguk's shed at the yard's edge, lingering on the shadowed door before snapping back to neutral, his jaw set in that quiet way that screamed calculation. They hadn't piped up, hadn't challenged the howler story with the questions burning in their stares, and Jimin filed that restraint away like a loaded clip—valuable, necessary.

They had good instincts, those two, honed from too many close calls in the wilds before joining the compound. But this wasn't instinct talking; it was the cold fact that they'd been close enough that night to glimpse the truth through the trees. Not howlers with their guttural snarls and shambling hunger, but something sharper, more deliberate—human shadows slipping through the underbrush, rifles glinting under the moonlight.

Jimin met Minseok's eyes briefly as the group broke, offering a subtle nod of acknowledgement, the barest tilt of his head toward Daehyun too. Gratitude twisted in his gut for that shared silence; now wasn't the moment to unravel the lie, not with the air still thick from the incident and answers as scarce as dry wood. They'd wait, watch, until he and the others could scrape together something solid—proof, a trail, anything to turn suspicion into certainty without tearing the fragile trust of the pack apart.

He lifted the bucket carefully once the water hit a weight he could manage without straining the fresh stitches along his side, the cold metal biting into his palms as droplets slithered down the sides and soaked into the frayed hem of his pants. He adjusted his grip when it swayed against his thigh, the chill seeping through the fabric like a persistent itch, and turned back toward the shed with steps that stayed measured and light— the same controlled rhythm he fell into on patrol, boots barely whispering over the frost-crusted grass to avoid pulling eyes or questions. The wind picked up again, tugging at the loose threads of his collar, but he kept his shoulders even, gaze fixed on the shed's weathered door ahead, blending into the morning's gray hush as if he was just another shadow in the yard.

He nudged the door open with his shoulder, the wood creaking softly under the pressure, and stepped inside, the sudden shift from open air to the shed's stale warmth wrapping around him like a damp cloth. Jimin paused just beyond the threshold, letting his eyes sweep the space in a slow, assessing arc, cataloging the quiet weave of his life threading into Jeongguk's makeshift recovery nook. The air hung heavier there, laced with the faint, herbal tang of salves and the underlying must of old wood, a far cry from the biting clarity outside.

He crossed to the small table that had inched closer to the cot over the past few days— not by any deliberate choice of his, but through those small, inevitable adjustments that happened when hours stretched long and necessity overrode intent. Now it squatted within arm's reach of the bed, its scarred surface cluttered with folded cloths stained faintly from use, jars of salve with their greasy lids askew, glass tincture bottles catching the weak light, and his chipped ceramic mug, the one that used to claim a shelf in the farmhouse kitchen, now half-filled with cooled tea from last night's vigil.

A blanket he knew was his own— thick wool, edges frayed from too many washes— draped over the back of the wooden chair, its familiar weight a silent anchor in the corner. His spare sweater, gray and threadbare at the elbows, hooked on a nail by the door, ready for when the chill crept in deeper during the endless nights. The knife he set down yesterday afternoon rested on the table's edge, blade sheathed but handle worn smooth from his grip, a quiet companion amid the clutter. Beneath the cot, a stack of papers— maps scribbled with patrol routes, notes on supply runs that he'd once kept tucked in his quarters— now huddled in the narrow gap, edges curling from the damp. 

And with every meal Seokjin brought over, sliding through the door with that knowing half-smile and a tray balanced in his hands, another sliver of Jimin's world slipped in unannounced: an extra pillow stuffed with whatever scraps of feathers they could salvage, a dented thermos still warm from the stove, a folded sleeping mat rolled tight against the wall, even his spare boots lined up by the far wall as if they'd always staked a claim there, laces tied neat and soles caked with yesterday's mud.

The shed was never meant to be more than a stopgap— a locked-away infirmary for containment, discretion, keeping the mess of injuries from spilling into the main house. Instead, it now carries the faint imprint of habitation, two lives overlapping in small, practical ways that feel uncomfortably settled. He tells himself it is simply a matter of efficiency. Jeongguk had been out cold more than he'd stirred, surfacing only in those fractured moments of confusion before his eyelids drooped again, breath evening out into a shallow rhythm.

It was simpler this way— keeping watch without the trek across the yard for every forgotten cloth or sip of water, staying sharp through the dragging hours when exhaustion pulled at his own edges. If the space had softened around him, edges blunted by these familiar touches, it was only what a steady recovery called for. And maybe, if he was honest in the quiet beats, because Jeongguk was a hell of a lot easier to stomach when he was silent and still, no sharp words or challenging stares cutting through the dim.

The thought flickers across his mind and is dismissed just as quickly.

Jimin steps closer to the cot, dipping a fresh cloth into the bucket's icy water before wringing it out with a quick twist, the droplets pattering softly onto the wooden floor. He leaned in, studying Jeongguk's face in the pale spill of early light slanting through the narrow excuse of a window. The swelling that once tugged at his features has subsided, leaving just the ghost of bruises shadowing his jaw and cheek, skin stretched taut over the clean lines of sutures that held the deeper cuts sealed. Jiwon had peeled back the bandages yesterday afternoon, her hands steady as she worked, but she'd fallen quiet in a way that hooked Jimin's focus despite his best efforts to play it casual, leaning against the wall with arms crossed. 

Jiwon had leaned in closer during the examination, her fingers pressing with careful precision along the ridges of Jeongguk's ribs, the pads of her digits sinking slightly into the skin before meeting resistance. "The muscle's repairing pretty damn fast," she had murmured, her voice low and threaded with that clinical wonder she rarely let slip. "Faster than it should. And it feels... denser? It's definitely rebuilding with more structure than before."

Jimin had stood there, arms folded tight across his chest to ward off the chill seeping through the shed's thin walls, his eyes fixed on the subtle shifts under her touch—the way the flesh seemed to knit itself tighter, pulling flush around the neat lines of sutures as if some hidden force directed the mending from within. She had trailed her hand lower then, to the thick curve of his thigh, probing the firmness there with the same unhurried scrutiny, her brow furrowing just enough to draw Jimin's gaze. The air in the shed had thickened with the scent of antiseptic and damp earth, the faint rustle of her movements the only sound breaking the hush.

"He'll still be exhausted, though," she had continued after a beat, lifting her head to meet Jimin's eyes before flicking her glance to Namjoon, who loomed beside him with his broad shoulders squared and brows drawn deep in concentration. "I don't know too much about tissue regeneration at this kind of rate, but I know it takes a hell of a lot of energy. He might look stronger when this is done—hell, he might even be stronger—but right now, he's practically running on fumes. Every bit of that healing's pulling from reserves he doesn't have to spare."

Namjoon had remained silent through it all, his dark eyes locked on the exposed side of Jeongguk's torso, tracing the faint ridges of new tissue forming beneath the skin like he was mapping out some unspoken equation. Jimin could see the itch in him, the alpha's scholarly mind churning, barely restrained from yanking out their scavenged lab kits right there on the dirt floor—the makeshift vials, the battered microscope lens they'd jury-rigged from old parts. Namjoon was built for this, wired to chase down the why of every anomaly, and in a world stripped bare, that hunger burned brighter than most.

But Jimin had caught his gaze when it lifted, holding it steady with a look that carried the weight of everything unsaid. ‘Not yet, hyung. Not here, not with him like this.’ The plea hung between them, unspoken but sharp, and Namjoon had given the barest nod, his jaw tightening as he stepped back into the shadows by the door.

Now, alone in the shed's dim quiet, Jimin dipped the cloth into the basin's frigid water again. He brought it to Jeongguk's forehead, where a thin sheen of sweat clung despite the morning's bite, beading along the hairline and darkening the stray locks at his temples to a deeper black. With the side of his thumb, Jimin swept those strands back gently, exposing the pale skin beneath, then trailed the cloth downward in slow, deliberate strokes—along the sharp line of his jaw, down the column of his throat where the pulse fluttered faint but steady.

The warmth there surprised him, radiating against the cool fabric like a low fever simmering just under the surface, and Jimin adjusted on instinct: a fresh dip into the basin for colder water, lighter pressure this time to avoid jarring the healing sites. He fell back into the rhythm then, the repetitive motion a quiet anchor, soothing the restless churn in his mind that tallied every dip in breath, every twitch of muscle. Jeongguk stirred under the touch, his brow creasing in a faint furrow, breath catching once in a shallow hitch that bordered on discomfort. Jimin froze mid-stroke, cloth hovering inches from the skin, his own pulse spiking as he scanned for the escalation—the wild thrash, the ragged gasp, the rigid tension that had marked that first brutal night when pain dragged him from the depths.

But Jeongguk settled without it, the crease easing as his chest rose and fell in even cadence, no further protest rippling through him. Jimin let out a slow breath through his nose, the knot in his shoulders loosening a fraction, and picked up the cloth again, gentler now, tracing the path once more with the barest graze.

Jimin murmured the word before he could catch it, the soft "Easy" escaping his lips like a reflex, barely audible in the shed's still air. He watched as Jeongguk's features eased, the faint lines of strain melting away from his brow and mouth. His lips parted on a slow exhale, dark lashes fluttering once against the pale skin of his cheeks before settling into stillness. The concoction Jiwon had whipped up—a mix of her own extensive medical knowledge and a recipe from a holistic medicine book that she'd begrudgingly referenced—holds him under, heavy and unyielding, though Jimin knows better than to trust it completely. He’s learned that lesson twice over now. 

There was a subtle solidity emerging in Jeongguk now, less of the raw fragility that had defined his first days of recovery. The gaunt hollows that had carved shadows into his face right after the shift had softened, filling out with a quiet resurgence, and even in this deep slumber, he claimed the cot with a more commanding sprawl—his shoulders broadening against the confines of the narrow frame, as if his body had begun to rewrite its own limits overnight. Jimin's gaze lingered on the steady cadence of his chest, the unhurried lift and drop that spoke of reserves rebuilding from the inside out, each inhalation pulling clean and even, each release free of the ragged hitches that had haunted earlier mornings.

He found himself counting those breaths longer than necessary, his thumb pressing lightly against the curve of Jeongguk's shoulder, the warmth seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt, a familiar anchor that grounded the swirl of his thoughts. For just a heartbeat, unguarded in the dim light filtering through the cracks in the walls, Jimin let that rhythm sink in—the proof of progress amid the uncertainty—before he drew back the vulnerability, tucking it away like a fragile tool.

He shifted to the next task then. Jimin cleans around the bandages next, checking the edges without disturbing the wraps. The wound along Jeongguk’s side showed a touch of lingering redness, but the inflammation held steady, corralled by the precise rows of stitches that gleamed faintly under the grime of the shed.

When Jimin probed gently near the seam, the tissue beneath responded with a firmness that caught him off guard—dense and resilient, far removed from the yielding give he'd felt during that heated scramble in the barn, when every press had yielded only soft skin and tremor. It was as if Jieun really had been telling the truth—that the body under his hands had forged itself anew, layer by layer, in the quiet hours Jimin couldn't oversee. He moved on to the leg wrap after that, unknotting it with careful fingers before resecuring it snug against the thigh, the pressure calibrated to support without constricting the flow beneath. Only then did he turn to his own injuries, as was his habit—peeling back the shirt to expose the mottled edges of his dressings, the dull ache a constant undercurrent he pushed aside until the more pressing needs were met.

The door let out a low creak, hinges protesting the intrusion into the morning hush, and Jiwon slipped inside, her sleeves rolled high on her forearms, a worn satchel slung over one shoulder. Her sharp eyes swept the space in an instant: the pile of used cloth by the basin, Jeongguk's prone form on the cot, and finally Jimin's exposed torso where the discolored gauze clung stubbornly to his skin beneath the parted edges of his shirt.

"I figured," she said, her tone light but laced with that knowing edge she wielded like a scalpel, as she lowered the bag to the floor with a soft thud. "That you'd beat me to it."

Jimin kept his focus on the task at hand, not lifting his gaze from the careful unwind of his own bandage. "Morning," he replied, the word flat and routine, a barrier against deeper conversation.

She crossed the short distance with her usual efficiency—brisk steps that carried no rush, just purpose—and bumped his side gently with her hip to claim the space beside the cot. Jimin shifted over without protest, though he remained within arm's reach, his presence a silent oversight as she dove into her assessment. Her hands moved with practiced speed: peeling back layers to inspect the wraps, her palms gliding along the contours of Jeongguk's leg and then up to his ribs, expression sharpening ever so slightly as she tested the give and take of the healing flesh.

"He's holding," she whispered after a moment, more to herself than to him, her voice carrying a thread of reluctant admiration. "Better than he should be, if I'm being honest."

Jimin absorbed the observation, slotting it into the growing archive of enigmas that circled Jeongguk's recovery like unanswered questions in the dark. He offered no reply, letting the silence stretch as she lingered a beat longer, her fingertips grazing the pulse at his neck—light, almost absentminded, as if tuning into some invisible rhythm only her trained senses could detect. Then her attention pivoted to him, her touch turning direct and unyielding as she circled his stitches with probing fingers. The sudden press ignited a hot spike of pain through his side, and Jimin drew in a sharp breath, his torso twisting away on pure instinct, muscles coiling tight against the intrusion.

"You going to let me look at you, or do I need to knock you out too?" Jiwon grumbled, her words dry but undercut with concern she didn't bother to mask.

"Try it," Jimin shot back, the retort laced with a wry edge that masked the lingering throb.

She ignored the challenge, her hands already in motion—unwinding the old dressings with steady pulls, cleaning the sites with antiseptic wipes that stung cold against his skin. Minutes ticked by in the quiet rhythm of her work, the air filling with the faint, medicinal tang that clung to everything in the shed. Finally, she paused, glancing up at him with one corner of her mouth quirking in a half-smile, her brow arching in that way that invited no evasion.

"Never thought you'd be the one taking care of Jeongguk like this," she said, her voice carrying a teasing lilt as she smoothed the fresh tape over his forearm. "Only took him, what—nearly dying—for you to stop finding him so unbearable?"

Jimin's jaw tightened just a fraction, the words landing closer to the bone than he'd admit. He met her gaze steadily, his tone even but edged with warning. "Careful with your words, noona."

She hummed softly, undeterred, as her fingers moved to his ribs, pressing with clinical precision that sent a fresh twinge radiating through the bruised tissue. A low click of her tongue escaped as she adjusted the gauze, pulling the edges taut before securing it with another strip of tape, the material cinching snug against his skin. Satisfied, she straightened up and gave his shoulder a brief, firm squeeze—grounding, almost affectionate in its brevity. "Don't make me redo this again today, okay? Take it easy—we don't have endless supplies at our fingertips."

Jimin exhaled a short breath, the ache settling into a dull throb as he nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

"You're both disasters, I hope you know that," she added, packing away the remnants of her kit with efficient folds.

“Thanks, very helpful.”

She gives him a look that says she knows better, gathers her things, and leaves him alone with Jeongguk once more. She stops just short of the threshold, her eyes flicking between the two of them. “I’ll be back later. Try to get some mineral water in him if he wakes.”

“I know.”

Something in her expression eased, a softening around the edges of her eyes that spoke of quiet relief amid the strain. "And make sure to be nice to him when he wakes too—not just when he's unconscious."

The door clicked shut behind her, sealing the shed in a deeper hush, the faint echo of her footsteps fading into the compound's morning stir. The light from the narrow window had gained a touch more strength, casting slender rays that caught the swirling dust particles, turning them into lazy specks of gold against the shadowed walls.

Jimin dragged a hand down his face, the rough drag of his palm against the emerging stubble grounding him as he pushed to his feet. He crossed the cramped space in a few measured strides, his bare feet silent on the worn planks, until he reached the small mirror wedged crookedly against the shelf. It leaned at an awkward tilt, but he'd learned its quirks—the way it caught the light just so, reflecting back a version of himself that felt both familiar and foreign.

He studied his reflection for a long beat, taking in the bruised violet smudges hollowing beneath his eyes, the faint weariness etched into the set of his mouth. Along his jaw ran a thin veil of shadow, coarser and darker than it had any right to be after just a week of neglect. He hadn't touched a razor since the night before Jeongguk's shift, the oversight piling onto the list of small fractures in his discipline, each one a reminder of how the days blurred into survival's unyielding grip.

He lingered on it a moment longer, the stubble a tangible mark of drift, before his hand moved to the straight razor tucked among his scattered belongings—the one he'd carried from the farmhouse, its handle worn smooth from years of use. The mirror's angle demanded a slight lean, but Jimin adjusted without thought, slipping his sweater over his head in one smooth pull before draping it across the rickety wooden stool nearby. His skin prickled in the cool air, the fresh white gauze stark against the faded lattice of older scars that crisscrossed his torso, relics of scrapes and close calls that time had etched but never erased.

Jimin cupped water from the basin, splashing it across his face in a cold rush that shocked his senses awake. A faint hiss escaped through clenched teeth as the chill trickled too near his stitches, the icy trail igniting a sharp sting along the tender edges. He raked a hand back through his damp hair, pinning the strands away from his forehead, the motion deliberate and centering. Jimin breathed out steadily through his nose, the exhale steadying the faint tremor in his fingers as he grasped the blade. He rinsed it under the basin's trickle first, the metal gleaming dully in the muted light, then brought it to his skin with careful precision.

The first scrape rasped softly against the quiet, a rhythmic scrape that filled the space like a private metronome—short, even passes that sheared away the growth in clean lines. He dipped the edge into the water after each stroke, wiping it clear on a spare cloth before resuming, the routine unfolding with the familiarity of muscle memory. He doesn't grow much facial hair as an omega, but it can still become a hassle without biweekly maintenance.

With every pass, the blade cleared a path, stripping back the shadow until his jaw emerged smooth, the lines of exhaustion carving deeper without the softening veil. It peeled away more than just the stubble—the restless hum beneath his skin quieted incrementally, replaced by the simple satisfaction of control. This task, at least, bent to his will; it made sense in a world that offered little else. When the last section yielded to the razor's edge, he splashed his face once more, the water colder now against the freshly bared skin, and set the blade aside with steady hands, wiping it dry before returning it to its place.

Jimin set the razor down on a folded towelette with a soft clink, the sound barely disturbing the shed's hush. His gaze drifted in the mirror almost without intention, pulling toward the cot's reflection just behind his shoulder. There, framed in the glass by the strengthening morning light, lay Jeongguk—his form still and outlined in softer tones than the harsh lantern flicker that had dominated their nights. Jimin paused, watching from this removed angle, the distance allowing a clarity he hadn't sought. Jeongguk's hair had lengthened unevenly since the shift, the strands at his nape stretching longer, curling subtly where dried sweat had matted them against his skin. Along his jaw, a faint stubble shadowed the sharp line, denser and darker than before the chaos had pulled them under.

Jimin's eyes held there longer than he meant, tracing the subtle changes. He hadn't registered the growth until now, the way it crept in unchecked during those blurred hours of vigilance. The thought uncoiled slowly in his mind, laced with an unwelcome edge: Jeongguk hadn't truly woken in two days. Not in any meaningful way. He'd surfaced in fragments—eyes fluttering open amid murmurs, registering shadows and motion before sinking back into oblivion, his body too drained for coherence or self-care. No steady hands to tend to the basics, no awareness to bridge the gap between survival and the small acts that anchored it.

His glance dropped to the blade then, resting innocently on the cloth.

Practicality rose as the first defense, a quiet rationale threading through his hesitation: keeping him clean would ward off irritation, preserve a thread of normalcy amid the unnatural mending his body pursued. The excuse felt fragile, stretched thin against the intimacy it implied, but Jimin moved anyway, leaning toward the basin to rinse the razor under the remaining water. He tilted the shallow vessel and stepped to the door, pouring the murky contents onto the packed earth outside. The liquid seeped in quickly, staining the ground a deeper brown before vanishing into the cracks, leaving only a faint damp scent in the crisp air.

Back inside, he refilled the basin from the bucket he'd lugged earlier, the fresh draw from the pump clear and biting against his fingertips, a chill that seeped into his bones. He submerged the blade fully, running his thumb along the blunt edge to dislodge the last flecks of soap and stray whiskers, the metal warming slightly under his touch. In the pale light slanting through the window, it caught a brief gleam before he laid it on another strip of clean cloth, wiping it methodically until it shone without residue. Only then did he turn fully toward the cot, the decision settling like a weight he couldn't shake.

Jeongguk’s stubble had grown in thicker than he'd normally expect from a young alpha, much less Jeongguk, who didn't seem to grow much facial hair either, like Jimin. In fact, that dark shadow along his jaw that hadn’t been there at all two days ago, and he's willing to bet that Jeongguk shifting has done something to his hair—sped up the growth exponentially, perhaps.

'Another small impossibility added to the pile of others,' he thought, the words echoing silently as he approached.

Jimin positioned himself at the head of the cot with deliberate care, bracing one knee against the sturdy frame to steady his balance without risking a jolt. The angle proved tricky, requiring a slight twist of his torso, but he managed it, the familiarity of such adjustments honed from his own recoveries. He slipped two fingers beneath Jeongguk's chin, the skin there warm and slack under his touch, tilting the alpha's face just enough to bare the jawline fully.

Jeongguk remained unmoving, his breaths even and deep, lost in whatever depths his body demanded. A straight razor offered no margin for error, its edge unforgiving, so Jimin centered his focus, drawing in a slow exhale to quiet the faint pulse of nerves in his chest. He pressed the blade lightly against the skin, adding measured pressure as he drew the first careful pass, the soft rasp breaking the stillness like a whispered secret.

Up close like this, Jeongguk's face refused to remain some distant abstraction, pulling Jimin into its details with an insistence he couldn't ignore. As he tilted the alpha's head a fraction higher to better access the skin, the small scar along Jeongguk's left cheekbone caught the slanting morning light—a faint, silvery line etched pale against the warm undertone of his flesh. It was the sort of mark that faded into invisibility from afar, overlooked amid the bustle of daily survival, but here, inches away with nothing to distract, it demanded recognition. 

Jimin studied it, the edges softened by years of healing, the skin around it smooth and unmarred as if the body had long ago claimed it as part of its own architecture. At least a decade old, he guessed, the omega's mind supplying the timeline without evidence, picturing a younger Jeongguk—perhaps a boy tumbling through some forgotten scrape, the wound sealing into this quiet testament. His thumb drifted nearer almost on instinct, brushing the air just shy of the scar's boundary, a ghost of contact born from curiosity rather than intent. He caught himself then, fingers curling back as the razor's purpose reasserted itself, and he resumed the steady glide along the jaw.

Beneath Jeongguk's bottom lip sat a small mole, perfectly centered and unassuming, yet it tugged at the gaze like a deliberate punctuation. Jimin had found his eyes snagging on it before—in quieter moments of conversation or tension—and dismissed the pull as mere wandering attention, one of many distractions he'd learned to sideline in this fractured world. It anchors his face in a way that feels uncomfortably intimate now, like noticing the exact freckle pattern on someone you’re currently arguing viscously with. He adjusts his grip, slows the blade, and makes sure not to nick skin there. Cutting him now would be careless folly, a needless injury layered onto the alpha's burdens.

And then there was his nose—strong and prominent, cutting through the center of his features with unyielding confidence, a trait that screamed Jeongguk in every unguarded glance Jimin had stolen over the past months. His stare lingered there, tracing the bold bridge and subtle flare of nostrils, a tightness blooming in his chest that he attributed to the awkward lean of his posture. It wasn't a softening element but one that lent gravity, etching character into the planes of his face, demanding presence even in repose. It’s an honest face—definitely one that's hard to ignore. Jimin has always liked faces like that, even if he’s never bothered to figure out why.

The admission settled without resistance, slipping past his defenses like morning fog. Denying Jeongguk's handsomeness would be willful blindness—the alpha's appeal had woven into their shared orbit from the start, undeniable amid the grit.

Jimin drew the blade with precision along the curving edge of Jeongguk's jaw, erasing the final traces of stubble in smooth, deliberate strokes. The clean scent of soap mingled with the sharp tang of polished metal, undercut by the earthy whisper of Jiwon's herbal pouches stowed near the lantern, their dried leaves releasing faint notes with each stir of air. Jeongguk's breath ghosted warm across Jimin's wrist, a rhythmic puff that bordered on ticklish, prompting an instinctive shift in his stance—leaning in closer, knee pressing firmer against the cot's frame to anchor his arm.

From this proximity, Jeongguk appeared younger, stripped of the wary sharpness that armored him awake; his mouth relaxed into softer lines, the faint creases at his eyes smoothed by the pull of sleep. Jimin noted the irregular nick in one eyebrow, where the hairs refused to regrow uniform, and the subtle asymmetry in his lips—one side curving a touch fuller than the other. Imperfections that make him look real—achingly human. Not the sharp, overly confident alpha who’d practically barreled into his life and refused to shrink.

He wondered, in a fleeting drift of thought, how Jeongguk had navigated the world before Day Zero shattered it all. How many eyes had tracked him across crowded rooms back then, drawn by that effortless pull. How many casual exchanges had sparked simply because he occupied space, his presence igniting words neither party intended. How many admiring glances had curved into warm smiles in the easy flow of pre-collapse life. How many touches had sought him out—in dimly lit bars with laughter spilling over counters, at gatherings where music thrummed through the air, in corners of cities now reduced to rubble and silence. 

The thought doesn’t carry jealousy so much as a muted curiosity, like examining an old photograph of a world that burned down. It was starting to make sense, Jimin realized, the way Jeongguk carried himself now—unapologetic and steady, as if he'd long grown accustomed to the weight of attention. That innate gravity, the kind that pulled others in without effort, was something Jimin had learned to sidestep years ago, viewing it as a trap in a world quick to exploit such draws.

Jimin swiped the last remnants of soap from Jeongguk's chin with a gentle press of the cloth, then set the razor down, running it under a stream of water from the basin one final time out of ingrained routine before placing it carefully on the folded linen beside the cot. He trailed his thumb along the freshly smoothed line of Jeongguk's jaw, testing for any overlooked patches of stubble, and froze when the touch extended a beat too long, his skin absorbing the residual warmth. A flicker of annoyance surged through him—for the continuous indulgence, for the pause that felt too intimate—and he drew his hand back abruptly, flexing his fingers as if to shake off the moment.

The shed had warmed under the steady flicker of the lantern, its flame casting elongated shadows that danced faintly across the walls, while the antiseptics in the air thinned out,  replaced with the familiar earthy undertone of damp timber and the crisp clarity of rinsed water. Jimin turned to the basin next, dipping the cloth into its shallow depths not out of necessity—the surface already gleamed clean—but because the simple motions grounded him, tethering his thoughts to the tangible. He squeezed out the excess, the fabric yielding with a soft drip, then folded it into precise quarters before stacking it atop the others. These rituals, small and methodical, held the chaos in his mind at bay, if only for a breath.

When he pivoted back toward the cot, Jeongguk's eyelashes stirred—a subtle quiver, so faint it might have escaped notice amid the quiet hum of the morning. But Jimin caught it instantly, his spine straightening as alertness flooded his limbs on reflex. Before the alpha's lids parted fully, his hand rose from the blanket's edge, fingers flexing with an instinctive curl until they locked around Jimin's wrist.

The contact is sudden enough that his breath catches, but it's clear that there's no violence in the touch. Fingers clamp down, strong even through the lingering weakness, nails digging lightly into skin as if Jeongguk’s body has decided this is the one thing it isn’t willing to let go of. Jimin went rigid in place, the basin's water rippling with a hushed slosh from the shift in his balance. Jeongguk's eyes began to part.

They lifted gradually this time, hazy and adrift at first, pupils contracting against the lantern's glow as they mapped the familiar contours overhead: the weathered beams crossing the ceiling, the soft amber wash of light, the scarred planks enclosing their space. Clarity edged in piece by piece, sharpening the blur into focus. When his stare settled on Jimin, bent close above him, a shadow of bewilderment crossed the alpha's features—brief, unguarded—before it hardened into something more guarded, a subtle clench in his jaw. His chest hitched, breaths coming quicker and shallower, the rise and fall pressing against the thin fabric of his shirt.

Jimin doesn’t pull his wrist free.

“Jeongguk.” He shifts his weight slightly so he isn’t looming quite as much and lowers his voice without softening it. “Easy now.”

Jeongguk offered no verbal reply; instead, his fingers constricted around Jimin's wrist with renewed pressure, the hold unyielding despite the alpha's depleted strength. Jimin allowed his other hand to rise gradually, palm facing outward in plain view, a signal of calm amid the charged air.

"You're safe," Jimin continued after the briefest pause, his words threading through the lantern's warm haze. "You're in your room."

Jeongguk's throat worked with a visible swallow, the motion pulling at the skin along his neck. His stare roamed Jimin's features, probing as if anchoring to a lifeline amid disorientation, seeking stability in the familiar lines of brow and jaw. The pad of his thumb settled over the rapid thrum of Jimin's pulse point, pressing there with a lingering insistence, as though verifying the beat's authenticity, the warmth of life beneath the surface. Jimin felt the contact acutely, a subtle invasion that sent a faint ripple through his veins, but he held steady, letting the moment stretch without retreat.

“You’ve been out for a couple days," Jimin explained, his voice measured to convey facts without overwhelming. "In and out at first. Jiwon kept you under longer after that initial night, to let the healing take hold."

Understanding doesn’t land all at once. Jeongguk’s eyes dipped lower, absorbing the layered weight of woolen covers pinning him down, the restrictive tug of wrappings against his torso, the creeping soreness embedding into muscles and joints like an unwelcome echo. A furrow etched between his brows, bewilderment sharpening into a keener edge—recognition, perhaps, of the toll exacted.

His lips parted, the hinge of his jaw straining as if hauling words from some buried depth, but silence prevailed. He attempted once more, exhalation fracturing into a rasp, irritation etching lines around his mouth. Jimin observed it all: the clench that followed the silence, the tentative flex of Jeongguk's tongue against his teeth, as if reclaiming control over a body that had betrayed him. The encircling fingers on his wrist tightened fractionally in response.

"You don't have to talk," Jimin interjected, his tone gaining a firmer edge to cut through the mounting strain. "No need to push it—not yet."

Jeongguk's gaze lifted back to meet his, a subtle uncoiling in the set of his shoulders signaling a measure of ease amid the rigidity. The vise around Jimin's wrist slackened to a point just shy of discomfort, though the digits remained hooked, reluctant to release entirely. Jimin rotated his hand within the grasp, adjusting so the connection shifted from restraint to something mutual, deliberate. He remained in position, inches away, attuned to the heat radiating from Jeongguk's palm, the residual quiver threading through those fingers like aftershocks. It’s natural to do this—it has to be—the same way you steady someone after a nightmare. But his body doesn’t move away, even when it could.

Jeongguk blinked slowly, exhaustion dragging at his eyelids. His breathing evened out, the tight edge easing as the room came back into focus piece by piece. He made no further bid for speech, but his focus held on Jimin, intent and unwavering, stirring a low coil in Jimin's gut—unsettling in its directness, laced with an undercurrent he wasn't ready to dissect. Whatever came next could wait. For now, Jeongguk is awake, seemingly cognizant of his surroundings, and holding on. So Jimin stays right where he is, letting him.

“Don’t sit up all the way,” he muttered when Jeongguk’s shoulders tense like he’s about to try anyway. “You’ll pull the stitches open.”

Jeongguk stilled at the warning. His eyes move drifted across Jimin's exposed collarbone, tracing the white expanse of gauze taped over his side, the lingering rosy trails marring the skin of his chest from the fray. A shadow passed through his eyes—confusion, maybe—but it fades before it becomes readable. Jimin reached for the cup of water he’d left on the crate beside the cot and tipped it slowly toward Jeongguk’s mouth.

“Small sips,” he instructed. “Just a little.”

The initial attempt was awkward and uncoordinated. Liquid escaped the rim, trickling along Jeongguk's jawline and pooling in the dip at his throat. A feeble cough rattled from his chest, inhalation snagging sharply. Jimin adjusted immediately, angling the cup, thumb brushing along his jaw to steady him. He keeps his touch firm but controlled, like this is a normal routine, like he’s done this a hundred times.

“Slower,” he urged again. “You’re not dying of thirst, I made sure of that.”

It took the patience Jimin hadn't realized he possessed to coax more than a few swallows past Jeongguk's lips. The alpha made no move to grasp the cup himself, his hands lingering indecisively over his chest, digits twitching against the coarse weave of the blanket as though reacquainting themselves with direction, with purpose after days adrift in oblivion. When Jimin finally eased him back against the thin pillow, Jeongguk's eyes remained fixed open, unblinking, locked on him without wavering. The intensity of that stare pulled at something deep in Jimin's core, a quiet demand for presence that he couldn't ignore, even as his own ribs throbbed faintly under their wrappings.

“Do you remember anything?” Jimin ventured, his voice a hushed thread in the still air, careful not to fracture the fragile calm.

The words lingered, unanswered, suspended like frost on the shed's drafty walls. Jeongguk's attention drifted—not toward Jimin, but beyond, to some distant point etched in the wooden beams overhead. A subtle crease formed between his brows, as if straining to summon fragments from the haze, to piece together the assault's shadow. Silence stretched, thick and expectant, but no sound emerged from his throat. Jimin studied him in return, the alpha's profile sharp in the lantern's glow, then let his gaze drop to his own side. He probed the edge of the gauze with careful fingertips, pressing lightly to gauge any fresh seep of blood, the skin beneath warm and taut from his own healing wounds. Jeongguk's eyes followed the motion, tracking each press and shift with a focus that bordered on vigilance, as though cataloging Jimin's vulnerabilities alongside his own.

"Alright," Jimin murmured, the word a soft concession, sealing off the line of inquiry. 

He wouldn't push—not now, when every breath Jeongguk took seemed borrowed from the edge of exhaustion. The alpha's muteness carried weight, a barrier Jimin recognized from his own guarded silences in the compound's tense undercurrents, where words could unravel more than they mended.

Eventually, Jimin rose, slipping his wrist from Jeongguk's loosening hold with a gentleness that belied the alpha's earlier ferocity. The skin there tingled from the prolonged contact, a faint imprint of pressure lingering like an echo. He crossed to the small basket tucked against the far wall, depositing the damp cloth inside with a deliberate toss, the motion granting him a brief reprieve to steady his pulse, to shake off the intimacy that clung like shed's pervasive dampness. The quiet expanded between them, not oppressive but dense, woven with the subtle creaks of settling timber and the distant murmur of wind against the door. Jimin felt it settle over him, a companionable hush that spoke of shared survival.

The door swung inward then, hinges protesting softly, and Seokjin maneuvered through with a bowl cradled in his palms, tendrils of steam rising in lazy spirals to mingle with the lantern's haze. The scent of simple broth—root vegetables simmered with whatever herbs Hyejin had scavenged—wafted in, cutting through the stale air of confinement.

"If you don't eat something soon, I'm going to drag you out there myself," Seokjin began, his tone absent, already launching into the familiar scold about Jimin's skipped meals, the way he'd poured himself into this vigil at the expense of his own strength. 

But the lecture faltered mid-breath as his eyes landed on Jeongguk, on the alpha's open gaze meeting his own. Seokjin halted abruptly, his forward momentum throwing him off balance for a split second before he caught himself, boots scraping lightly on the floor. He stood frozen, bowl still clutched close, as if the sight had rewritten the room's rules. Then relief cascaded over him, softening the lines of his face, his shoulders sagging as a tentative smile curved his lips.

“Oh,” Seokjin breathed.

He placed the bowl on the crate beside the cot with exaggerated caution, as though the steam's curl might scatter if disturbed, as though Jeongguk's awakening hung by the thinnest thread. Approaching in measured steps, Seokjin stopped a respectful distance away, his posture open yet restrained, like negotiating with something feral and unpredictable. Jimin observed from his vantage near the cot, a quiet alertness coiling in his limbs, the instinctive wariness that surfaced whenever the group's fragile equilibrium teetered.

"Hey," Seokjin said, voice pitched low and even, laced with that beta steadiness Jimin had come to rely on. "You're... you're back with us, yeah?"

Jeongguk’s head turns a fraction toward the voice, a minimal acknowledgment that conveyed awareness, intent—the choice to engage or withhold. His eyes touched on Seokjin for the span of a heartbeat, registering the concern etched there, before returning inexorably to Jimin, as if he were the fixed star in this dim orbit. Undeterred, Seokjin lowered himself into a crouch, aligning his gaze with the cot's level, palms hovering uncertainly at his sides, itching to bridge the gap but held back by caution. 

"How're you feeling?" he pressed gently, the questions tumbling out like offerings. "Any pain ramping up? Hungry, perhaps?"

Silence answered, unbroken. Jeongguk's lashes lowered in a single blink, his expression unchanging. Jimin watches from beside the cot, still and alert in the way he gets when a situation starts to tilt out of his favor. Jeongguk's fingers bunched into the blanket over his chest, knuckles blanching faintly beneath the fabric, a tell of inner restraint more than outright agony. Tension ridged his jaw, not the sharp flinch of hurt but the clamped hold of something leashed, words or memories or fury bottled behind his teeth. His gaze roamed restlessly—flicking to a weathered beam in the ceiling, the iron hook suspending the lantern, the curve of Seokjin's shoulder—settling nowhere for long, as if the room's confines pressed too close, too soon after the void.

Seokjin’s eyes flicked to Jimin, the unspoken question etched plainly in the furrow of his brow and the slight parting of his lips. “He hasn’t said anything?”

Jimin shook his head in a single motion, keeping his voice low to avoid jarring the alpha. “He’s awake—been awake for a few minutes, actually,” he explained. “But that’s pretty much it.”

Seokjin’s features drew tight, a flash of alarm tightening his jaw before he surged to his feet too quickly, the motion sending a ripple through the air. Panic edged into his tone, but he reined it back with visible effort, swallowing hard. 

“I’m getting Namjoon,” he muttered, retreating toward the door without fully turning, his gaze lingering on the cot as if Jeongguk might vanish if unobserved for even a second. Jimin didn’t shift his focus from the alpha, offering only a faint nod in acknowledgment, the gesture automatic amid the coil of protectiveness tightening in his chest. His own stitches pulled faintly with the subtle movement, a dull reminder of shared fragility.

The shed transformed in moments, bodies crowding the threshold and spilling inward despite their caution—boots thudding softly against the worn floorboards, shoulders brushing the doorframe, the collective warmth of them leaching oxygen from the confined space. The lantern’s glow sharpened, its heat pressing closer against Jimin’s skin, amplifying the faint metallic tang of blood and herbs that clung to the air.

Namjoon entered first, his frame ducking low under the lintel, eyes scanning with that precise alertness honed from too many crises. Jiwon followed at his heel, sleeves shoved up to her elbows, her face a mask of steady focus that belied the undercurrent of urgency. Taehyung hovered at the doorway, arms folded across his torso in a loose barrier, though the rigid line of his shoulders betrayed the strain, his fingers drumming once against his bicep before stilling.

Namjoon stepped to the side of the cot. He doesn’t crowd Jeongguk, but he doesn’t keep distance either. “Jeongguk,” he said evenly, voice calm in the way he uses when he’s trying to coax someone back from the edge of panic. “Can you hear me?”

Jeongguk’s gaze lifted to meet his, the recognition flickering there unmistakable—present, aware, cutting through the haze like a blade. After a beat, he gave the slightest nod.

“Good,” Namjoon replied, the affirmation steady, a bridge extended into the silence. “That’s good. Do you know where you are?”

Jeongguk’s eyes swept the space in a slow arc—tracing the rough-hewn walls scarred by time, the crossbeams overhead splintered at the edges, the rusted hook from which the lantern dangled—before settling back on Namjoon. Another nod followed, hesitant but affirmative, the alpha’s throat working subtly as if testing the boundaries of response. Jiwon edged nearer, claiming the margin at Namjoon’s flank, her approach measured, voice remaining detached yet probing.

“Any dizziness? Nausea? Headaches? Can you focus your eyes?”

The questions met only quiet. Jeongguk’s attention grazed her briefly, then skated away, fixing on the space beyond her shoulder as though the directness pinned him too firmly. The cords in his neck drew taut, a visible strain, and his breaths shallowed into tight, deliberate draws, chest rising in clipped rhythm. Jimin caught it instantly—the inward pull, the retreat—as Jeongguk’s mind folded against the onslaught, walls rising swift and silent. His fingers dug deeper into the blanket, knuckles paling to bone-white beneath the threadbare cloth, the pressure a anchor against the tide of overwhelm crashing from all sides. Seokjin fidgeted at the periphery, teeth grazing the inside of his cheek in restrained agitation, his boot scuffing once against the floor. Taehyung pushed off the frame, sole sliding forward in aborted intent, then halting as restraint won out.

Namjoon, driven by the need to map the damage, the science of survival, missed the subtle withdrawal at first, his gentleness holding but the persistence pressing. “Do you remember what happened outside the gate?” he asked, tone softened to a murmur, yet the inquiry landed like fingers probing a fresh wound. “In the woods—before you lost consciousness?”

The sight twisted something cold in Jimin’s gut, a warning flare of the volatility simmering beneath the surface. He didn’t like it—not the sign, not the exposure. Without hesitation, Jimin leaned forward, angling his body to interpose his shoulder between Jeongguk and the gathered press at the cot’s end, the shift carving a subtle boundary in the charged air. His palm settled on the cot’s edge, fingers wrapping the splintered wood, the action instinctive, born from days of solitary vigil now clashing with this collective scrutiny. Irritation flickered through him at his own predictability, the way his frame curved protectively without command, but he held the position, breath steady against the rising pulse in his throat.

Namjoon adjusted his pitch lower still, addressing Jeongguk as if the intervention hadn’t registered, the words a gentle coax. “You can keep nodding or shaking your head if speaking is hard. That’s fine. We just need to know what’s going on in there, okay?”

“Hyung,” Jimin said, the word slicing through the thickening air as his stare sharpened on Namjoon, a quiet command laced into the syllable. He kept his volume low, restrained, but pivoted his attention back to Jeongguk without delay, tracking the alpha’s features—the distant glaze creeping into his eyes, the subtle drift with each relentless probe from the group, like a tide pulling him under.

“He’s slipping,” he says bluntly, the declaration falling with the firm edge he reserved for battlefield calls, retreats that saved lives amid chaos. No room for debate in the flat certainty of it.

Namjoon’s gaze finally swung to him, a shadow of doubt flickering in the depths of his irises, the alpha’s hunger for clarity warring with the evidence right there on the cot.

“That’s enough—he’s done,” Jimin pressed, his tone solidifying.

Taehyung leaned in closer, his focus narrowing on Jeongguk’s strained expression, a soft exhale escaping through his nostrils like a release of shared frustration. “Yeah, he’s overwhelmed, hyung,” he murmured, voice pitched low to match the shed’s hushed confines. “Look at him—he looks like he’s going to shut down on us completely if we keep this up.”

“Trauma, plus sedation, plus disorientation. His nervous system’s fried,” Jiwon contributed, her words clipped as she turned toward Jimin, a rare crack of self-reproach etching her composed features. “I don’t know why we thought it’d be logical to stack questions on someone who’s barely back in his own skin—shit.”

Seokjin pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re clearly not helping.”

“Just give him some time,” Jimin replied, already moving to widen the space between the cot and the cluster, his frame a shield. His palm came to rest on Jeongguk’s shoulder through the worn blanket, the contact solid and insistent—not a soothing pat so much as a grounding hold—here, here, stay here.

Namjoon hesitated, his internal conflict plain in the brief furrow of his brow—the drive to unravel the unknown clashing against the wisdom of restraint, the knowledge that force would only fracture what little stability they’d reclaimed. At last, he dipped his head in a single, decisive nod and retreated a step. “All right. Outside, everyone.”

They file out slowly, the shuffle of feet and rustle of clothing carrying the weight of their unintended overstep, a collective exhale as the doorframe swallows them one by one. Jimin delayed just long enough to smooth the blanket’s frayed edge over Jeongguk’s chest, the simple act a tether to normalcy amid the lingering charge. Seokjin threw a final glance backward, his eyes lingering on the alpha with unspoken concern, before the door clicked shut behind him. The shed exhaled into a gentler hush, the lantern’s flicker steadying, the air cooling without the press of additional bodies.

Jimin remained rooted for several heartbeats, observing the gradual easing of Jeongguk’s breaths—the shallow hitches smoothing into deeper draws, the tension bleeding from his frame now that the onslaught had ebbed. He lowered himself onto the cot’s rim, forearm propped on his thigh, the faint pull of his stitches a distant ache overshadowed by the quiet reclaiming the space.

“You’re fine,” he murmured, the reassurance slipping out softer than intended, a shift in cadence that caught him off guard, like his voice had bent toward something unguarded. “They’re gone.”

Jimin shifted his weight, hand extending toward the cup on the nearby stool, when Jeongguk stirred. His fingers drag across the blanket, slow and searching, until they find Jimin’s wrist and settle there with a pressure that feels intentional rather than accidental. Warmth spreads instantly through Jimin’s skin, sharp and immediate, like he’s been caught too close to a flame.

Jimin froze on instinct, the cup forgotten mid-reach, his pulse thrumming against the encircling hold.

Jeongguk’s thumb glided along the tender inner curve of his wrist, mapping the subtle ridge of a vein with unhurried precision, as though rediscovering a delicate thread in the dark. The path ascended slowly, fingers charting the terrain until they settled into the dip at the base of Jimin’s palm, where the gland pulsed faintly beneath the surface.

Only then did Jeongguk’s eyes rise—not to the point of contact, but to Jimin’s face—intense yet probing, a silent inquiry hanging in the air. Jimin’s breathing faltered, a hitch he couldn’t suppress, protests tangling unspoken on his tongue. There were a dozen ways to shut this down—a clipped remark, a shift of his arm, a reminder of their boundaries—which Jimin wasn't so sure existed. Instead, he hesitates, and in that hesitation Jeongguk bridged the gap, tugging Jimin’s wrist nearer until his knuckles grazed the alpha’s jawline. Then with a tilt of the alpha’s head, his nose presses right up against Jimin’s wrist gland.

Shit.

The sensation is immediate and disarming. A rush of warmth unfurled at the juncture of skin, Jeongguk’s exhales ghosting hot and ragged over the sensitive spot, each one coiling tension up Jimin’s spine like a wire drawn taut. It was a minor shift—just the nudge of his face into place—but it carried the gravity of deeper vulnerability, an unspoken pull that blurred the edges of their careful distance.

That spot on his wrist—his scent gland—was no territory for idle touches. Wrist scenting belonged to the raw edges of pack life, the moments when surges of adrenaline clawed too deep, when ruts or heats flared without warning, when words failed and the need for grounding stripped everything bare. It was what Taehyung sought after patrols that left him hollowed out, his frame leaning heavily into the contact. What Yoongi claimed in the dead of night, his fingers grazing the spot when Jimin’s dreams twisted into screams he couldn’t voice. It wasn’t for outsiders. It wasn’t for those who hadn’t earned the right.

But Jeongguk had crossed that line long ago, hadn’t he? No longer some enigma dropped into their midst, but woven into the fabric of their fragile world, scars and all.

Jeongguk drew in another breath, this one fuller, pulling Jimin’s scent into his lungs with a deliberate drag that resonated through the hold on his wrist. Jimin feels the shift in him as clearly as if it were happening beneath his own skin. The jagged, metallic edge that had been riding Jeongguk’s scent begins to smooth, folding into something steadier, warmer. Pine smoke, yes, but quieter as it threads through the space between them.

Jimin should pull away.

Fuck—he really, really should pull away, tell Jeongguk to find comfort through something else, something less loaded, but his muscles refused the command. Instead, he tilted his wrist just enough, refining the position so the alpha could draw deeper without strain, the gland exposed a fraction more to the warmth of his face.

It's not like he hasn't done this before.

Jimin had thrust this same gland against matted fur and exposed fangs before, shoving his essence into the air while a half-feral wolf thrashed in the underbrush, jaws clashing inches from his skin. That had surged from pure reflex. Necessity. A calculated risk taken in the middle of chaos. The logic had been simple then—override, dominate, ground the beast. This feels nothing like that.

There was no blood in the air, no feral growls shattered the quiet. Only Jeongguk’s jaw resting light against his skin, the measured inhales pulling steady as if latching onto an unyielding core. It rattled him deeper than any woodland beast ever had, because for some god-forsaken reason, subduing a mindless rage from a giant wolf had followed a stark, survivalist math. Allowing a conscious man to claim his scent this way—eyes open and choosing him specifically—defied every calculated line he’d drawn.

And yet he still doesn’t move.

Jeongguk’s grip adjusted then, the ball of his thumb sweeping a languid arc over the gland, igniting a flicker beneath the surface like static on dry skin. The reaction was instant and feels so humiliating as his shoulders tighten, and his throat dries.

‘This feels good.’

The thought flashes sharply in his mind, a sharp intrusion that nearly jerked him free from the moment.

Jeongguk didn’t notice. Or maybe he did and is too exhausted to care. His eyelids drifted lower as he inhaled once more, the faint quivers racking his frame beginning to still. Tension bled from his jawline. The furrow etching his forehead eased into smoother planes. At this closeness, Jimin cataloged him anew—the solid press of his palm, the humid gusts against his pulse, the way his cheek brushed faintly against the inside of Jimin’s wrist each time he exhaled. It would take so little to shift this into something else. The proximity alone is dangerous.

“Slow down,” Jimin rasped, his voice dipping gravelly from the sleepless hours, edged with fatigue. “You’re going to suffocate on my scent if you keep it up, mutt.”

A faint quirk tugged at Jeongguk’s lips, the barest echo of his typical bravado piercing through the haze of depletion. His breathing steadied further, evening out into a controlled rhythm that matches the rise and fall of his chest. The shed felt smaller, walls pressing in with the weight of solitude.

And in that isolation, Jimin felt singled out, marked.

Jeongguk could have sought solace from anyone in the compound, drawn from the collective reassurance that he held a place among them. Yet he had reached for him—the one person who clearly didn't agree with that sentiment. An alpha capable of splintering barriers with raw force, now diminished to nuzzling against Jimin’s wrist as if it were the only solid thing in the room. A strange, coiling sensation stirred low in Jimin’s gut at the thought, unfamiliar and insistent.

He lingered until the faint shudders in Jeongguk's grip had ebbed completely, until the air lost that sharp, stinging undercurrent of alarm, before he began to draw his wrist away. The moment is slow and careful, but Jeongguk's fingers tighten instinctively for a fraction of a second before releasing. Jimin pushed aside the brief, unwelcome spark that ignited in his chest as Jeongguk's hand groped the empty space once more, then dropped to the blanket's edge when no connection returned. He avoided scrutinizing why he paused that extra heartbeat before retreating fully, as if severing the link demanded a reluctance he hadn't anticipated.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jimin murmured, his throat catching slightly, forcing him to swallow and repeat it with more firmness. “Just need a moment outside. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Jeongguk watched him carefully, searching his face as though weighing the statement against his own intuition. There’s a quiet intensity to it—not suspicion, not quite—but a quiet validation, seeking assurance in the unspoken. After a suspended beat, he dipped his chin in the barest acknowledgment.

It’s enough.

Jimin adjusted the blanket where it’s bunched near Jeongguk’s hip and ran his fingers briefly along the edge of the bandage at his ribs, checking that the wrap hadn’t shifted. The contact is clinical and precise, but his touch lingers just a fraction longer than necessary before he straightens and steps out of the shed.

The chill rushed in as he crossed the threshold, slapping against his cheeks and neck with a ferocity that startled him, slicing through the residual heat clinging to his skin from within. Namjoon, Jiwon, Seokjin, and Taehyung huddled a short distance off, their low murmurs halting abruptly at his approach.

“So?” Seokjin prompted, the edge of impatience threading his tone despite his effort to temper it.

“So, he’s aware,” Jimin replied, raking a hand over his features as if to ground himself, then crossing his arms tight over his torso. "Knows where he is, at least.”

“And talking?” Namjoon presses carefully.

Jimin shakes his head slowly. “Not yet. He attempted it earlier, before the rest of you arrived, but it’s as if—” He hunted for the right phrasing, landing on the most direct. “It’s like a signal is there, but I guess it's getting lost before outputting. That, or he just doesn't want to.”

Jiwon nods immediately. “Aligns with an acute stress response,” she explained, her delivery clinical yet reassuring. “Physically, he’s whole—no major deficits when I examined him. But emerging from unconsciousness after trauma like that? He’s sifting through it all, layer by layer.”

Namjoon dragged his palm across his jaw, his eyes narrowing as they fixed on Jimin with sharper intent. “You don't seem surprised, Jimin."

Jimin holds his gaze evenly. “I’ve seen it.”

"Back in your service days, I presume?"

He confirmed with a nod. “After particularly difficult missions,” he replies. “Some guys come back just fine despite the hell they’d just endured. But others locked down, went mute. They were in there, but at the same time, they weren’t.”

Taehyung combed his fingers through his tousled locks, exhaling sharply. “Damn. You think it’s permanent? Like what hit Dongwoo?”

For a stretch, Jimin fell silent. The compound yard sharpened into focus before softening at the periphery, replaced by a memory he hasn’t let himself sit with in years.

Dongwoo had been twenty years old when he was recruited into the Black Berets. The kid had joined the military fresh out of high school and was built like he’d grown too fast for his own limbs, all sharp elbows and louder-than-necessary laughter. He’d been the kind of alpha who filled a room whether you wanted him to or not—boisterous, slightly obnoxious, always half a second away from cracking a joke that bordered on disrespectful but never quite crossed the line. He saluted with unnecessary enthusiasm just to get a rise out of his superiors—Jimin included—and then pretended to be offended when they threatened to make him do extra drills for it. In the canteen, he’d sit with his boots hooked around the legs of his chair, talking over everyone else and then apologizing for it five minutes later with that infamous, crooked grin.

Jimin can still hear it—the way Dongwoo used to laugh with his whole chest. But he’d been good. A quick learner, Jimin recalls. He absorbed instruction like a sponge, like he was afraid of wasting any of it. The young alpha never questioned an official order once it was given, and served diligently alongside Jimin, Taehyung, and Hoseok for a solid year.

The day it happened, the sweep had been rushed. They were tired—which was still no excuse—but nevertheless, it was the reason for their mistake. It had been the third building they were reconning in under two hours. The hallway they were traversing through was difficult, visibility cut short by debris and poor lighting.

A tripwire had gone dreadfully unnoticed by Dongwoo's recon partner, and the resulting explosion hadn’t registered in Jimin's mind until he'd managed to drag himself back up from the ground, ears ringing endlessly. That was the worst part. There had only been just a split second of wrongness in the air before the ground gave out, and none of them could pull Dongwoo out of the way. One careless angle of a scan. One step too far forward. By the time the smoke cleared, the young alpha was on the ground, staring at the sky through the now hole in the ceiling, like he couldn’t understand why it had shifted colors. His right leg was gone from the thigh down.

He survived—against the odds of their team being stranded and surrounded in a crumbling, abandoned building—he'd really survived. But the noise never came back. He’d woken up in the field hospital with his eyes open and something inside of him sealed shut. He followed instructions, nodded when spoken to, diligently learned how to use a prosthetic, and was given a measly desk job that Jimin knew the alpha despised. The laughter never returned, and neither did the commentary. Not a single word. Just eyes that used to burn with determination, now dulled and distant.

From that moment forward, when Jimin would switch watch shifts with Taehyung, he couldn't help but silently observe with pity as Dongwoo would often wake up gasping in his cot, reaching for a leg that wasn’t there.

Jimin drew in a measured breath, allowing the shadow of the past to pull back before it could latch on too fiercely.

“It could be,” he conceded finally, his voice even despite the weight settling in his gut.

Taehyung shifted uneasily, his frame drawing inward as tension coiled through his shoulders. “You think that’s what this is?”

“I think,” Jimin says slowly, “that losing control of your body does something to your head. Especially when you remember it.”

Jiwon folded her arms over her chest, her expression thoughtful. “He's right, selective mutism isn’t uncommon in trauma cases. It's certainly more likely to happen if the trauma involved loss of bodily autonomy.” Her glance darted toward the shed’s weathered door. “But if we make sure he feels safe, it should hopefully ease over time.”

From within the shed came a soft whisper of movement, cloth brushing against cloth. Jimin’s focus snapped to the entrance on instinct, though he caught himself and forced it away. He caught Taehyung’s eyes lingering on him in that moment, a silent question hanging between them. Jimin squared his posture, brushing off the persistent throb low along his side. The words escaped him without a second thought.

“I’ll stay with him for the time being. Distract him, fill the silence with other things. Keep his thoughts from circling back.”

“With what?” Seokjin probed, his brow furrowing.

Jimin lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Anything that isn’t what happened out there in the trees.”

Namjoon dipped his head in gradual agreement. “Fair enough. We’ll back off, let him breathe. But a full check-in can’t wait forever.”

“It won’t,” Jimin assured him. “When he’s ready.”

“Of course. I know you two don't quite get along, but I trust that you'll be willing to set that aside for once.”

Jimin turned back toward the shed without a retort, slipping inside and securing the door with a quiet click. Jeongguk’s stare found him at once, sharp and unclouded now, free of any lingering fog or vacant pull. The vigilance in those eyes held back, guarded, yet undeniably there. Jimin traversed the cramped space and eased down onto the cot’s edge once more, settling near enough that their warmth mingled without apology. He offered no preamble.

“They mean well,” he says quietly. “They just don't know what it feels like to wake up after something like this.”

Jeongguk held his gaze, the attention weighted, as if each syllable carried the gravity it deserved.

The hours of afternoon unfurled at a languid pace, punctuated by mundane routines that anchored the moment. Jimin topped off the basin with fresh water, trimmed the lantern’s flame to a steadier glow, and let his voice weave through the quiet in even, unhurried bursts—outlining chores on the horizon, tallying rations in the stores, recounting how Seokjin had nearly scorched the morning’s meal to ash. All of it danced wide of the shadowed woods, steering far from any echo of that night.

When the interruption arrived—a tentative rap at the door, more a clumsy nudge followed by two light taps from a flat hand—the daylight filtering through the cracks had warmed to a deeper gold. Jimin halted, a damp cloth suspended inches from Jeongguk’s exposed collarbone. He listened, the shed’s hush amplifying the distant groan of the yard pump and a faint, plaintive bleat from the goats beyond the barrier. Then, a young voice seeped through the planks, edged with impatience.

“Jiminie-samcheon?”

Jimin shut his eyes for the briefest instant, a deliberate pause to steady himself against the pull of interruption. Carefully, he laid the cloth aside on the edge of the basin and rose to his feet. A sharp tug radiated through his ribs as he straightened, the stitches protesting the motion, but he pressed on without faltering, weaving through the narrow space to reach the door. He eased it open just wide enough to shield the interior from view, his frame filling the gap like a barrier.

Minji pressed close to the wood, her small nose nearly brushing the grain, both palms flattened against it as if she'd been summoning all her strength to shove it inward. Behind her loomed Jihoon, arms crossed tightly over his chest, chin tilted upward in a bid for authority that didn't quite mask the uncertainty in his eyes. He feigned indifference, as though this errand had merely filled a gap in his day.

Minji tipped her head back, squinting up at Jimin with unabashed scrutiny. "You don't look so good, samcheon."

Jihoon jabbed her side with a quick elbow. "Don't say it like that."

"It's true," she countered, twisting to stage-whisper at him, her voice carrying clear as a bell.

Jimin arched a brow, the faint ache in his side sharpening his patience to a fine edge. “Is there a reason you’re both hovering outside the door like stray cats?”

Minji brushed off the tease and stretched onto her toes, craning to glimpse inside. "Is he still alive?"

Jihoon sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Minji."

"What?" she shot back, undeterred. "That's what everyone's asking."

Jimin let the blunt words slide past him, his expression unchanging even as a flicker of old weariness stirred in his chest. “He’s alive.”

“Is he awake?”

“Sometimes.”

She mulled that over with the gravity of a philosopher, her small brow furrowing as if weighing the merits of partial recovery against the unknown. Jihoon shuffled his feet, his stare slipping beyond Jimin's shoulder into the shadowed depths. He caught the dim shape of Jeongguk on the cot, the outline still and watchful, and fell silent. For all his attempts at looking older, eight is still eight. The sight of an injured adult unsettles him in ways he won’t say out loud.

"We heard that you fought howlers," Jihoon ventured after a beat, voice steady but pitched lower than usual. “Mr. Minseok said they came close to the north fence.”

"Mm," Jimin murmured, the sound noncommittal. “A few stragglers.”

Minji's nose scrunched in distaste. "Did they try to bite him?"

"Yes."

Her frown deepened, carving lines into her soft face, and she plunged a hand into the deep pocket of her sweater, the fabric bunching as her fingers fumbled. Her tongue darted out in concentration, the pocket's depths proving a challenge for such small hands. At last, she withdrew her fist, clenched around something vivid and fragile. She extended it toward him with earnest insistence.

It was a flower, humble and imperfect—the petals narrow and pale yellow, the stem kinked where it had snapped, clumps of soil still adhering to the exposed roots from her hasty uprooting.

"I found it by the fence," she explained, her voice laced with quiet pride. "It was growing all by itself."

Jihoon let out a long-suffering groan. "You weren't supposed to pull it up."

"It was alone," she insisted, the repetition carrying the weight of unassailable logic in her world.

Jimin studied the wilted offering cradled in her grasp, the roots already curling dry at the edges under the chill air. A pang touched him—not pity, but something softer, a reminder of resilience in the barren stretches of their lives, where even weeds pushed through frost-hardened ground. 

"For him?" he asked, his voice gentling.

Minji bobbed her head vigorously, as if the intent were obvious. “So he knows it’s not winter yet—and so he can work hard to feel better even when it’s hard, like this flower.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes. "Minji, he's a grown-up. Of course he knows it's not winter yet."

"He might not! It's so cold," she retorted, her cheeks flushing with defensive heat.

Jimin extended his hand and accepted the flower with deliberate tenderness, his fingers brushing hers—small and radiating the warmth of bundled layers and unscarred skin. 

"Thanks, button," he said, the endearment slipping out soft and genuine, a bridge across the years that separated them.

She searched his face, hunting for sincerity in the lines around his eyes, the subtle lift of his mouth. Finding it, she relaxed and leaned sideways once more, straining to see past his blocking form. Within the shed, Jeongguk's eyes had parted, heavy-lidded from the deep slumber that had claimed him and the persistent haze clouding his thoughts from the ordeal's aftermath. Yet awareness flickered there, dim but present. He shifted his head slowly, his gaze drawing to the doorway with unhurried intent. Minji froze at the sight of him, her boldness evaporating into sudden hesitation, the weight of an adult's regard pressing down on her small frame.

He’s looking,” Minji whispered, the words unnecessary in the charged quiet

Jeongguk’s gaze drifted from Jimin to the two small figures outlined in the crisp morning light filtering across the yard. He made no move to speak, nor did he attempt to push himself upright against the cot’s unyielding support. He simply observed, his eyes tracking their forms with a stillness that bordered on detachment, as if the effort of connection required more than he could spare in that moment.

“Don’t die,” she blurted, the plea raw and unfiltered, hanging in the air like a fragile thread.

Jihoon groaned, his exasperation a low rumble in his throat. “Minji!”

“What?” she demanded, her cheeks blooming with a deeper color now that her brother’s correction had landed for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. She crossed her arms over her chest, a miniature shield against the embarrassment creeping in.

Jimin exhaled softly, the sound barely stirring the cool air inside the shed. His chest tightened at the sight of them bickering, their voices a discordant harmony that tugged at something deep within him— a remnant of normalcy, perhaps, or the last vestige of unscarred youth in a world unraveling at the edges. He almost regretted the half-truths he’d fed them about Jeongguk’s state, the careful omissions to preserve this sliver of innocence. Watching it erode too soon would carve another hollow into him, one he wasn’t sure he could afford.

“That’s enough,” he said, his tone devoid of any real edge, more a gentle redirection than a command. “Go back before your mother realizes you’re missing.”

Minji lingered for another beat, her eyes locked on Jeongguk as if committing every line of his face to memory—the sharp angle of his jaw shadowed by stubble, the faint hollows beneath his eyes from days of fitful rest. Then, with a final nod that seemed to seal her resolve, she spun on her heel and scampered off, her footsteps light and hurried across the packed earth. Jihoon cast one last glance over his shoulder, his expression a mix of lingering concern and feigned nonchalance, before he followed at a purposeful stride, as if he weren’t truly hurrying after his sister. The yard absorbed their sounds, the distant crunch of gravel fading into the morning’s hush as Jimin eased the door shut behind them.

He turned back to the dim interior, the shift in light casting elongated shadows across the rough-hewn walls. Spotting an empty jar tucked near the basin—likely one Seokjin had left from a previous delivery—he retrieved it, running cool water from the pump over its surface. He scrubbed the inside with the hem of a clean cloth, working methodically until the cloudy residue gave way to clarity, the water swirling clear and cold around his fingers.

Once rinsed, he filled it halfway, the liquid settling with a soft glug. With his knife, he trimmed the flower’s stem at a clean angle, slicing away the frayed end to stave off rot for as long as possible. The actions flowed on instinct, the same meticulous attention he applied to wounds or rations—anything fragile that demanded a chance to endure.

He placed the jar on the small bedside table, the yellow petals snagging the narrow beam of sunlight slicing through the window’s crack. They glowed with an almost stubborn vibrancy against the shed’s muted tones of aged wood. One petal curled inward, bruised from Minji’s tight grip, and the stem listed slightly in the water, its posture askew yet stubbornly upright.

It looked ridiculous, out of place in the stark simplicity of the room—a child’s token amid the scent of antiseptic and damp timber.

Jimin bit back a quiet chuckle, the sound catching in his throat before it could escape, only to falter when he realized Jeongguk’s attention had fixed on him. The alpha’s eyes, heavy with lingering fatigue, now rested on the flower with a quiet intensity, as if deciphering its improbable presence. Jimin noted the subtle twitch of Jeongguk’s fingers against the blanket’s weave, the way his hand crept toward the cot’s edge before halting, restrained by weakness or wariness.

“It’s from Minji,” Jimin explained, his voice low and steady as he nudged the jar a fraction closer, the glass scraping faintly against the wood. “She insisted it was the strongest flower around, just like you—though I’m not sure I’d agree with that particular comparison.”

Jeongguk’s gaze lifted to meet his, Jimin’s words drawing a subtle shift in the air between them. Something new lingered there, absent from the hollow stare of a week prior—exhaustion still etched deep, but threaded now with a spark of gratitude, or perhaps the faint echo of humor. The corner of his mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile that vanished as swiftly as it formed, leaving Jimin to wonder if he’d imagined it. The alpha swallowed carefully, like even that still requires effort. 

His eyes dropped back to the flower, lingering on its imperfect form. After a suspended moment, Jeongguk extended his hand, his knuckles brushing the jar’s side in a light tap. With careful deliberation, despite the evident stiffness locking his arm, he inched the container nearer to himself, the glass sliding across the table with a soft rasp. Jimin observed the motion without comment, the small gesture speaking volumes in the silence— a quiet claim, a step toward engagement.

Settling back onto the wooden stool beside the cot, Jimin let his forearm rest along the mattress’s edge, the position casual, unforced. He positioned himself within easy reach, near enough to offer stability if Jeongguk’s body betrayed him again, near enough that the distance between them didn't widen again. He didn’t consciously offer the contact, but Jeongguk took it anyway.

Jeongguk’s hand moved across the blanket with a quiet certainty, his fingers closing around Jimin’s wrist—not with the desperate urgency of before, not with the tightness of someone bracing for impact, but with the unhurried assurance that the contact would be welcomed. The grip was loose but solid, the weight of it unmistakable.

Even weakened, even marked by fresh stitches and mottled bruises, Jeongguk’s grip carried a weight that dwarfed Jimin’s own frame, a subtle reminder of the power lurking beneath. There was raw strength in those fingers, restrained now but potent, the sort that could claim without asking if it ever decided to. And yet, in this moment, he sought permission.

That awareness stirred something uneasy in Jimin, deeper than the mere fact of allowing the alpha so near. Jeongguk could dominate him effortlessly if he chose—their physical disparity alone made it inevitable. Jimin had always navigated conflicts through finesse, through calculated restraint and the foresight to sense a battle’s pivot before it swung. He has never depended on size, never assumed he would win if something came down to brute force. Still, this alpha—this stubborn, broad-shouldered, infuriatingly capable alpha—kept reaching for him.

A sharp twinge gathered low in Jimin’s gut, fleeting and insistent, before it rose to tighten his chest. Pride, maybe. Or a quiet satisfaction. He smothered it swiftly, before it could bloom into anything unmistakable. This was merely the natural order reasserting itself, instincts aligning with the pack’s subtle hierarchy. Jeongguk acknowledged authority—that much is obvious, and that was all it was. An alpha conceding to a stronger presence, even if that strength stemmed from will rather than muscle. That’s all it amounted to.

It had to.

The alternative thought pushed forward anyway— the memory of the barn and Jeongguk’s voice low and certain in the dark, insisting there was something between them neither of them could ignore. A string he had deliberately ignored since that night. He hated that the thought resurfaced now, and more so the stubborn way it clung, resisting easy dismissal. He would not chase it further.

Jeongguk’s thumb settled against the pulse point on the inside of Jimin’s wrist like he had earlier, not probing or caressing, merely abiding there as if the press of skin sufficed. Jimin knew he should pull away, to reestablish the boundary before it blurred further. But he remained still.

He couldn’t ignore the quiet easing in his own body as Jeongguk’s breathing smooths out, nor the way something in him quiets in response. The alpha’s scent, once faint and muddled by fever, now filled the shed with a grounding richness as his vitality returned, earthy and warm like sun-baked soil after rain. Jimin shifted uncomfortably under the realization that he prefers it this way—that there was something steadying in being the thing that draws the alpha back down. But he clings to the excuse that leadership sometimes looks like this—unremarkable, unspoken, simply staying where you are needed.

Jeongguk’s eyes lifted to his one final time, holding Jimin’s gaze with a quiet clarity before they fluttered shut. His lashes cast faint shadows on his cheeks, and slumber claimed him fully then, free of the earlier strain, his fingers staying lightly curled against Jimin;s wrist. He fixed his stare on the rough wall opposite of him, his features schooled into neutrality, and willed away the urge to dissect why—even in Jeongguk’s unconscious state—breaking the contact feels harder than it has any right to be. The flower stayed crookedly upright on the table—stubborn, bright, absurdly alive. Beyond the walls, the yard hummed with its routine cadence, indifferent to the fragile equilibrium within.

Inside, Jeongguk rested.

And Jimin stayed.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The days didn’t blur so much as they softened at the edges, each one settling into the next with small, nearly imperceptible shifts. Jeongguk improved in ways subtle enough that someone inattentive might have missed them entirely. Jimin did not miss them. He told himself he was watching for warning signs, for instability, for anything that might have tipped the balance of the alpha’s recovery the wrong way. In truth, though, a quiet part of him simply marveled at the resilience unfolding before his eyes, a reminder that even in this fractured world, bodies could knit themselves back together.

The first change came quietly.

Jimin was across the shed, rinsing towelettes in a shallow basin of cool water that carried the faint, metallic tang of the compound’s pump, when the cot gave a low creak behind him. The sound was different this time—not the restless shift of someone trapped in shallow sleep, but the weight of deliberate movement, heavy with intent. He turned, already expecting to catch the alpha mid-fall, his heart quickening with that familiar knot of concern, but Jeongguk was upright, one hand braced on the edge of the cot. His shoulders were drawn forward, muscles pulled tight beneath healing skin as he tested the ground beneath his feet. 

The air in the shed felt thicker in that moment, laced with the scent of damp wood and the faint, underlying musk of exertion. Jeongguk’s jaw flexed slightly at whatever strain ran along his side, a subtle grind of teeth that Jimin recognized as the alpha fighting through pain without a sound, but he didn’t fold. He stood there, breath measured and shallow, eyes fixed on the wooden floor as if daring it to shift beneath him, his bare feet pressing into the rough planks with a determination that stirred something deep in Jimin’s chest—pride, perhaps, or relief too raw to name.

Jimin dried his hands slowly on the edge of his shirt and watched in silence, opting to spare the alpha’s dignity by not verbally acknowledging his improvement. No need to potentially fluster him, especially when such vulnerability hung so palpably in the air between them. Jeongguk adjusted his weight, the cot sighing faintly under the shift, then took a careful step. It was stiff, uneven at first, the movement of someone relearning where his body ended and the ground began, his good leg bearing most of the load while the injured one dragged slightly, but he kept his balance. 

When he steadied fully, he glanced up. Their eyes met for only a brief moment, long enough for Jimin to catch the flicker of uncertainty in those dark depths, a guarded wariness that spoke of battles fought far beyond the physical. Something guarded passed over Jeongguk’s expression before he looked away, as though allowing himself to be seen upright carried its own risk, an exposure he wasn’t yet ready to fully embrace. Jimin inclined his head once, subtle and contained, as if this had been expected all along, though inside, a quiet warmth spread through him, easing the constant vigilance that had become his second skin.

As the week wore on, other fractures appeared—less visible but just as telling, cracks in the alpha’s silence that hinted at the man beneath the wounds.

The shed proved too tight a space for real progress, its walls closing in like the weight of unspoken worries. Outside, where the air moved freely and the sky stretched wider than memory, something in Jeongguk loosened more easily, as if the open expanse allowed his guarded edges to breathe. The sun began setting earlier each evening, spilling amber and rust across the fields, painting the brittle grass in hues that evoked faded photographs from before Day Zero—times when sunsets were just beautiful, not harbingers of encroaching cold. The wind turned sharper as it carried the dry scent of grass gone brittle and smoke rising from cook fires, a reminder of the compound’s fragile warmth against the coming winter. The compound grew quieter at dusk, voices lowering to murmurs, doors closing with soft thuds, the day folding in on itself like a weary traveler. 

The two of them had fallen into the habit of walking the perimeter at dusk, when the air turned thin and gold and the rest of the compound grew quieter, the distant calls of children fading into the rustle of leaves. The movement served them both: Jeongguk regained strength without feeling scrutinized, his steps growing surer with each circuit, while Jimin found something practical to anchor himself to besides the growing awareness that the shed had started to feel too small, too intimate for the thoughts it stirred.

He talked when it suited him—about fence posts, about the most efficient ways to patrol the perimeter, about how frost ruined certain crops before anyone expected it, and Jeongguk listened, his presence a steady shadow at Jimin’s side. At first, he only nodded, chin dipping in quiet acknowledgment. Then he began to answer. Not much, not all at once, but enough—short words that carried the gravel of disuse, each one a small victory that Jimin tucked away like a secret.

That evening, Jimin was crouched near the south line, pressing his boot against a fence post while explaining how the ground gave way after heavy rain, the earth still soft from the last downpour and yielding under his weight with a faint squelch, when Jeongguk’s voice carried from behind him—rough still, but steady enough to cut clean through the wind, surprising Jimin with its clarity.

“That one’s tilted too.”

Jimin didn’t turn right away, letting the words settle over him like the cooling air, a spark of something like excitement flickering in his mind. He finished working the post into place, tests it once more with the heel of his boot, feeling the wood bite deeper into the soil, and only then straightened to follow the line of Jeongguk’s gaze. The wood did in fact lean inward slightly, enough to matter if left alone, a vulnerability in the barrier that mirrored the alpha’s own guarded progress. Jimin felt a faint smile tug at his lips, unbidden, as he stepped closer.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping over to adjust it with his palm, the rough grain scraping against his skin. “We’ll reinforce it tomorrow.”

He resumed walking as if nothing notable had occurred, but his pace eased by half a step without conscious thought, allowing Jeongguk to fall in beside him without strain. The fields stretched wide and dry on either side, stalks brushing together in the evening wind with a faint, rasping whisper that carried. The quiet that settled between them felt different now—less brittle, less like something they were both enduring out of obligation.

Jimin kept his eyes forward, fixed on the horizon where the last threads of sunlight bled into the darkening sky, but something in his chest tightened anyway. It was a small thing, the sound of Jeongguk speaking without prompting, without pressure, but the relief flooded him heavier than it should have. The man beside him was still there. Bruised and quieter than before, but still present, his footsteps a steady counterpoint to Jimin's own, each one a quiet affirmation that the alpha hadn't slipped away into the silence that had threatened to claim him.

The following evening, Jimin was halfway through an embellished story about Taehyung arguing with a superior over radio protocol—one that grew slightly more dramatic each time he told it, the details sharpening like a blade honed for effect—when he stepped over a low fence rail without looking back. The wood creaked faintly under his boot, the splintered edge catching the fading light, and he could feel the alpha's presence just behind him, close enough that the warmth of his body cut through the cooling air.

“Wasn’t you?” Jeongguk asked from behind him, the question threaded with faint disbelief, his voice carrying a rough edge that spoke of muscles still relearning their strength.

Jimin huffed, the sound light and dismissive, though a spark of amusement flickered in his chest. “On the contrary to your assumptions, I’ve never needed to threaten paperwork to win an argument. Taehyung, however, thrives on theatrics.” He glanced sidelong, catching the way Jeongguk's lips twitched, the motion pulling at the faint scar along his jawline.

A shadow of a smirk touched Jeongguk’s mouth, fleeting but real, like sunlight breaking through clouds too stubborn to part fully. It would have irritated Jimin a month ago—that easy edge, that quiet challenge woven into the alpha's gaze. Now it felt like something returning to its proper shape, a piece of the man he'd glimpsed before the attack slotting back into place. Jeongguk rolled his shoulders back as they walked, the motion loose instead of guarded, the fabric of his shirt shifting over broadening muscles that no longer tensed with every breath. For a moment, the distance between injury and normalcy narrowed, the gap filled with the simple rhythm of their steps along the uneven path, the ground firm beneath them after days of drying wind.

Inside the shed, the changes showed themselves in smaller ways, etched into the routines that had become their shared language.

Jeongguk asked for water instead of waiting for it to be handed over, his hand extending with a steadiness that surprised Jimin each time, fingers curling around the canteen without a tremor. He spoke before being prompted, the words emerging measured, as though he was reacquainting himself with their weight, testing how they sat in the air between them. When Jiwon pressed lightly along his ribs during one of her check-ins, her fingers probing with clinical precision through the thin barrier of his shirt, and asked him to describe the discomfort, he answered without hesitation, his voice low but clear.

“Pulls when I breathe deep.”

She exhaled through her nose in quiet relief at the sound of the alpha's voice, her shoulders dropping a fraction as she noted it down in her worn journal, the pencil scratching softly against the paper. Jimin stood nearby, arms crossed loosely over his chest, pretending to organize the small stack of clean bandages on the crate, but he felt the shift in the room's atmosphere, the way the tension that had clung like damp fog during their check-ups began to dissipate.

Namjoon tried to disguise how closely he watched these exchanges, leaning against the doorframe with his notebook in hand, but the tension in his shoulders eased in increments every time Jeongguk answered directly instead of drifting away into that distant silence. His eyes, sharp and analytical, softened at the edges, though he masked it with a casual nod or a murmured question about the weather outside.

Jimin continued to pretend he didn’t notice, focusing instead on the practicalities. He kept their routines steady: perimeter walks at dusk, where the sky bled into purples and the air grew crisp with the promise of frost; small repairs in the yard when fewer eyes were present, the hammer's thud echoing softly as they worked side by side; feed buckets carried at a pace that allowed Jeongguk to keep stride without it feeling like accommodation, the metal handles cool and heavy in their grips.

When Jeongguk stumbled or slowed, his boot catching on a root or the uneven earth, Jimin adjusted without comment, shifting his own rhythm rather than offering a hand that might underscore the alpha's vulnerability. He was only doing what he’d expect from others had it been him in Jeongguk’s place—the quiet solidarity of survival—but it was also something else, an instinct to let Jeongguk stand without making the act of standing feel fragile, to preserve the hierarchy that bound them even as it bent under the weight of care.

The first time Jeongguk said his name clearly again, it nearly startled Jimin, the sound slicing through the quiet like a blade drawn from its sheath. Jimin was seated at the small stool near the wall, wiping oil along the edge of a blade with a rag that smelled faintly of linseed and metal, the steady rhythm of cloth against steel a soothing anchor in the dim light. The shed was hushed, the only sounds the distant hum of the compound settling for the night and the soft crackle of the lantern wick.

“Jimin-ssi.”

There was no strain in it, no confusion clouding the edges. Just his name, spoken cleanly, carrying the full weight of recognition.

He looked up, his hand pausing mid-motion, the rag dangling loosely from his fingers.

Jeongguk was sitting on the cot with his back braced against the wall, his blanket pooled around his waist like forgotten waves. The tightness around his mouth had eased into something more controlled, the lines of pain softened by the steady progress of days.

“What?” Jimin replied, keeping his tone neutral, though his pulse quickened beneath the surface, a quiet thrill at the normalcy of it all.

“Cold.”

It came out slightly hoarse, almost annoyed and accusatory, like it was Jimin’s fault the evening chill had seeped through the cracks in the walls, turning the air sharp against their skin.

Jimin huffed quietly and rose without comment, the wooden crate creaking faintly under the shift of his weight as he crossed the dim space of the shed. He retrieved the heavier coat folded neatly near the crate, its woolen fabric rough and carrying the faint, earthy scent of the compound's stores, and draped it over Jeongguk’s shoulders with brisk efficiency. His fingers brushed briefly against the back of Jeongguk’s neck, the skin there warm and slightly damp, before he stepped away, the contact lingering in his mind like an unintended echo.

“You always run hot until you don’t,” Jimin muttered, his voice low and edged with a dry humor he hadn't planned. “Pick a setting, mutt.”

The word slipped out easily, as natural now as breathing in the cool evening air that seeped through the shed's cracks. He didn’t remember when he had started using it— at first, it had been deliberate, dismissive even, a sharp reminder of teeth and fur and the wild mess Jeongguk had dragged in with him ever since he’d entered the compound. But somewhere along the way, amid the quiet vigils and the slow mending of wounds, it had stopped being an intended insult and simply… stayed, softening into something almost familiar, a tether in the unspoken space between them. 

Jeongguk didn’t react the way most alphas would—there was no flare of pride stiffening his spine, no wounded ego flashing in his dark eyes, no challenge rising in his shoulders like Jimin would expect from someone so steeped in hierarchy. Instead, there was the faintest pull at the corner of his mouth and a quiet acknowledgment that sounded suspiciously like amusement when a soft breath escaped him, warm against the chill. Jimin ignored it, shoving down the flicker of warmth in his chest, and returned to his seat on the stool, resuming his work with the blade. Though the cloth paused longer than necessary against the oiled steel, his thoughts drifting to the steady rise and fall of Jeongguk’s breathing behind him, a rhythm that no longer faltered with every inhale.

Later, dusk folded itself around the compound as it had every evening that week, the sky bruising into deep indigos and the air sharpening with the bite of approaching frost. Jeongguk fell into step beside him without hesitation, his boots thudding softly against the packed earth, syncing with Jimin's lighter tread.

The silence between them no longer strained under its own weight—it stretched, comfortable enough that, much to Jimin’s own surprise, he found himself speaking more and more without preamble, the words spilling out like they’d been waiting for this ease. He talked about the chickens escaping through damaged fencing, and the way Hoseok once nearly set the generator ablaze in a fit of misplaced confidence, his laughter booming through the yard until the smoke cleared. 

Jeongguk listened, his head tilted slightly toward Jimin, then answered, his voice still rough around the edges but clearer now, threading into the space between them without hesitation, each response a small bridge over the chasm that had once separated them.

The following evening, a Baduk board sat between them long enough that it almost began to feel like part of the furniture, its polished wood surface etched with faint lines from years of use, now dusted free of the farmhouse's neglect. Jimin had taken it from the living room earlier that afternoon, brushing away the fine layer of dust with the edge of his sleeve, the particles catching in the slanting light like fleeting memories, and left it near the cot without explanation, as if it were the most ordinary thing in their fractured world. 

The shed was quieter tonight, the only sound the wind dragging lightly along the outer boards, a low moan that rattled the loose panes and carried the scent of dry leaves and distant rain. Jeongguk sat propped against folded blankets near the wall, his posture more upright than it had been days before, the lines of exhaustion softening around his eyes. Jimin lowered himself onto the floor opposite him, the rough planks cool against his palms, and poured the stones into their bowls with a soft clatter that filled the space like a gentle rain. The black pieces gleamed dully in the lantern's glow, smooth and heavy with potential. 

Jeongguk’s gaze followed the movement of Jimin’s hands, precise and unhurried, then traced the grid's intersecting lines, then lingered on the smooth black pieces waiting to be placed. His fingers hovered over them for a moment, callused tips brushing the bowl's edge, before he lifted one and rolled it between thumb and forefinger, testing its weight with a deliberate slowness that spoke of relearning control.

“You know how to play?” Jimin asked, his tone casual enough to suggest he didn’t particularly care one way or the other, though inside, a quiet curiosity stirred, wondering what fragments of Jeongguk this game might unearth.

Jeongguk shifted his weight, wincing faintly at the pull in his sore muscles, the motion drawing a subtle crease between his brows. His thumb traced the rim of the bowl, circling the wood, before he answered.

“…A little.” There’s more shape to his voice now.

“Good,” Jimin replied, placing white in the upper left corner with a soft click that echoed in the quiet shed. “I don’t feel like teaching.”

That earned him a huff in response, but the omega brushed it off. He just nodded once and gestured toward Jeongguk’s bowl of stones, the black ones gleaming faintly under the lantern's warm flicker.

“Go ahead.”

Jeongguk studied the board before answering in kind, setting black in the opposite corner with care that bordered on stubbornness. The hesitation that used to live in his movements had thinned; he leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees, posture relaxed enough to suggest he was starting to feel like he could occupy space again without apology. They began along the edges, building outward in quiet concentration, the stones forming tentative lines that snaked across the grid. When Jeongguk pressed toward the center sooner than Jimin would recommend, he didn’t correct him aloud. He simply answered with white placed just close enough to limit the advance without severing it entirely, a subtle encircling that hinted at strategy without confrontation.

“You’re impatient,” Jimin remarked without looking up, his fingers lingering on the bowl's edge as he considered his next placement.

Jeongguk’s eyes flicked to his, and for the first time in days there was something familiar there—almost bratty, a spark that cut through the lingering haze of recovery.

“Efficient,” he countered, shoulders lifting in a restrained shrug.

Jimin exhaled through his nose, the sound hovering somewhere between disapproval and a little bit of amusement—though he’d never admit that out loud—and the game continued without further commentary. The rhythm of stone against wood grew steady, almost meditative, and the silence between them stretched without discomfort, broken only by the occasional scrape of the wind outside or the distant call of a night bird beyond the compound walls. It was in that rhythm that Jimin began to speak, the words emerging as naturally as the next move.

“An older woman taught me this game,” he said, adjusting one of his groups along the side as though the memory had simply slipped into the room like the draft from the door. “She owned a café before everything went to shit.”

Jeongguk’s hand paused above the board, the black stone balanced between his fingers, hovering like a question.

“You worked there?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I just loitered and got in the way,” Jimin admitted, a faint curve touching his mouth as he recalled the scent of fresh coffee and steamed milk that had clung to everything. “She fed Taehyung and me well enough that we always returned like the little raccoons we were.”

He placed another stone, then continued, voice even but softer than before, laced with the quiet ache of things lost.

“She kept the board under the counter and pulled it out whenever the shop was slow. Said if Taehyung and I were going to mess around and argue, we might as well argue over something with rules.”

Jeongguk listened without interrupting. There was something in the way he tilted his head—attentive without prying, his dark eyes fixed on Jimin for a beat longer than the board demanded.

“We spent a lot of evenings there,” Jimin continued, his gaze drifting to the intersecting lines before them, seeing echoes of those faded afternoons in the patterns forming. “High school, skipping Hagwon before I eventually couldn't afford that anymore. Before we enlisted in the military as well. She didn’t have kids, so she practically took us in as her own instead.”

The alpha hummed, a low sound that vibrated through the space between them, acknowledging without demanding more. He lowered his stone then, resuming the game with a placement that nudged at Jimin's territory, testing boundaries in the quiet way alphas sometimes did.

The game settled into a quiet rhythm, broken only by the soft click of stone against wood, each move a small assertion in the dim light. Jimin studied the board, eyes tracing the lines, the shapes beginning to form beneath the surface. There was a pattern there—subtle, not obvious unless you were looking for it, much like the man across from him, whose silences held layers yet to be uncovered. Jeongguk exhaled softly across from him.

“That doesn’t really do anything.”

Jimin tilted his head, considering the white stone he'd just placed, innocuous on the surface but poised to influence the flow.

“Looks that way,” he murmured, his voice carrying the weight of old lessons.

His fingers hovered for a second before he placed the next stone, precise and unhurried, extending the subtle curve he'd been building.

“If a move seems pointless,” he added, almost absently, as if reciting from memory, “it usually isn’t.”

A brief pause followed, the air in the shed thickening just enough to notice. Then—

“I don’t act without reason.”

Jeongguk stilled. It was slight, but noticeable—the way his hand stopped midair, the stone caught between his fingers like it had suddenly grown heavy, the hesitation that didn’t quite fit the flow of the game. His jaw tightened imperceptibly, a shadow crossing his features that Jimin caught in the corner of his eye.

“…What?”

Jimin glanced up, brows knitting faintly. The reaction felt a little out of place, sharper than the easy back-and-forth they'd fallen into, but he didn’t dwell on it for long, attributing it perhaps to the fatigue still clinging to Jeongguk's frame.

“Something my superior used to say,” he explained, leaning back slightly against the rough wall, the wood cool through his shirt. “Usually right before he punished the entire team for one person’s mistake.”

Jimin paused then, his fingers stilling over the bowl of stones as a face flickered into his mind—Joonkyung's stern features, etched with that unyielding determination that had always set him apart. He hadn't thought about the man since the first year after Day Zero, the chaos of survival shoving old ghosts into the recesses of memory.

Joonkyung had died that day, or so Jimin was pretty sure, opting to stay behind and defend their military base when Jimin, Taehyung, and Hoseok had fled toward the city. Their entire team had been demolished in the onslaught, the base reduced to rubble and flames, and in Jimin's eyes, there had been nothing left worth protecting amid the howlers' screams and the crumbling walls. 

The only drive that had pulled him forward was the desperate need to make it back to Choi Minji, to shield her from the unraveling world. Joonkyung had been an odd man, prone to sayings that grated against Jimin's nerves, words that twisted like barbs in the heat of drills or reprimands. But respect lingered all the same, sharp and undeniable—especially for the way Joonkyung had stood his ground when the other superiors and generals bolted for the safety of their lavish panic rooms, abandoning the low-ranking soldiers to face the end alone.

A small huff of breath left him, not quite a laugh, more a release of the old bitterness that had mellowed with time, tangled now with a quiet gratitude he rarely voiced.

“He was kind of a prick, I won’t lie. But I respected him.”

His gaze dropped back to the board, fingers itching for the next move, the memory fading like smoke as the game's pull reasserted itself.

“Don’t act without reason.”

Across from him, Jeongguk blinked—once, then again, his throat working in a slow swallow, like he was pushing something down, deep and unspoken. He didn’t say anything, just lowered his hand to place his next stone with a deliberate click that resumed the rhythm, though the ease felt fractionally altered now.

The game continued, stones accumulating in careful clusters, territory claiming itself inch by inch. Jimin watched the board, already a few moves ahead in his mind, mapping out contingencies and counters, and chalked the moment up to frustration—Jeongguk still recovering, maybe not thinking as clearly as usual, the words hitting some raw nerve from his past.

Still—

For a split second, that reaction had been… strange, a flicker of something unguarded that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

The thought passed as quickly as it came, dissolving into the next placement. Jimin reached for his next piece, the black stone cool and smooth in his palm, and let the game pull them forward, the shed's quiet enveloping them once more.

“The woman I stayed with—she hated when I rushed the middle of the board,” Jimin said, tapping lightly near the center with his fingertip, the wood grain rough under his touch. “Said you don’t fight for the heart of something before you even know you can hold it.”

Jeongguk glanced up at that, his dark eyes lifting from the grid to meet Jimin's for a brief, assessing moment.

“Hold it?” he repeated, one eyebrow arching in quiet curiosity, the motion pulling faintly at the scar along his cheekbone.

“You build your edges first,” Jimin explained, circling a loose cluster of black stones with one finger, tracing the invisible boundaries they claimed. “Because every group needs space around it. If you spread too far without support, someone very patient can close in on you from every direction.”

Jeongguk considered that longer this time, his gaze dropping back to the board, fingers hovering over his bowl as if weighing the words against the stones. Instead of pushing forward again, he reinforced one of his weaker groups, placing black with a deliberate click that strengthened the perimeter before venturing inward. Jimin noticed the adjustment immediately—the shift from impulse to calculation—and altered his own strategy in response, testing the boundary with white instead of slicing through it outright.

“She also said you don’t win by crushing everything in front of you,” Jimin continued, settling another white stone in a position that narrowed Jeongguk’s options without choking them entirely, leaving just enough room for the alpha to breathe, to adapt. “You win by leaving your opponent with nowhere to go.”

“...Trap,” Jeongguk murmured, the word low and thoughtful, like he was turning it over in his mind alongside the game.

Jimin’s brow lifted faintly, a subtle acknowledgment of the insight. “If you like. I prefer the term ‘suffocation’.”

Jeongguk’s lips pressed together slightly, a restrained curve that wasn't quite a smile, and he nodded once. His next stone slid into place with a soft thud, blocking Jimin’s growth along one side—subtle but deliberate, a quiet assertion that reshaped the flow without fanfare. Jimin raised an eyebrow, surprise flickering through him at the precision.

“Okay, that’s better.”

They continued like that, the board filling gradually with clean lines instead of the chaotic sprawl that had marked Jeongguk's earlier moves. Jeongguk leaned in more as the game progressed, his shoulders rounding with focus, the lantern's glow casting soft shadows across the sharp angles of his face. At one point, he sacrificed a small cluster without hesitation, allowing white to capture it in exchange for a larger territory forming elsewhere on the grid.

Jimin glanced at him, fingers pausing over his bowl. “You let that go.”

Jeongguk shrugged lightly, the motion loose in his frame now, less guarded than before. “Wasn’t worth it.”

Jimin studied the board then, eyes tracing the emerging patterns, and realized, belatedly, that Jeongguk had boxed him in along the lower side while he’d been distracted elsewhere. The realization pulled a faint huff from his chest, half exasperation, half admiration.

“Still impatient,” he muttered, though the words lacked their earlier edge.

Jeongguk rolled his eyes—small, automatic, familiar in a way that made Jimin glance down at the grid to hide the flicker of relief crossing his own expression. It felt weird that seeing Jeongguk’s bratty spark relieved him.

They played longer than Jimin expected, the game stretching comfortably into the evening's hush, territory forming with measured restraint instead of the chaos that seventeen-year-old Jimin and Taehyung had often unleashed on the board. If the alpha were in the room right now, he’d likely tease Jimin about how much he’d matured—so much so that he thought himself credible enough to give advice without getting called out for it. At one point, when Jimin pressed too aggressively toward the center, Jeongguk paused, his hand steady above the wood, then placed a black stone in a way that cut Jimin’s line cleanly, severing the advance with surgical calm.

When the game ended, the difference in territory was narrow enough that neither of them felt robbed—a novelty for Jimin, who was used to Seokjin’s incessant mutterings and Taehyung’s dramatic sighs the moment he claimed victory for what felt like the hundredth time. Jeongguk won by a few stones, and he stared at the finished board for a long moment, gaze moving slowly along the edges he’d secured early, then inward where the shapes had tightened and held. There was no gloating in his expression, but something steadier settled there—a quiet satisfaction that rested easily in his features, softening the lines of exhaustion that still lingered.

Perhaps Jimin had met his match, which he couldn’t deny felt a little odd that it was Jeongguk of all people. The alpha across from him seemed almost surprised by the win himself, his fingers lingering on the edge of the board as if reluctant to disturb the pattern they’d built.

Jimin leaned back against the wall, the rough wood pressing into his spine, and let the silence settle. The lantern flickered, casting wavering light across the stones, and outside, the compound's distant sounds faded into the night's embrace—children's laughter from the farmhouse, the low murmur of voices winding down patrols. It was in that quiet that his thoughts drifted again, to Choi Minji.

She’d always had a way of seeing through the games people played, not just on a board but in life itself. Back before Day Zero, she’d sit with him during those rare leaves from the base, her presence a steady anchor amid the rigid structure of military life. Minji had never been one for strategy games, but she understood the principles—the patience, the calculated risks, the way one small move could shift the entire tide.

He wondered, briefly, what she’d make of this: him here, teaching an alpha like Jeongguk the nuances of restraint in a world that demanded constant aggression. Minji, with her sharp eyes and unyielding resolve, would probably smile that knowing smile and say something about building edges before claiming the center. She’d been the one constant pulling him through the early days of his adolescence, the safety of her cafe the singular focus that had kept him moving when everything else crumbled.

From across the board, Jeongguk cleared his throat softly, the sound pulling Jimin's gaze back from the drifting haze of his thoughts. The alpha's eyes met his, dark and steady, holding a question that lingered unspoken between them, and in that moment, Jimin realized the game had ended not just on the wooden grid, but in the fragile bridge they'd crossed during its quiet turns—a tentative span over the chasm of what had come before.

He began collecting the stones without comment, his fingers plucking the black and white pieces one by one, letting them fall into their respective bowls with an unhurried rhythm. The soft clatter echoed faintly, while Jeongguk remained where he was, his shoulders easing back against the rough wall with a subtle exhale. The stiffness that had gripped the alpha for days—etched into every line of his posture—seemed to loosen by degrees, not in some sweeping release, but enough that he occupied the space differently now, less like a coiled spring and more like a man reclaiming his ground.

“You’re pleased with yourself,” Jimin said at last, his voice threading through the quiet as he kept his eyes fixed on the board, tracing the faint outlines where the stones had rested.

Jeongguk shifted then, stretching his legs out carefully in front of him as he tested the lingering pull along his healing side before settling into it. “Well, yeah. I won,” he replied, his voice unmistakably lighter.

“By a narrow margin, not some landslide, genius.” Jimin couldn't quite keep the dry edge from his tone, though a flicker of amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Jeongguk’s smile deepened slightly, the scar on his cheekbone catching the dim lantern light as he tilted his head, studying Jimin with that piercing gaze as if weighing the comment for what it truly was—pride wrapped in correction, a reluctant nod to the alpha's growth. “Still counts.”

There was a familiarity in the way he said it that caught Jimin off guard, something almost infuriatingly comfortable, like slipping into an old rhythm he'd forgotten existed. A month ago, that tone would have grated against his nerves, sharp and unwelcome. Now it felt earned, woven into the fabric of these shared silences and small victories. Jimin finished resetting the board, his hands aligning the grid lines with more care than necessary, the wood smooth under his palms as he smoothed out invisible imperfections. He rose then, crossing to the lantern hanging from a low beam, and lowered the wick with a steady twist. The flame dimmed gradually, shadows lengthening and shifting across the wooden planks as the room settled into a softer, more intimate glow.

“Enjoy it,” he said over his shoulder, his voice even, laced with the quiet promise of continuation. “Next time your win won’t come that easily.”

Behind him, there was the faint sound of Jeongguk adjusting against the wall, the quiet scrape of fabric against wood as he found a more relaxed position. “Good,” he answered, the single word dropping into the air like a stone settling into place.

It carried no challenge, only a steady expectation that resonated in Jimin's chest. And for the first time since the woods—since the blood and the shadows that had nearly claimed everything—the promise of a next time felt solid, unyielding, like the first firm step on solid ground after too long adrift.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The shed had settled into its usual night sounds—the faint creak of wood contracting as the temperature plunged, the wind brushing against the warped edge of the door like fingers testing for weakness, and the distant shift of someone turning in sleep beyond the thin wall that separated their fragile haven from the farmhouse.

Jimin lay awake longer than he intended, his body still humming from the quiet victory of the game earlier, though his mind refused to quiet. Insomnia had always shadowed him like an unwelcome companion, slipping into any unguarded crevice, so he stared at the narrow seam of moonlight stretched across the ceiling beam, its pale glow fracturing into silver threads that danced with the draft. His thoughts wandered through the day's small triumphs and the alpha's easing presence, until exhaustion finally dulled the edges enough for sleep to claim him. But it didn't hold.

Jimin woke to the sound of something tearing, sharp and insistent in the stillness. For a split second, he mistook it for the wind snagging the loose panel near the roof, a common rattle in these cooling nights. But the noise came again—fabric straining to its breaking point, wood scraping under relentless pressure—and he was upright before his mind could fully assemble the alarm, heart pounding in his ears like distant thunder.

The lantern had burned low during his brief rest, its amber light a thinning veil against the encroaching dark, casting elongated shadows that made the space feel smaller, more confining. Jeongguk was twisted hard across the cot, the blanket snarled around his legs in a chaotic knot, his shoulders drawn tight like wire pulled past its endurance. His breathing wasn't the labored, feverish drag Jimin had grown accustomed to over these weeks of vigilance. It was sharp now, rapid, fracturing on each inhale like glass under strain. Sweat beaded along his collarbone, catching the faint light, and his fingers clenched into the mattress, knuckles whitening.

“Yugyeom—”

The name tore from Jeongguk's throat like it had been clawed from some buried depth, raw and unwilling. Jimin froze for half a heartbeat, the unfamiliar syllables hanging in the air like smoke. He didn't recognize it—no face or story attached to it from the fragments Jeongguk had shared—but the desperation in the alpha's voice, the way it reached for someone slipping irretrievably away, twisted something deep under Jimin's ribs. A pang of empathy, unwelcome and sharp, as if the loss echoed his own ghosts.

Then the change hit. The tendons in Jeongguk's forearms stood out stark beneath his skin, veins pulsing with unnatural force, and his nails lengthened with a fluid, terrible ease, slicing through the fabric of his shirt as if it were mere tissue. The cot frame groaned in protest under the sudden surge of power, a low crack splintering the quiet. Jimin moved without hesitation, instinct overriding the flicker of fear that licked at his edges.

He dropped to one knee beside the cot's edge, the rough wood pricking through his pants, and caught Jeongguk's wrist in a firm grip before the shift could fully crest. Heat poured off the alpha in waves, scorching against Jimin's palm, far too intense for the chill autumn night seeping through the cracks. Sweat glistened along Jeongguk's throat, tracing paths down to the hollow of his collarbone, and the muscles in his neck strained visibly, cords bulging as if something inside was pressing outward, demanding release.

Jimin's gaze snapped to the alpha's face as the shape of his jaw began to alter. It wasn't some grotesque eruption of bone and fur, no monstrous unraveling like the howlers that prowled the wastes. It was subtler, more insidious—the line of his jaw tightening, pulling forward in a predatory slant, teeth pressing too sharply against his lower lip until a thin line of blood welled up, the form threatening to tilt sideways into something feral and unrecognizable.

“Jeongguk.”

Jimin's voice cut through the tension, steady on the surface but laced with an undercurrent of urgency that he couldn't fully mask. Jeongguk didn't seem to register it. His eyes were open, but unfocused, pupils dilated to black pools that nearly eclipsed the warm brown, staring into some inner void. His mouth worked silently, lips parting around words that dissolved into ragged breaths.

“Get up—no, don’t—”

Jeongguk's chest heaved once, twice, and on the third breath, a low sound escaped him that twisted Jimin's gut. It wasn't a full growl, but it hovered on the edge, primal and guttural, vibrating through the air like a warning from the wilds beyond their walls. The vivid memory crashed into Jimin then, slamming against his defenses before he could brace himself.

Steam curling from hot water, mingling with the metallic tang of blood slicking across cold tile. Nabi's voice, fractured and wet, breaking as she gasped apologies between choking breaths—for trusting the wrong face, the wrong promise—in that dim, rain-lashed alley where betrayal had bloomed red. He had arrived too late, the rage that followed a clean, blinding fire that consumed everything but left him hollow. Useless against the finality.

Jimin's fingers tightened around Jeongguk's wrist on pure reflex, the alpha's pulse thundering beneath his skin like a trapped storm, as if holding on could tether him to the here and now, ward off the irreversible slide into whatever abyss beckoned. But he forced himself to loosen the hold before it became restraint, before the past bled into the present and turned care into control. This wasn't that night, that suffocating failure. Jeongguk wasn't the alpha who had stormed through their lives like a tempest, leaving bloodied trails and shattered trusts in his wake. He was here, fighting something internal, and Jimin wouldn't let history repeat its cruel script.

The claws scraped against the wood again, a ragged drag that echoed in the confined space like nails on bone.

“Yugyeom,” Jeongguk gasped once more, the name fracturing at the end, threads of desperation unraveling into the dim air.

Whoever this Yugyeom was, he clearly wasn't an enemy—no venom or accusation laced the utterance, only raw, unfiltered panic that clawed at Jimin's chest. Instead of recoiling, Jimin shifted closer, the cot's edge digging into his knee as he planted his free hand flat against Jeongguk's shoulder. The touch was grounding, a steady weight meant to anchor rather than overpower, and beneath his palm, he felt the tremor rippling through the alpha's frame, muscles quivering like a bowstring held too long.

“You’re here,” Jimin murmured, his voice earnest, threading through the tension like a lifeline. “You’re in the shed. You’re safe.”

He could sense the fragility of their sanctuary all around them—the thin boards that barely muffled the wind's whisper, the distant rustle of sleeping bodies in the adjacent rooms, the soft breaths of children tucked away in the farmhouse beyond. If Jeongguk shifted fully here, in this cramped haven, the consequences would ripple outward like a stone in still water, shattering the tentative peace they'd built. Jimin couldn't let that happen.

“Jeongguk,” he said again, his tone firmer now, laced with the quiet command of someone who'd learned to lead through crises. His hand slid upward, fingers curling to cup the back of Jeongguk's neck, thumb pressing lightly against the knotted tension there. 

“Look at me.”

It took visible effort, Jeongguk's head lolling slightly before his gaze dragged toward Jimin, heavy and reluctant. His pupils dominated, vast black voids that nearly devoured the warm brown of his irises, and in that fractured stare, Jimin glimpsed the same chaotic storm from their encounter in the woods—rage and terror knotted together, directionless and devouring.

“You’re not losing him again,” Jimin said softly, the words slipping out with a certainty he hadn't planned, as if voicing them could seal the truth. “Whoever he is.”

The muscles in Jeongguk's jaw quivered, a subtle twitch that betrayed the war raging beneath, and the shift—the predatory pull of bone and sinew—stopped, caught in that liminal space between man and beast. Something aligned in Jimin's mind then, a quiet realization cutting through the haze of urgency. It wasn't solely the infection or the bite that ignited these episodes; more likely, it was the surge of raw emotion—panic, grief, fury—that acted as the spark, igniting the alpha's fractured control.

Jeongguk's breathing fractured one final time, a jagged hitch, before it stuttered into a semblance of rhythm, erratic but easing. The claws retracted with agonizing slowness, leaving behind tatters of fabric and shallow furrows etched into the cot's wooden frame. The guttural undertone in his throat dissolved into ragged exhales, fading like smoke in the draft. Jimin didn't release his hold.

He kept his hand at Jeongguk's neck, attuned to the lingering heat radiating from the skin, the pulse beneath his fingertips battling to even out, a wild drum slowing to a wary beat. Taehyung's voice from earlier that week resurfaced, sharp with frustration as he'd called out Jimin's initial coldness toward the newcomer—the way he'd armored himself in suspicion from the moment Jeongguk had staggered into their midst. Jimin had dismissed it then, bristling at the accusation, but now, kneeling in the lantern's faltering glow, watching the alpha wrestle demons he couldn't name, that defensiveness crumbled. He'd justified the distance as safeguard—for the pack's fragile unity, for his own scarred heart—treating every tentative advance as a prelude to betrayal. Yet here he was, the one refusing to let go, bridging the gap he'd so carefully enforced.

Jimin drew in a slow breath, the cool air steadying him. “I know what it feels like to lose control,” he confessed, the admission tasting unfamiliar on his tongue, as if it belonged to a softer, more vulnerable self he'd long buried.

“Her name was Nabi.”

The words ached as they emerged, a sharp twist in his gut that made his throat constrict. But Jimin forced past the lump rising there, swallowing it down, his gaze locked on Jeongguk's face rather than allowing it to wander into the shadows of memory where escape would be simpler.

“She was nineteen. An absolute sweetheart. Too trusting.”

The lantern's dying light caught the slick sheen of sweat tracing down Jeongguk's throat, his chest rising and falling in heavy pulls that spoke of the effort it took to stay present.

“She believed in people more than she should have,” Jimin continued, his voice a quiet thread in the hush. “So we let someone in because she asked us to.” His jaw clenched briefly, the old bitterness flaring, but he kept his tone level, unyielding.

“Two weeks later, she was bleeding out on the bathhouse floor.” He offered no flourishes, no softening details; the raw truth sufficed, etched indelibly into his core.

“I found her. She tried to stay awake, but I couldn’t—” He paused, drawing another measured inhale, the air tasting faintly of rust and woodsmoke. “She didn’t make it to sunrise.”

Jeongguk's knuckles twitched once more, a faint tremor, then went still. The claws vanished entirely, nails reverting to their blunt, human curve, harmless against the ruined bedding.

“For a long time after,” Jimin went on, his thumb pressing unconsciously more firmly into the curve of Jeongguk's shoulder, seeking reassurance in the solid warmth, the proof of life persisting, “I felt like I wasn’t inside my own head. Like everything was already ruined before I could fix it.”

The air hung close around them, thick with the scent of damp wood and lingering sweat, yet it didn't press in suffocatingly—more like a shared secret, intimate in its confinement.

“You losing control doesn’t mean you’re gone,” Jimin added, his voice a steady anchor in the dimness. “It doesn’t mean you’re beyond coming back.”

Jeongguk’s breathing evened out in hesitant increments, each exhale a small surrender to the present, pulling him further from the edge.

“I had reasons for how I treated you,” Jimin admitted, his fingers raking through his own hair in a restless gesture, the strands catching briefly on calluses before falling back into disarray. “I was already preparing to put you down.”

The confession lingered in the space between them, stark and unvarnished, stripped of any defense.

“That wasn’t fair.”

Jeongguk blinked deliberately, his focus sharpening by slow degrees, the warm brown of his irises reclaiming ground from the encroaching black. For an instant, Jimin braced for retreat, for the alpha to withdraw into that armored silence once more. Instead, Jeongguk’s lips parted, and a rough sound emerged, scraped raw as if dredged from gravel.

“I knew,” he breathed, the words uneven, laced with the effort of formation. “There was… more to you.”

A tentative curve touched the corner of his mouth, fragile as a crack in frost—an attempt at a smile that carried no demand, only quiet acknowledgment.

“Than your attitude.”

Relief flooded Jimin, sharp and unwelcome, warming his chest even as he recoiled from its vulnerability. He buried it beneath habit, narrowing his eyes in a familiar squint and letting a scoff escape under his breath, the sound more reflex than bite.

“Don’t get comfortable,” he muttered, the warning's edge softened, blunted by the truth they'd just unearthed.

Jeongguk released a breath that bordered on laughter, faint and airless, and his shoulders finally eased fully against the cot's worn surface, the tension uncoiling like a spring released. Jimin maintained his hold at the nape of Jeongguk's neck, his thumb tracing idle patterns just below the hairline where faint tremors still pulsed through the taut muscle, echoes of the storm that had nearly consumed him. The lantern had burned low, its flame guttering, casting a viscous glow that pooled amber along the high planes of Jeongguk’s cheekbones and glinted off the damp sheen clinging to his skin. It took Jimin a beat to notice the moisture beading at the lash line, subtle at first.

The initial tear welled silently before tracing a sideways path along Jeongguk's temple, absorbed into the dark strands of his hair. He blinked fiercely, as if sheer will could summon it back, but another followed, languid and unhurried, carving the same route into the shadows. Jeongguk angled his face away—not a grand evasion, but a subtle tilt, enough to pretend it wasn’t seen.

“It hurt so much, hyung,” he said finally, his voice splintering on the honorific, raw with the weight of unspoken pleas. The words snagged midway, forcing a swallow before he pressed on, the timbre thinned to a whisper. “It felt like… something was forcing its way out.”

His hand rose a scant inch from the mattress, hovering uncertainly before dropping back, fingers clenching into the frayed remnants of his shirt, knuckles whitening briefly.

“My chest was too tight. I couldn’t breathe. And then it wasn’t tight anymore. It was…” He huffed a sharp exhale, frustration etching lines across his brow as the right descriptor eluded him. “Too much. Everything was too much.”

The tears flowed steadily now, persistent in their silence, carving faint tracks that caught the lantern's flicker. His breaths hitched unevenly, the strain of composure evident in the subtle quiver of his chin, as if holding himself together before this man—who'd offered every justification for dismissal—demanded more than he had left.

“I didn’t want you to see that,” he murmured, a soft sniffle punctuating the admission, the shame threading through his tone immediate and unfeigned.

Jimin resisted the urge to brush the tears away, acutely aware of the boundary he'd already toed too near, the intimacy he'd unwittingly invited. Instead, he leaned toward the woven basket perched on the nearby crate, his fingers closing around a folded square of cloth and extended it without advancing, the offering suspended in the air between them, careful in its restraint.

Jeongguk’s gaze drifted toward the cloth, then lifted to Jimin’s face, probing for any hint of mockery in the shadowed lines there. None lingered—only a quiet patience that Jimin hadn’t meant to reveal so plainly. After a suspended moment of hesitation, Jeongguk reached out and took it, his fingers grazing Jimin’s knuckles in a fleeting, unsteady contact that sent a faint spark through the omega’s skin. The alpha pressed the fabric to his eyes, dabbing just enough to halt the persistent trickle escaping down his cheeks.

“I couldn’t stop it,” he murmured into the cloth, the words muffled and thick with exhaustion. “It just happened.”

Jimin observed the subtle shift in Jeongguk’s shoulders, the faint tremor rippling through his frame as the last of the adrenaline ebbed away, leaving raw vulnerability in its wake—like a structure stripped bare after a storm.

“I thought I was going to hurt someone,” Jeongguk pressed on, easing the cloth down slightly. His eyes emerged reddened, glistening in the lantern’s subdued glow, the whites veined with fatigue. “I thought I was going to hurt you.”

Jimin drew in a sharp breath, the air between them suddenly feeling attenuated, the shed’s thin walls pressing in like fragile barriers. Beyond them stretched the yard, where the children slept undisturbed in the farmhouse, their breaths a distant rhythm in the night.

“You didn’t,” Jimin replied, his voice steady despite the knot forming in his throat.

“I almost did, I think,” the alpha countered, shaking his head slowly, as if dislodging fragments of memory. “I…I can’t really remember.”

“You were panicking,” Jimin sighed, his fingers exerting a gentle pressure into the warm skin at the back of Jeongguk’s neck, grounding them both. “Your body reacted before your mind could, and I can’t really fault you for that.”

Jeongguk’s eyes fluttered shut for a brief instant, his lashes clumped with residual dampness, a silent concession to the weight of the moment.

“I just…I don’t want to be something you have to put down."

Jimin felt the words settle heavily in the space between them, heavier still because he knows where they come from. He could hear his own earlier voice layered beneath them—steady, uncompromising, outlining exactly what would happen if control slipped too far out of reach. He’d convinced himself it was pragmatism, a leader’s duty in their unforgiving world. Treating Jeongguk as a liability had simplified things: threats could be contained, eliminated if needed. 

But as he watched him now—eyes red and glassy, pride fractured but still clinging to him in quiet defiance—Jimin couldn’t ignore what it would feel like to wake from a nightmare and wonder whether the person kneeling beside you is calculating your worth in survival terms.

“You’re not something to put down,” Jimin said quietly, not rushing the words. Jeongguk searched his face as if testing the sincerity of it.

“You thought I was.”

“Yes,” Jimin conceded, the truth slipping free without evasion, because lying now would undo everything. “I was preparing for it.”

The admission stirred guilt within him, uncoiling in measured waves, slotting into the crevices of his resolve like unwelcome puzzle pieces. Honesty had its price, but withholding it would cost more.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Jeongguk.”

He allowed the apology to linger in the dimness, acknowledging its tardiness and flaws, yet its sincerity burned true. Jeongguk fell quiet, the silence stretching long and taut.

Then, incrementally, he turned his head.

The motion unfolded so subtly that Jimin didn’t register its intent until momentum carried it forward. Rather than withdrawing, Jeongguk inclined toward him, the sharp line of his jaw nestling into Jimin’s palm. Instinctively, the omega’s hand adapted, his thumb gliding upward over heated skin until his palm cupped the side of Jeongguk’s face fully, cradling the contours with unintended tenderness.

Jimin went still, every nerve alight.

Awareness crashed over him in a rush—the precise position of his thumb near the outer edge of Jeongguk’s eye, the sticky warmth of drying tears seeping into his skin, the precarious intimacy of holding a face that housed the power to shatter bones with ease. Jeongguk’s eyes rose to lock with his, holding steady without flinching.

The steady openness in Jeongguk’s eyes drew Jimin’s breath into a shallow thread. Beneath the skin his palm cradled, the alpha’s inherent strength hadn’t vanished—it simmered, coiled and potent, a reminder of the raw power Jimin held at bay with nothing more than his touch. He held still, suspended in the crossfire of instinct urging him closer and uncertainty rooting him in place, every muscle taut against the pull.

Time stretched, pulling taut like a bowstring. Jimin’s pulse quickened, an insistent rhythm echoing behind his sternum and climbing the column of his throat, where it lodged like a swallowed stone. Proximity sharpened into something visceral—the scant inches separating their bodies, the shared warmth radiating from Jeongguk’s frame, the precarious balance where a single errant movement could cascade into uncharted territory. He redistributed his weight with infinitesimal care, torn between retreating to safer ground or anchoring firm against the tide.

In the end, Jimin averted his gaze first, breaking the intensity that threatened to unravel him.

“Help me.” Jeongguk’s voice broke the silence, hoarse and low. The words were simple, and they landed without flourishing. Then the alpha’s throat works once before he adds, this time much softer.

“Please… hyung?”

Hyung. 

Under any other circumstance, hearing the honorific from Jeongguk would certainly piss Jimin off. There would likely be some kind of bite to it, some kind of faux-respect to send Jimin over the edge. But there was none of that, and it swirled around Jimin’s mind with heavy sincerity. Jimin's hand remained where it was for a moment longer, long enough to feel Jeongguk’s breathing align more evenly beneath his palm. Only then did he shift, sliding his touch back toward the side of his neck, where it feels safer, easier to justify. But the imprint of that closeness lingers.

His eyes flicked to the splintered gouges scarring the wooden post, the jagged marks validating the theory coalescing in his mind.

Emotion seemed to be the catalyst for the alpha's shifting. If anything, it'd make sense why Jeongguk would shift right after they'd had sex—right after Jimin had left him there, both still seething with anger and arousal. And if that was true, then this could be controlled through discipline, redirection, perhaps even deliberate exposure. Jimin met Jeongguk’s stare once more, the alpha’s expression a mosaic of weariness, residual tremors, and a tentative spark of optimism awaiting validation.

“I think we might’ve figured something out tonight,” Jimin murmured, the words half-directed inward, a quiet affirmation amid the dimness.

Jeongguk’s brows knitted in subtle confusion, a faint crease forming at the bridge of his nose.

“When you panic,” Jimin elaborated, his thumb sweeping once across the ridge of Jeongguk’s shoulder in an absent gesture—anchoring for the alpha, probing for the omega’s own reassurance—“your body follows suit.”

Realization dawned gradually across Jeongguk’s features, a softening in the set of his jaw, the dilation of his pupils catching the low light. Jimin sustained the eye contact a fraction longer, then released a measured breath, the exhale carrying away some of the tension coiling in his lungs.

“We’ll work on it soon,” he affirmed.

Not in vague futures. Not solely on Jeongguk’s burden. We. The shared pronoun wove an implicit alliance, fragile but binding.

Jeongguk held his gaze for a second longer, as if measuring the weight of the promise. Whatever he saw seemed to reassure him. The tension drains from his shoulders in gradual increments, exhaustion finally catching up to the fear that had kept him coiled. His eyelids drifted shut, sealing away the vulnerability.

Without a word, Jimin drew the blanket upward, securing it along the alpha’s collarbone, his fingertips grazing heated flesh in a fleeting pass before he pulled back. He extended to the lantern, pinching the wick between thumb and forefinger until the flame sputtered and died, plunging the shed into enveloping obscurity, broken only by slivers of night seeping through cracks.

“Sleep,” he instructed, his tone reclaiming its even keel, a quiet command laced with quiet assurance. “You’ll be fine.”

Jeongguk released a breath, something softer threaded through the sound, and shifted onto his side. Within minutes, his breathing settled into something deeper, steadier, and fully human. Jimin finally rose after a few minutes and crossed back to his own mat, lowering himself onto it with care so that the floorboards wouldn't creak. One arm pillowed under his head, he fixed his stare on the overhead beam, where a slender ribbon of moonlight sliced through the gloom, etching pale lines into the grain.

His heartbeat refused to quiet, pounding with undue force against his ribs. The vision of Jeongguk from earlier resurfaced—crystalline trails on Jeongguk’s lashes, the solid heft of his jaw nestled in Jimin’s grasp, the timbre of his voice pared to its essence—pure, unshielded plea.

Help me. Please. Hyung.

Jimin shut his eyes, willing oblivion, but sleep approached warily, circling the edges of his awareness without fully claiming him.

Stunning art by Meli on Twitter!

Chapter Text

Chapter 9 : Almost Known

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

“I’m trying,” Jeongguk rasped, the words dragged out of him more than spoken. His palm slammed into the frost-crusted earth, fingers digging in hard enough to leave a shallow imprint in the dirt. “I can feel it—it just won’t—”

Jeongguk raked a trembling hand through his sweat-damp hair, a low curse grinding out between clenched teeth as the tension gathering along his spine slipped away again. The night's chill had seeped deep into the worn fabric of his shirt, numbing his skin to a prickling ache, and frost clung to the edges of the training ring where their boots had churned the ground into pale, brittle dirt. 

Behind them, the farmhouse remained dark and silent. Windows stared blankly into the void, and the whole structure sunk into the night as if the world beyond the yard had stopped paying attention. No one approached. The air hung heavy with their collective restraint.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of this had begun to blur together—nights stolen after the last lanterns were put out, the eight of them slipping behind the toolshed where the noise of shifting bone hopefully wouldn’t carry across the yard. Three weeks of hushed debates around Namjoon’s scarred oak table, arguing over whether pushing Jeongguk to shift again would fracture what they had only just stabilized—or whether the memory of that first feral transformation still sat too close to the surface to risk stirring.

Jiwon’s brow had furrowed deepest during those talks, her gaze lingering on the subtle swell of Jeongguk’s biceps and the corded lines of his forearms and shoulders.

“There’s still risk to his body,” she murmured one night, fingers tapping absently against the edge of a worn medical journal. Her eyes moved across Jeongguk’s body as if measuring him piece by piece—the swell of rebuilt muscle in his arms, the tightened lines of his shoulders. “The strain alone could tear something internally.”

But then Jiwon’s expression had shifted, nodding toward Jeongguk’s frame as it flexed unconsciously under his shirt. The illness had burned through him weeks ago, leaving him hollow and fever-thin—but what returned in its wake had come back harder, denser. His muscles carried a different weight now, the kind that hinted at pure, untapped power waiting beneath the skin.  

“But the odds of him sustaining serious damage... are slim. If anything, his body may already be adapting to it.”

They had more than enough reason to believe Jiwon’s hypothesis. Jeongguk had bounced back quicker than anyone anticipated—once the fever shattered and the lean muscle returned to his body—but raw power was never the issue. What they were trying to coax out of him now was something far more temperamental. A balance between human and wolf that they could feel hovering just out of reach whenever the shift started and then collapsed again—mostly under the weight of his own frustration. 

Every attempt ended the same way. The shift would start to stir beneath his skin, hovering just out of reach before fizzling out into nothing. The first time they tried to coax the shift back out of him after that, it ended with Jeongguk sprawled face-down in the mud, rage boiling in his veins at the betrayal of his own body, and the memory of his first feral transformation hovering over the yard like something waiting to happen again. In the wake of that failure, they paused the provocations altogether, letting silence settle like fresh snow over the unresolved ache.

Instead, they had circled the problem from a different angle.

The debate stretched late into the night more than once, looping over the same arguments until the tea in Namjoon's mug chilled to room temperature. Finally, Jiwon eased back in her chair with a soft sigh, her fingers drumming once against the worn wood as if the solution had stared them in the face all along.

“We’re ignoring the most useful thing we have,” she said.

Namjoon glanced at her. “You mean his scent.”

Jimin's head lifted sharply. “My what?”

Namjoon glanced toward Jimin before answering. “We’ve been trying not to rely on it too much.”

“Why?” Jiwon asked plainly. “It has proved more than once to be effective—Jimin even said he managed to calm Jeongguk down when he’d shifted by using it. So, why shouldn’t we try to harness it fully?”

Jimin had seen the calming effects of his scent on Jeongguk, sure, but their words framed it as something calculated, far removed from the instinctive moments he recalled.

“That’s not something I can just… turn on and off,” he said finally.

From across the table, Taehyung let out a low hum that instantly prickled Jimin's defenses. "Your scent never turns off, Jimin."

Jimin’s eyes narrowed slightly as he opened his mouth to argue, but Yoongi spoke first from where he sat slouched against the counter, his voice quiet and maddeningly certain.

“It's gotten stronger lately.”

Jimin turned toward him. “What are you talking about?”

Yoongi lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Just saying.”

Taehyung propped himself on his elbows, the corner of his mouth curving with poorly concealed amusement.

“We noticed,” he said.

A faint heat crept up the back of Jimin’s neck. “Noticed what?”

Taehyung’s eyes flicked briefly toward Yoongi before returning to Jimin, the look in them suddenly a little too knowing.

“That you haven’t needed as much…assistance, lately.”

For a second Jimin simply stared at him, the pieces refusing to connect. Then clarity struck him, and the implication in Taehyung’s response suddenly made sense. Jimin’s face remained composed, but a faint flush crept up the back of his neck. 

“You two are not discussing that at this table,” Jimin said sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Hoseok's head jerked up. “Wait—hold on.” His eyes darted between Taehyung, Jimin, and Yoongi. “You mean you guys—”

Seokjin reclined in his seat, a gradual smirk spreading across his features. "Holy shit," he murmured, jabbing a finger their way. “I knew you two were freaks.”

Taehyung looked deeply offended. “Freaks? We’re just being responsible members of the pack.”

Yoongi didn’t even bother denying it. At the far end of the table, Jeongguk had gone completely still, and Jimin caught it right away. His gaze flicked to Jeongguk for a split second before snapping back, his words gaining a honed bite to slice through the rising chatter.

“The point,” Jimin interjected, “is whether it actually helps him control the shift.”

Namjoon nodded once, grateful for the redirection.

“It does,” he said. “Which means if we’re going to train him properly, we should use it intentionally, since it’s pretty much all we have to work off of right now.”

The room quieted again. Jimin exhaled slowly through his nose, still faintly irritated but no longer arguing against the premise.

“If you see it as the only way,” he said at last, “then we’ll use it.”

The reminder unsettled Jimin more than he liked to admit. It wasn’t as if he had forgotten his scent entirely. He had used it when it mattered—at the depot, in the chaos after Jeongguk’s first shift, when instinct had taken over and there hadn’t been time to think about what he was doing.

But those moments had been practical. Automatic.

Like everything else in this world, scent had become another tool—no different from a rifle, a bandage, or the steady voice he used to keep people from panicking. What he had forgotten was that it belonged to him.

Orange blossoms had once meant something. Now it lived somewhere in the background of survival, blurred into sweat, smoke, and the dust that clung to every ruined road they crossed. Whatever instinct once came with it had dulled over the years, buried beneath the steady demands of keeping the compound alive.

Until Jeongguk. He had a way of dragging things like that back into the light—things Jimin had buried so deeply he hadn’t even realized they were missing.

The memory pulled him back to those nights in the shed, when the fever had burned through Jeongguk’s barely conscious body and he had turned his face blindly toward Jimin, breathing in as if following something in the air.

After that, the cloths had appeared in the shed without comment. They were simply there—folded neatly with the rest of the supplies, replaced often enough that Jimin could pretend he was only checking inventory when he refreshed them. Jeongguk never made a show of it; he used them the way he used anything else that helped him endure—briefly, efficiently, without apology.

Tonight, though, his hands were empty.

“If I slow down, it slips,” Jeongguk muttered, pushing himself upright again, frustration flickering across his face before he pressed it down into something harder to read.

“Then let it slip,” Yoongi said from the edge of the ring, his tone even enough to be mistaken for indifference.

Jeongguk drew in a sharp breath through his teeth and tried again. The change stirred somewhere beneath his ribs and faltered just as quickly, leaving him standing there with his shoulders locked tight, fighting his own body harder than the shift itself.

No one spoke. The mood around the ring had sunk into something heavy and quiet. After a few moments, it was Jimin who exhaled softly through his nose. A small sound, almost a sigh.

“Maybe we called it too early,” he said, voice level, carrying easily across the ring. “You only got your strength back a few weeks ago.”

Jeongguk’s eyes snapped open. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.” Jimin tilted his head slightly, studying him in the thin wash of moonlight. “Just that ‘fine’ isn’t the same as ready.”

A faint crease formed between Jeongguk’s brows. “I am ready.”

“Then show it.”

Jeongguk inhaled hard through his nose and tried again, shoulders tightening as the shift gathered and slipped, gathered and slipped, like it refused to be cornered. 

Jimin watched the frustration build, watched the way Jeongguk fought himself harder than the change itself. He had to do this. Had to push harder than either of them liked. If Jeongguk couldn’t control when the shift came, then he was a danger whether anyone wanted to admit it or not. And Jimin didn’t want that to be true. More than anything, he wanted to be wrong. 

“You’re stalling—or maybe just not pushing hard enough—and it’s so painfully obvious.”

Jeongguk’s jaw flexed. “I’m trying to get it right.”

“Yeah?” Jimin let out a sharp scoff, his boots crunching softly as he shifted closer to the alpha. “From where I’m standing, it seems like you’re just getting in your own way.”

Silence thickened the air between them. Frost snapped under restless shifts of weight. Jimin crossed his arms over his chest.

“I was starting to think,” he went on, almost conversationally, “that once you got this under control, I could finally follow the rest of the pack.”

Jeongguk went rigid.

“Follow them?”

“In trusting you.” Jimin’s gaze didn’t waver. “Letting you guard our perimeters alone. Pairing you on supply routes without one of our guns pointed at your back. Relying on you if something actually goes wrong.”

The words tasted wrong even as he said them. Jeongguk had already dragged him back from death once. Jimin knew exactly what the man was capable of. But that wasn’t the point. Jeongguk needed pressure. If Jeongguk couldn’t reach the shift on his own, then something had to force it out of him.

A beat passed.

“But that only works if you can control it.”

Jeongguk’s posture straightened, defiant. “I can.”

“Can you?” He questioned, his voice dipping low and mocking.

“You lose it once,” Jimin continued, “and there’s no telling who you’ll take down with you. Namjoon? Me? Even yourself?”

“That isn’t—”

“And we’ve already seen what it looks like when you lose control, Jeongguk. I don’t know if we’ll be able to spare your life the next time you do.”

Every syllable landed with precision. Intent.

“The pack doesn't know if you will come back.”

Jeongguk’s breaths grew heavier, more ragged. Jimin inched toward the makeshift circle.

“And if you don’t,” he murmured, voice softening like a blade sheathed, “you’re no shield. You’re the threat.”

The yard felt very still, and wind slid through the fence wire with a thin metallic hum. Jeongguk stared at him like he’d misheard.

“I’m not a threat—”

Jimin didn’t look away. “But instinct doesn’t ask for permission, Jeongguk. There’s simply no guarantee that you aren’t one.”

The quiet dragged, sharp as a fresh cut.

“What happens if you shift at the wrong moment,” Jimin said quietly, “and the closest person to you is me? Or one of the pups?”

A flicker of raw hurt sliced across Jeongguk’s face. One that told Jimin clear as day that the alpha felt betrayed. Jimin knew he’d have to do damage control later—patch up the wounds with truths and apologies—but right now, he needed Jeongguk furious. He needed to shove him to the brink, force that inner wolf to claw its way forward under pressure, so they could map out how to rein it in before it tore everything apart.

“No,” he snapped immediately.

But Jimin didn’t stop. His voice dropped even lower, threading steel through the quiet. “You say that like it’s enough.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Like wanting it badly enough keeps it from happening. You and I both know that it doesn’t.”

“I would never hurt you.”

The conviction in it was immediate, almost offended, but Jimin didn’t soften.

“We’ve already seen what happens when you lose control,” he said.

Jeongguk shook his head once, a sharp movement that sent damp strands of hair falling back into his eyes.

“That was different.”

“Was it?”

The question lingered between them. Jimin stepped forward then, crossing the thin line of frost that marked the edge of the training ring. The ground cracked faintly beneath his boots as he closed the distance, stopping just a few feet away.

“You think I don’t fight it every damn second?” Jeongguk’s fists clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening against the chill. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, the frost-kissed air fogging faintly with each exhale. “That I want to hurt you—to hurt any of you?”

Jimin watched the shift gathering beneath the surface—not visible yet, but there in the tightening of muscle, in the restless tension running through Jeongguk’s frame like a wire pulled too tight.

“I think you’re stronger than this,” he said.

Jeongguk’s gaze snapped back to him.

“But strength doesn’t mean much,” Jimin continued, his voice quieter now as he took another step closer, “if it fails the moment we need it.”

The alpha’s eyes darkened, pupils dilating as a low growl rumbled from deep in his throat—not fully animal, but edging there. His scent sharpened, mingling with the crisp night air. Jimin held his ground, his own pulse quickening, aware of how his presence—his steady, calming aura—hovered just out of reach, a deliberate tease to draw out the chaos.

“You’re pushing me,” Jeongguk rasped, voice thick with the strain of holding back. “Why? So you can prove that you were right about me? That I’m some kind of monster?”

“To prove you’re not,” Jimin countered, his gaze locking onto Jeongguk’s with unblinking intensity. He stopped just short of arm’s reach now, close enough to feel the heat coming off Jeongguk’s body despite the winter air.

“Show me you can ride the edge without falling over. That I can trust you to be exactly what this pack needs.” Jimin could only stare into the alpha’s eyes, hopeful that what he couldn’t say out loud would still be conveyed.

‘Please, Jeongguk. Don’t make me regret trusting you.’

Jeongguk’s body trembled, muscles coiling like a spring wound too tight. The air between them crackled, heavier now, laced with the faint metallic tang of the fence and the underlying musk of rising adrenaline. Jimin could sense it building—the shift hovering just beneath the surface, waiting for that final shove.

One more step. One more push.

“Fail me now,” Jimin whispered, the words barely carrying on the wind, “and everything we’ve been building ends here.”

Jeongguk’s eyes widened. For a split second he looked almost stunned, blinking rapidly like he was trying to clear something from them before his expression hardened again.

“Starting with my faith in you.”

The words hung in the frosty air, and Jimin watched as they seemed to strike Jeongguk like a physical blow. The alpha’s face twisted, a flicker of raw emotion cracking through the mask Jimin knew he'd been holding so tightly. Jeongguk's chest heaved once, sharply, as if the breath had been punched out of him. He opened his mouth, maybe to argue or deny it, but all that came out was a ragged exhale.

Jimin's own heart pounded in sympathy, his gaze locked on Jeongguk's straining form. He could see the internal battle raging—shoulders tensing, fists clenching at his sides as if fighting to hold himself together. But the strain was winning. Jeongguk's breaths came faster now, heavier, each one pulling in with a desperation that echoed in the quiet night. His eyes darted wildly, pupils dilating as sweat beaded on his forehead despite the chill.

"Jeongguk," Jimin murmured, stepping closer, but his voice felt distant even to his own ears. He wanted to reach out, to steady him, but something in Jeongguk's fracturing composure held him back.

The distress built like a storm, Jeongguk's body trembling now, knees buckling slightly under the weight of whatever war was tearing him apart inside. A low, pained groan escaped his lips, and his hands flew to his head, fingers digging into his hair as if he could claw the turmoil away. His breathing turned erratic, gasps turning into labored pants that misted the air in frantic bursts. Jimin felt a chill race down his spine—not from the cold, but from the raw agony playing out before him.

Then, with a final, shuddering inhale that rattled through his frame, Jeongguk crumpled. His legs gave out completely, body folding to the frost-hardened earth in a heap of twitching limbs and torn resolve. He curled in on himself for a heartbeat, a guttural sound building in his throat, before the change finally broke loose.

It started all at once and nowhere at the same time—a violent ripple tearing through Jeongguk’s body as if something inside him had simply decided it had waited long enough. His back arched sharply from the ground, the movement so sudden it looked like it had been yanked out of him by invisible hands. The sound that followed was unmistakable.

Bone.

A sharp crack split the night, followed by another, and another, each one loud enough that Jimin felt the impact of it somewhere deep in his own chest. The noise reverberated through him, a visceral punch that made his stomach twist. 

Jeongguk’s fingers clawed into the frost-hardened earth as the shift tore through him. His shoulders jerked violently, muscles pulling and bunching beneath the fabric of his shirt until the seams finally gave way with a harsh ripping sound. Jimin flinched at the tear, the rawness of it hitting him like a slap—Jeongguk's shirt splitting open, exposing skin that stretched and reformed in ways that defied everything Jimin thought he knew about the body.

He'd seen transformations before—on television, in movies, in the safe distance of fiction where special effects softened the reality of it. Nothing in those rehearsed images prepared him for the brutality of watching a human body remake itself in real time, especially not one belonging to someone he cared about. The metallic tang of fear crept into his mouth, his pulse thundering in his ears as he fought the urge to step back.

Another crack echoed through the yard as Jeongguk’s spine twisted, the movement forcing a strained, animal sound from deep in his throat. It was a whine, almost, laced with pain that clawed at Jimin's chest. For a split second, Jimin almost looked away, the horror of it too much to bear.

He didn’t.

Jimin could at least witness it. He owed Jeongguk that much—standing there in the biting cold, fists balled at his sides, forcing himself to stay rooted as the world narrowed to the writhing form before him.

The ground trembled faintly beneath Jeongguk’s shifting weight as his frame contorted again, the violent reshaping of bone and muscle forcing his body lower toward the earth. Fabric tore further with each movement, the remains of his shirt splitting open along his shoulders as the structure of him changed beneath it. Jimin could hear the faint swish of rifles adjusting behind him, Seokjin's quiet curse cutting through the chaos like a knife, but it all blurred into the background. His focus was Jeongguk—only Jeongguk—the way his body buckled and reformed, the air thick with the scent of sweat and frost and something wilder, primal.

This didn’t look controlled. The thought sliced through Jimin's mind, sharp and unbidden, igniting a fear that wasn't for himself but for the man losing himself in front of him. Jeongguk's groans morphed into deeper growls, his limbs elongating with sickening pops, fingers curling into paws that dug furrows into the dirt.

The final cracks came slower this time, deeper, the violence of it settling into something heavier as the transformation resolved itself piece by piece. The sharp contortions that had wracked Jeongguk’s body gave way to a different kind of motion—lower, more controlled—as his frame folded toward the ground and reformed into something built to carry weight instead of resist it. Fur spread along his spine in a dark ripple, catching faintly in the moonlight where torn fabric still clung uselessly to what remained of his human shape.

Jimin's breath caught as the last echoes faded, the crouched figure in the churned dirt bearing no resemblance to the man who had stood there moments before. It was massive, powerful, a wolf with eyes that gleamed with an intelligence that sent a shiver racing across his skin.

For a second, it didn’t move. The silence stretched, taut and electric, Jimin's heart slamming against his ribs as he waited, every sense heightened—the crunch of frost under distant boots, the faint metallic click of weapons, the heavy pants of the beast filling the void.

Then its head lifted. The motion was slow, and it was that more than anything else that made the tension spike in Jimin's gut. The chaos of the shift was gone; what replaced it was awareness. Its breath rolled out in steady clouds, each exhale measured, controlled in a way that felt far more dangerous than the panic that had come before. As its gaze swept across the yard, Jimin felt the air shift, the others behind him tensing—boots grinding softly into frost, the faint, familiar shift of metal being raised and steadied, all of it happening without a word.

The wolf’s attention caught on the movement immediately, its ears flicking forward, body coiling with predatory grace. A deep, rolling growl built in its chest, vibrating through the frozen ground and into Jimin's bones. Its lips peeled back from sharp fangs, a snarl ripping free as it snapped toward the line of figures behind Jimin—the rifles snapping up in unison, the sharp clack of bolts and safeties echoing like thunder in the night. Seokjin's curse cut through the chaos again, sharper this time, laced with disbelief.

"Holy shit, that's... that's him?"

Namjoon's voice followed, low and awed, almost drowned by the rising growl. "Look at the size of it—Jesus, Jeongguk..."

The wolf lunged forward a step, jaws working in empty air—another vicious snap aimed at the men in the shadows, their weapons held steady. It didn't recognize them, Jimin realized with a sick lurch—eyes wild and unfocused, locked on threats it couldn't place, hackles bristling as it paced a tight circle in the dirt, muscles rippling under the dark fur. The air thickened with the scent of fear, human and animal mingling, the rifles' barrels glinting coldly in the moonlight as fingers hovered over triggers. One wrong move, one twitch, and the night would erupt in gunfire.

Jimin's mind raced, a whirlwind of horror and resolve churning inside him. He couldn't let this end in violence, not after everything. The growls deepened as the wolf's gaze swept back toward the armed line, body low and ready to pounce. Tension coiled like a spring about to snap, the yard holding its collective breath on the knife's edge of disaster.

Whatever came next, he wouldn't back down. Not now.

Jimin moved before the moment could tip the wrong way. The crunch of frost beneath his boots sounded louder than it should have as he stepped forward, and he was aware, distantly, of Namjoon’s voice starting behind him, low and cautioning, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t rush either, keeping his pace even, his posture loose, the same way he would have approached Jeongguk on any other night, as if the difference between man and wolf wasn’t enough to justify hesitation.

His hand slipped into his pocket, fingers closing around the small cloth he'd tucked there earlier—saturated with his own scent, a desperate gambit born from half-remembered stories and sheer will. The wolf's head whipped toward him at the movement, that piercing amber stare pinning him in place, the growl faltering into a wary rumble. Jimin pulled the cloth free, holding it out palm-up, letting the faint, familiar aroma cut through the sharp tang of aggression hanging in the air.

The scent came without effort this time—warm, familiar, laced with the earthy undertone of Jeongguk's presence, now amplified by the wildness of the shift. Jimin let it fill his lungs, using it to steady his nerves as he closed the distance, his eyes locked on those glowing amber ones. The wolf's hackles rose slightly, a low rumble vibrating through the air, but Jimin pressed on, his voice soft and unwavering.

"It's me, Jeongguk. I'm here."

The wolf's rumble softened just a fraction at Jimin's voice, its massive head tilting slightly as if testing the air, the amber eyes narrowing on the cloth extended in his hand. Jimin held his breath, the world narrowing to the space between them—the faint warmth of his own scent drifting forward like a fragile bridge. Behind him, the tension hadn't eased; the rifles remained trained, breaths held in a collective hush, the night thick with the promise of violence.

Then, a boot crunched on the frost to Jimin's left. Too close. Too sudden.

Taehyung.

Jimin didn't need to turn to know it was him—the familiar weight of his presence, the way he always moved with that quiet intensity, stepping up as if to shield or support. But in this moment, with the wolf's hackles still half-raised and its body coiled like a spring, it was the worst possible timing. Taehyung's hand brushed Jimin's arm, light but insistent, his voice low and urgent in Jimin's ear. 

"Jimin, get back. This isn't—"

The wolf's reaction was instantaneous. A deep, guttural growl erupted from its chest, the sound rolling like thunder across the yard, vibrating through the ground and up into Jimin's legs. Its lips curled back fully now, fangs bared in a savage snarl as its gaze locked onto Taehyung with feral intensity. The massive body shifted, paws digging into the churned earth, muscles bunching as it took a deliberate step forward—closing the distance with predatory focus.

Jimin's pulse spiked, a cold sweat breaking out along his spine. The cloth trembled slightly in his grip, but he kept it held out, his free hand shooting out to press against Taehyung's chest, shoving him back with more force than he'd intended. "Tae, no—stay back!" His voice came out sharper than he meant, edged with panic as he positioned himself between them, body tense and ready to move if the wolf lunged.

Taehyung stumbled a half-step, surprise flashing across his face, but he didn't retreat fully, his eyes flicking between Jimin and the advancing beast. "What the hell are you doing? It's not safe—"

Another snap cut him off, the wolf's jaws working viciously in the air, inches closer now, its breath hot and ragged as it prowled forward. The growl deepened, a warning that built into something primal, hackles fully raised along its spine. Jimin could see the wildness in those eyes—unfocused, driven by instinct rather than recognition, treating Taehyung as nothing more than a threat encroaching on what it perceived as its territory. Or maybe... Jimin.

The rifles behind them shifted with faint metallic clicks, the line of men tensing further, Seokjin's earlier curse echoing in Jimin's mind as the air grew heavier, charged with the sense of impending chaos. Namjoon's voice murmured something low to the others, a steadying command, but it barely registered over the pounding in Jimin's ears.

"Taehyung, back off—now," Jimin hissed, his shove turning into a firm push, forcing Taehyung to yield ground. He didn't look away from the wolf, didn't dare break the fragile eye contact, the cloth still held out like a lifeline. His heart hammered, every nerve alight with the razor-thin balance of the moment—the beast so close he could feel the heat radiating from its fur, the snap of its jaws a breath away from turning real. One more step from Taehyung, one twitch from the wolf, and everything would shatter.

The wolf paused, its massive frame quivering with restrained power, the growl vibrating low and continuous as it eyed the retreating figure behind Jimin. Jimin swallowed hard, willing his voice to stay even as he extended the cloth a fraction closer. "Easy, Jeongguk. It's just us. Focus on me."

The tension hung like a blade, the night poised on the brink of eruption, every second stretching into eternity as Jimin stood his ground, caught between the man he trusted and the beast that might not remember why.

Then, the wolf moved. Not in a lunge, but in a slow, deliberate creep, its massive paws pressing into the frozen ground with barely a sound, closing the gap until its hot breath washed over Jimin's outstretched hand. The cloth dangled there, inches from those flared nostrils, and the beast inhaled deeply—once, twice—its chest expanding with a rumble that vibrated through the air. The growl ebbed just a touch, curiosity flickering in those amber depths as the scent of orange blossoms curled into its senses, familiar yet distant, pulling at something buried deep.

Jimin didn't pull back—he couldn't. His arm trembled faintly, but he held steady, whispering low and soothing, words meant only for Jeongguk. "That's it... come on, it's me. You know this smell. Remember." 

The wolf's head lowered further, snout brushing the fabric, nostrils flaring wider as it drew in more, the massive body towering now, shoulders level with Jimin's chest, its muzzle rising to align with his face. Up close, the sheer size hit Jimin like a wall—the wolf stood nearly as tall as him on all fours, its head reaching his neck when it straightened, fur bristling thick and wild under the moonlight.

Emboldened by the tentative sniff, Jimin eased the cloth aside just a fraction, his voice dropping to a murmur. "Jeongguk... easy now." But the beast pressed closer still, its jaws parting slowly, revealing rows of fangs that gleamed wickedly—long, curved incisors that could rend flesh in an instant, canines thick as Jimin's fingers, all framed by a maw that exhaled in ragged huffs. The wolf's tongue flicked out briefly, testing the air, and then its head tilted, muzzle grazing along Jimin's jawline, those teeth skimming the skin of his neck in a light, accidental scrape that sent a jolt of ice through his veins.

The graze was feather-light, barely breaking the surface, but it was enough—too much. Behind him, the sharp click of rifles cocking shattered the fragile quiet, Yoongi's voice a hissed curse under his breath, Hoseok's grip tightening on his weapon as they surged forward a step, barrels trained unerringly on the wolf's flank. 

"Jimin—move!" Hoseok barked, his tone laced with urgency, the metallic snicks echoing like warnings in the night.

Jimin's free hand shot up behind him without looking, palm out flat and firm—a silent command that cut through the rising panic. "Hold! Don't shoot," he said, voice steady despite the fear clawing at his throat, the wolf's breath hot against his pulse point. He could feel the pack's hesitation, the weight of their eyes boring into his back, but they froze, rifles hovering, the air thickening with their restrained fury.

The wolf didn't retreat. If anything, it leaned in more, jaws still parted, those massive teeth hovering perilously close to Jimin's throat as it sniffed deeper, following the trail straight from the cloth to the source. Jimin's heart thundered, every instinct screaming to shove the beast away, to run, but he forced himself still, whispering on. 

"Yeah, that's me. Orange blossoms... you always said it reminded you of home. Come back to us, Jeongguk. Don’t do anything stupid."

‘This is insane,’ Jimin thought, the words looping wildly in his mind as adrenaline surged like fire in his blood. Baring his neck to those jaws, feeling the scrape of teeth that could end him in a heartbeat—it was madness, pure and unfiltered. How had it come to this? Months ago, he'd stumbled upon Jeongguk at that rundown gas station on the outskirts of nowhere, a shivering stray with haunted eyes and a scent that tugged at something primal in Jimin. He'd thought it a stroke of luck, maybe even fate, pulling the kid into their fold without a second thought. 

Never in a million years had he imagined this—risking his own life, dragging his entire pack into the crosshairs, all to spare a beast that might tear them apart. Namjoon's half-joking speculations back then—whispered over late-night fires about Jeongguk being damn near a miracle, some rare throwback with control that defied the curse—echoed now like a cruel prophecy. 

Was this the proof, or just the prelude to slaughter? One wrong move, one bullet from the pack, and Jeongguk would be lost forever—torn apart before he could even fight back. Or worse, the wolf would turn on them all, ripping through flesh and bone in a frenzy that spared no one, not even Jimin. He shoved the doubt down, focusing on the wolf's searching gaze. No choice. Recognition was the only path, the only way to pull them all from the brink.

So he tilted his head, just barely—a subtle arch of his neck exposing the line of his throat, the scent of orange blossoms rising warm and unfiltered from his skin. The wolf's nostrils flared against him, inhaling deeply, its growl softening to a low vibration that hummed along Jimin's collarbone. Those eyes, wild and searching, locked onto his, holding there as if sifting through the haze of instinct for a spark of memory. Jimin didn't breathe, didn't blink, the world reduced to the press of fur and fang, the fragile thread of trust hanging by the thinnest margin.

A flicker—barely there, like embers stirring in ash. The wolf's ear twitched, the massive chest rising and falling in rhythm with Jimin's own shallow pulls of air. Then, recognition ignited fiercely, flooding those amber depths with a clarity that pierced straight to Jimin's core. No words passed between them, none needed—the wolf simply knew him, a certainty that bloomed unbidden in Jimin's chest as an odd tingling sensation, warm and insistent, like invisible threads pulling taut. 

It was as if he could almost feel the shape of Jeongguk's thoughts brushing his own—relief, fierce protectiveness, a raw edge of need that mirrored the ache Jimin had buried deep. What the hell was that? Nerves, he told himself, the cold seeping into his bones playing tricks, or maybe the adrenaline spiking wild. He shoved it down, refusing to name the pull, the way it hinted at something more than survival tying them here in the frost.

Their breaths tangled in the frigid night, hot gusts from the wolf's maw mingling with Jimin's cooler exhales, forming fleeting clouds that danced between them under the stark lamp glow. The air bit sharp at his exposed skin, but the wolf's radiating warmth chased it away, a primal heat that seeped through his jacket, stirring that tingling anew—deeper now, coiling like a secret he wasn't ready to uncover.

Heart hammering, Jimin raised his hand, the tremor in his fingers now a full quiver he couldn't ignore, born of terror and that unnamed want to anchor Jeongguk back to himself. He cupped the broad muzzle, palm pressing into the silken-black fur, feeling the subtle pulse beneath—life, raw and thrumming. The wolf didn't pull away—instead, it leaned fractionally into the contact, a low rumble vibrating up Jimin's arm like a confession, the tingling flaring brighter in response, as if echoing the beast's quiet acceptance. Coarse strands slid against his skin, warm and alive, carrying the faint, wild musk of earth and pine that clung to Jeongguk like a signature.

Behind him, the pack shifted uneasily—Seokjin's curse hissed underbreath, Taehyung's grip tightening on his rifle, the metallic clicks echoing like accusations. 'Jimin, get back,' someone murmured, voice taut, but Jimin held firm, his world narrowed to this bridge of flesh and scent, the strange hum in his chest urging him to stay.

The wolf held his gaze a second longer, that intelligent stare stripping away the barriers, before it withdrew with deliberate grace. Heavy pants clouded the air as it padded backward, paws leaving shallow imprints in the frozen ground, retreating to the ring's shadows. It sank onto its haunches, body a coiled statue of power—flanks heaving, tail curling low—but those eyes roamed the group ceaselessly, assessing, guarding, lingering on Jimin with a weight that sent another faint tingle rippling through him.

Under the harsh pool of light,the transformation's horror faded into something breathtaking. No longer a shadow of ruin—that blood-smeared nightmare in the woods all those weeks ago. Still terrifying in its sheer power—the broad shoulders, the jaws that could rend steel, the claws etching silent warnings into the earth—but gorgeous now, unmarred. 

The black coat gleamed like liquid night, thick strands flowing in the winter wind that whipped through the clearing, catching the lamp and moonlight in subtle sheens of midnight blue where the frost dusted the tips. No gore to dull it—this was Jeongguk, raw and unbroken, and the thought alone made that chest sensation twist sharper, demanding acknowledgment Jimin wasn't prepared to give.

The crunch of boots again broke the spell. Namjoon drew near, his hand clamping Jimin's shoulder with a firm squeeze, fingers steadying as they gripped—a silent anchor amid the lingering chaos. His breath came out in a ragged whisper, eyes locked on the wolf with a reverence that bordered on worship, tracing every ripple of muscle and glint of fang like a man beholding a god forged from nightmares. 

“God, Jimin... look at him,” Namjoon murmured, voice cracking under the weight of awe, thick and hushed as if speaking louder might shatter the moment. “So, so... magnificent. Like he's carved from the wild itself, holding back the storm just for us.” He glanced at Jimin then, dark eyes flickering with quiet acknowledgment, the corner of his mouth lifting in a brief, grateful nod before his gaze returned to the wolf, unwilling to break the spell.

Jimin swallowed, the shake in his hand fading as he lowered it, orange blossom scent clinging to his skin like a talisman. The rifles eased down, barrels dipping toward the ground, but the air hummed with wariness. Jeongguk's stare settled back on him alone, a silent vow amid the winter's bite—I'm here, but not safe yet. And in that look, the tingling lingered, a quiet insistence Jimin ignored, chalking it up to the night's madness even as it whispered of bonds he couldn't yet face.

The fragile hush shattered as Jiwon pushed forward from the pack, her boots crunching through the thin crust of ice, breath fogging in sharp bursts. Her face twisted with concern, eyes darting between the wolf's coiled form and the scattered remnants of Jeongguk's shredded clothes littering the ground like fallen leaves. 

“We can't leave him like this,” she said, voice pitching urgent over the wind's low moan. “The sedation—it worked before. We dose him again, ease him back before the shift locks in. What if he can't reverse it on his own? Or worse, it tears him apart trying without the buffer?” She rummaged in her pack, fingers closing around a syringe glinting under the lamp's harsh beam, stepping closer with the determination of someone who'd patched too many wounds in the wild.

The wolf's head snapped up, ears flattening against its skull, a deep rumble building in its throat that vibrated through the frozen earth. Hackles rose along its spine, the black fur bristling like quills, and it shifted its weight forward, paws digging in with a scrape that sent pebbles skittering. Those amber eyes narrowed, locking on Jiwon with a feral warning, lips curling back to bare fangs that gleamed wet and lethal in the cold light.

Jimin lunged between them without thinking, arms outflung, his body a barrier against the rising threat. 

“No,” he snapped, the word slicing through the tension like a blade, his pulse thundering in his ears. "We won't sedate him again. Not now, not like this. We're scraping by on fumes as it is—supplies won't last if we burn through them every time he slips. We find another way, build trust, pull him back ourselves.” His voice held steady, but inside, doubt clawed at him, the memory of Jeongguk's earlier agony flashing vivid—bones grinding, skin splitting. What if Jiwon was right? What if pushing him tore something irreparable?

The wolf's growl deepened, echoing off the ring's metal walls, its massive frame tensing as if coiled to spring. It paced a tight line now, back and forth along the shadowed perimeter, claws scoring the cold-packed earth in a steady rhythm, each pass lifting faint puffs of frost into the air. Snuffles escaped its muzzle, nostrils flaring wide as it scented the air—uncertain, agitated, the beast wrestling with the man trapped inside. Jeongguk's uncertainty mirrored in every hesitant step, the powerful shoulders rolling with restrained power, tail lashing low and erratic.

“Everyone get back!” Jimin barked, not turning, his gaze fixed on the wolf as he waved the pack off with a sharp gesture. 

Boots scraped in retreat—Namjoon's hand lingering on his arm a beat too long before pulling away, Seokjin's mutter lost to the wind, the rifles lifting halfway again in wary arcs. The space cleared, leaving Jimin alone in the lamplight's pool, the cold seeping deeper into his bones now that the wolf's warmth was gone.

“Hey, it's just me, okay?” Jimin murmured, keeping his tone low and even, like coaxing a spooked horse through a storm. “Jeongguk, you hear me? Come on you big mutt, fight it. You've got this—we've got you.”

But the words hung unanswered, the wolf's pacing unbroken, its head dipping to huff at the ground before whipping back toward him with a soft, confused whine threading through the growl. It didn't lunge, didn't bare teeth fully, but the incomprehension in those eyes twisted something in Jimin's gut—Jeongguk was there, buried under layers of instinct, but not close enough to grasp the plea.

Swallowing hard against the knot in his throat, Jimin inched forward, palms open and empty, the orange blossom trace on his skin a faint lure in the biting air. One step, then another, his breath syncing with the wolf's heavy pants, watching for the twitch of muscle that might signal attack. The beast paused mid-stride, ears perking fractionally, sniffing the space between them as if testing the invisible bridge. Jimin held still, heart slamming against his ribs, that damn tingling flickering back to life in his chest—a pull, insistent and wordless, urging him onward even as fear screamed to bolt. 

“That's it,” he whispered, easing nearer, fingers itching to reach out again, to bridge the gap before the agitation boiled over.

The wolf's ears twitched at Jimin's whisper, its massive head tilting slightly, but the pacing resumed—a restless circuit that carved shallow grooves in the frost-dusted dirt. Jimin froze mid-step, the cold gnawing at his fingertips, that insistent pull in his chest warring with the rawness of fear. He couldn't push further, not yet—the wolf’s agitation was a live wire, sparking too close to explosion. But the moment hung fragile, the other’s murmurs swelling behind him like a gathering storm. 

“Jimin, this is too dangerous,” Namjoon called in a gravelly voice, stepping forward despite the earlier retreat. 

“He's not listening—look at him. We’ll stay and back you up.” Seokjin nodded sharply, rifle slung but grip tight, while Hoseok shifted uneasily, eyes flicking between the wolf and the fence. Taehyung hovered closest, jaw set, as if ready to vault the barrier himself.

“No,” Jimin shot back, not breaking eye contact with the wolf, his tone brooking no argument. “Out—all of you. Give us space, or you'll spook him worse.” The wolf's head tilted, a soft huff escaping its muzzle, as if echoing the command in its own wary way.

Objections erupted—Jiwon's sharp intake, Yoongi's muttered curse, the scrape of boots as they pressed closer. “You, alone with him?” Taehyung demanded, voice cracking. “What if he turns on you? We can't just—”

“We can, and we will,” Jimin interrupted, whirling to face them, his breath clouding in the chill. “Trust me on this, or we're back to square one—sedation, cages, the whole mess. If dawn hits and he's still locked like this, I'll take him into the woods myself. Lead him out, give him the dose, let him shift without an audience. But not here, not now. Go.” His words landed heavy, laced with the weight of exhaustion and resolve, the pack's faces a mosaic of reluctance and defeat.

Namjoon held his gaze longest, something unspoken passing between them—gratitude tangled with worry—before nodding once. “Dawn, then. No later.” 

The others grumbled but complied, Jiwon hesitating at the gate, her hand extended with the syringe and vial clutched tight. “Take these,” she said, voice low and insistent. “Just in case. And, Jimin... be careful.” 

He pocketed them without a word, the cold metal a stark reminder pressing against his thigh as the gate clanged shut behind them, footsteps fading into the night's hush.

Alone now, truly alone, Jimin sank back against the nearest fencepost, the rough wood digging into his spine like an anchor. The lamp's glow cast long shadows across the ring, turning the frost-kissed ground into a silvered expanse. He fixed his eyes on the wolf—Jeongguk—curled in the far corner, those piercing eyes never straying from him. 

Hours stretched, marked only by the wind's sigh and the occasional creak of settling ice. Jeongguk didn't settle; he shifted restlessly, rising to pace the perimeter in tight circuits, massive paws thudding softly, claws etching faint lines in the dirt. Grunts rumbled from his chest, interspersed with whines that twisted like knives—high and plaintive, betraying the discomfort roiling beneath the fur. He shook his head, muzzle wrinkling as if the form chafed, too tight, too wild for the man inside.

Guilt coiled in Jimin's gut, heavy and unrelenting, as the night deepened. He shouldn't have pushed—even if he was going solely off of some odd surge of blind faith in a bond he couldn't name. Regret gnawed at him, sharp as the cold seeping through his coat. It had been years since this ache, this bone-deep remorse for someone beyond his sisters—Nabi's fevered nights, Minji's fragile coughs echoing in empty rooms. But here it surged again, twisted toward Jeongguk, this stranger who'd crashed into their lives like a storm. Anxiety prickled under his skin, unfamiliar and insistent. What if the shift trapped him forever? What if the pain broke him beyond repair this time? Jimin rubbed his chest absently, the tingling there a mocking echo, as if his body knew something his mind refused.

Jeongguk stilled mid-pace, nostrils flaring, head snapping toward Jimin with uncanny precision. As if sensing the shift in his scent, the turmoil bleeding into the air, the wolf stalked forward in agitated strides that stirred the dirt. Hackles half-raised, he closed the distance, a low whine threading through his breaths, but no snap of teeth, no lunge. He halted beside Jimin, towering bulk casting a shadow that swallowed the lamplight, then lowered himself with a heavy thud, folding onto his haunches before stretching out along the ground. His head rested inches from Jimin's knee, amber eyes locked upward, unwavering, a silent vigil amid the discomfort evident in every twitch of his ears, every subtle shift of his frame.

Jimin's lips quirked despite the tension, a bubble of something like amusement rising through the worry. Even like this—fangs bared in the lamp light, body a coiled spring of lethal grace—Jeongguk struck him as an oversized pup, all restless energy and unspoken need. Just like in human form: skittish glances, hesitant touches, that quiet vulnerability peeking through the walls. The wolf's warmth seeped into the space between them, chasing the chill, and Jimin's eyelids grew heavy, the night's vigil blurring at the edges. Without warning, sleep claimed him, head lolling against the post, breaths evening out in the fragile peace.

A sharp crack jolted him awake—bone on bone, grinding like splintering wood. Jimin surged to his feet, heart hammering, eyes flying to the center of the ring. Jeongguk writhed there, the wolf's form contorting in reverse: fur receding in patches to reveal sweat-slicked skin, limbs twisting with audible snaps as joints realigned. A guttural groan tore from his throat, raw and pained, body arching off the ground in spasms. The shift dragged on, slower this time, each pop and tear echoing in the still air, but the screams didn't come—only labored gasps, the wolf's muzzle elongating then flattening to human features, black hair matted across his forehead.

Finally, it ended. Jeongguk collapsed onto his side, naked and exposed, skin goose-pimpled in the biting cold, shivers rippling through his frame. But the tremors were milder, less violent than the first unraveling—no blood, no endless agony—just exhaustion etched in every line of his body, chest heaving as he curled inward.

Relief flooded Jimin, hot and dizzying, chasing away the night's shadows. “Shit—hold on,” he muttered, shrugging out of his jacket in a frantic yank, the fabric whispering as he draped it over Jeongguk's shoulders. It barely covered him, too small for the broad chest and long limbs, but it shielded the worst of the chill.

“Damn it, why didn't I think—should've grabbed a blanket, something. You're freezing.” He cursed himself again, kneeling closer, hands hovering uncertain as Jeongguk's eyes fluttered open, dazed but aware, locking onto him with that same quiet intensity.

Footsteps pounded from the sidelines—Taehyung, bursting through the gate he'd cracked open from the porch steps where he'd lingered, a watchful silhouette against the cabin's faint glow. 

“Jimin! He's—oh, thank god.” He skidded to a halt, eyes wide on the scene, then darted forward, shedding his own coat mid-stride to layer it over Jeongguk's form. 

Taehyung's footsteps crunched closer, his breath puffing out in visible bursts as he dropped to one knee beside them, the extra coat clutched in his fists. Jimin glanced up, not a flicker of surprise crossing his face. Of course Taehyung had stayed put on the porch, eyes glued to the ring like a sentinel. He had asked for space, but that meant nothing when it came to his best friend's unwavering protectiveness—safety always trumped privacy, no matter how many times Jimin rolled his eyes at it.

"I got it," Taehyung murmured, draping the thicker layer over Jeongguk's shivering form, his hands steady despite the tension etching his features. "Med kit's right here, but... look at him."

Jimin followed his gaze, heart still thudding from the shift's echoes. Jeongguk lay curled under the makeshift coverings, groans rumbling low in his chest as his body worked through the aftermath. But this time, the damage was contained—faint red lines marred his skin where tears had split open, seeping thin trails of blood that already clotted and faded before their eyes. Muscles knit together with unnatural speed, bruises blooming then dissolving like mist under sunlight, the alpha's frame mending in real time. Jimin's breath caught, awe tightening his throat as he watched a gash on Jeongguk's shoulder seal shut, skin smoothing over without a trace.

"No kit needed," Taehyung whispered, voice laced with wonder, his fingers hovering but not touching. "He's... fixing himself. Faster than last time. How?"

Jimin shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away. The sight stirred something deep, a mix of relief and unease—Jeongguk's resilience laid bare, but at what cost? He reached out, careful fingers brushing the alpha's arm to check for fever, the skin already warming, pulse steadying beneath his touch.

Jeongguk stirred with a ragged exhale, eyes cracking open to meet Jimin's, hazy but sharpening. A faint nod, almost imperceptible, passed between them before the alpha pushed up on one elbow, wincing as the coats slipped. 

"Shed," he rasped, voice gravel-rough from disuse. "Not here."

"Yeah, come on," Jimin agreed, looping an arm under Jeongguk's for support, ignoring the alpha's weight as they staggered toward the gate. 

Taehyung flanked the other side, their steps synchronized in the pre-dawn hush, the ring's chill giving way to the path's softer earth. Jeongguk's bare feet dragged at first, then steadied, his grip firm on Jimin's shoulder. They eased him into the shed's dim interior, the door creaking shut behind them, sealing out the night's bite. Jimin flicked on the low lamp, its warm glow spilling over the cot and sparse furnishings. With a quick rummage in the drawer, he pulled out a pair of clean briefs, averting his eyes as he handed them over. 

"Here. Get these on—I'll call the others."

Jeongguk accepted them with a grunt, movements deliberate despite the lingering tremors, pulling the fabric up his legs and settling it into place. Dignity preserved, at least for now. Jimin stepped out to the porch, voice low as he signaled. 

"Jiwon, Namjoon—inside. He's stable."

They arrived swiftly, Jiwon's eyes widening as she crossed the threshold, med kit abandoned in her haste. Namjoon followed, his gaze sweeping over Jeongguk propped against the wall, already more composed, color returning to his cheeks.

"Holy shit," Jiwon breathed, dropping to a crouch beside the cot, her fingers probing gently at the fading marks on his arm. "Look at this. The tears are gone—completely sealed. I've never seen healing like that, not even in the old stories." Her voice trembled with reverence, awe softening the clinical tone she usually carried.

Namjoon hung back at first, but then leaned in close to Jimin, his voice dropping to urgent whispers as questions tumbled out in a rush. 

"What the hell happened out there after we left? Did he recognize more without all of our scents? How'd you stop the aggression—just from your scent alone? Was there a trigger, something you said? The control—he held it together without snapping. Do you think the  moon phase had a play in it, or was it you? How fast did the shift back start? Any signs of pain overload?"

Jimin's mind reeled, the barrage of questions hitting like stones, each one piling onto the guilt already churning in his gut. Stress clawed up his spine, making his responses stick in his throat. He couldn't answer most of it—not without reliving the cruelty of his words, the way he'd weaponized trust to force the break. 

"I... talked to him," he managed vaguely, eyes flicking to the floor. "The cloth helped. Scent calmed things." Another pause, the weight pressing heavier. "Dawn pulled him back, I think."

Namjoon's brow furrowed deeper, concern sharpening his gaze as he searched Jimin's face. "That's it? Jimin, you were out there alone with a full shift. Come on, details—"

But Jimin couldn't. Not now, with the alpha's hurt expression flashing in his mind, the doubt screaming that he'd crossed a line for the pack's sake—or his own fear. Overwhelmed, he pushed off the wall. "Later," he muttered, voice tight, and bolted for the door, the cool air outside a sharp relief as he vanished into the fading night.

The day blurred into avoidance. Jimin threw himself into chores—reinforcing the fences, scouting the treeline—anything to keep distance. Jeongguk slept through most of it, Jiwon and Hoseok taking turns at his side, monitoring vitals and murmuring encouragements. No one questioned the alpha's sudden collapse; to them, it was just another case of Jeongguk overdoing it, his stubborn drive wearing him down like it had a dozen times before. Plates clattered softly, laughter edged their concern, the pack weaving care into their routines without a hint of suspicion. 

"Rest up, you stubborn alpha," Hoseok chided from the shed's window, plate in hand.

In the past couple of weeks, they'd poured effort into making the space his own. Byungho and Daehyung had hauled in lumber one crisp morning, hammering together a full-sized bed that replaced the sagging cot—sturdy oak frame with a thick mattress stuffed with wool, a far cry from the makeshift setup Jeongguk had endured since arriving. They'd cut in a couple of windows, framing them with salvaged glass that caught the light just right, and installed an old-style fireplace in the corner, its stone hearth promising warmth against the encroaching winter. 

Jeongguk could've joined the farmhouse, shared meals around the long table, but he'd shaken his head, murmuring about being used to solitude after months in that very shed. The pack hadn't pushed; if anything, they'd nodded, respecting the walls he still kept up. Now, what had started as a holding cell felt like a tiny home, walls papered with faded maps and shelves lined with his few belongings—a worn knife, a stack of dog-eared books. It was a quiet declaration: he belonged here, woven into their fabric. To yank that security away now, after he'd just begun to settle, twisted something selfish in Jimin's chest, a knot of regret that tightened with every glance toward the shed.

Beyond that, Minseok and Mr. Park had rigged up the lookout in one of the tallest oaks, its perch wide enough for two, railed with rough-hewn planks that mimicked those old deer stands but scaled up for vigilance over the sprawling property. Jimin had claimed it that afternoon, hauling himself up the nailed-in steps until he could settle against the massive trunk, legs bent at the knees, the rifle's stock planted upright like a staff between them. The wood bit into his back through his coat, but he welcomed the discomfort, an anchor against the swirl in his mind. The sun dipped low, bleeding orange across the fields and barns, shadows stretching long as dusk crept in.

Movement stirred below—the shed door easing open, Jeongguk stepping out into the fading light. He moved with a deliberate grace, shoulders rolling as if testing the air, borrowed sweats hanging loose on his frame. Jimin's breath caught, eyes narrowing from his vantage. The alpha's gaze lifted almost immediately, cutting straight through the distance to lock on the perch. No hesitation, no scan of the horizon first. Just... knowing. 

Jimin's breathing stuttered, a flutter blooming in his ribs. He was a good fifty yards off, branches and leaves between them, yet Jeongguk had zeroed in like Jimin’s scent rode the breeze, faint orange blossoms threading through the crisp evening chill. Heat prickled Jimin's neck; he looked away sharply, pretending to study the treeline, the rifle's cool metal grounding his palms.

He hadn't anticipated this—recovery in hours, not days. The shift's toll should've lingered, bones aching, energy sapped. Jimin wasn't ready, words tangling in his throat before they could form. How to apologize for shattering that fragile trust, for wielding his faith like a blade? The younger's hurt eyes haunted him, an echo that made his stomach churn.

Footsteps crunched below, steady and unhurried. Jeongguk climbed without a word, boots scraping the steps, the perch creaking under his weight as he settled beside Jimin. A sigh escaped him, deep and easing, like the ache in his body finally relented with the seat. Silence stretched, thick as the gathering twilight, broken only by the distant call of a crow. Jimin swallowed, throat dry, mind racing for an opening—something soft, something true—but the words stuck, heavy and unspoken.

Jeongguk shifted, fishing a lighter from his pocket alongside a crumpled pack of INDIGO cigarettes, mango-flavored. Jimin's gaze dropped to it, a chuckle bubbling up unbidden, rough around the edges. The first time they'd crossed paths, months back at that derelict gas station, Jeongguk had clutched the same pack, fingers stained with travel dust, eyes wary but alive. A relic of that raw beginning, now tucked against the alpha's thigh.

The flick of the lighter cut the quiet, its flame dancing briefly before Jeongguk brought the cigarette to his lips. He took a long drag, smoke curling lazy from his mouth as he turned, dark eyes meeting Jimin's stare. “What?” Jimin muttered, voice scraping out hoarse—his first words since dawn, throat raw from the night's vigil.

Jeongguk shook his head, a subtle tilt, before facing the property again, the dying sun gilding the rooftops. Smoke trailed from his nostrils in a slow exhale, his mouth quirking into a faint smirk as he eyed the glowing tip between his fingers. “I forgot how mean you could be.”

Jimin's stomach plummeted, the words landing like a gut punch, stripping away the fragile peace of the moment. He stared at the horizon, where the sun was starting its slow bleed into the purple haze, but saw nothing beyond the echo of his own voice from the night before—sharp and cold. The perch felt smaller now, the space between them charged with unspoken barbs. His fingers flexed around the rifle, the metal warm from his grip, a reminder of the vigilance he'd clung to all day. How could he bridge this, mend what he'd cracked without unraveling further?

“I’m sorry, Jeongguk,” he murmured finally, the words tumbling out low and ragged, scraping against the knot in his throat.

Jeongguk's gaze flicked back to him, the smirk fading into something softer. He exhaled slowly, the smoke twisting upward in lazy spirals. “No, you did what was necessary. It just stung a little to hear, that’s all.”

Relief flickered in Jimin's veins, tentative and warm, but it tangled with the guilt that had rooted deep since dawn. He sighed, leaning the rifle against the trunk with a soft thud, the metal clinking faintly against bark. His shoulders sagged, the tension bleeding out just enough to breathe. 

“To tell the truth, I was hoping you’d forget.” 

And he had—truly wished the shift's haze had blurred those moments, spared them both the raw confrontation. The thought of Jeongguk carrying that hurt, replaying it in the quiet hours, gnawed at him like an old wound reopening.

“I remember a lot more than I did the first time I shifted,” Jeongguk said, voice steady, pulling Jimin's gaze back to him.

“What all do you remember?” Jimin asked, the question slipping free before he could cage it, curiosity warring with dread.

“Bits and pieces.” Jeongguk paused, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, the ember glowing faint orange against the twilight. “I remember you sitting there all night with me.”

Jimin's breath hitched, his gaze dropping to his hands—callused palms scarred from years of gripping rifles and reins, now clenched in his lap. The image flooded back into his mind— the chill seeping through his coat, the wolf's heavy breaths syncing with his own, that inexplicable pull holding him there through the dark hours. He'd willed Jeongguk through it, silent vigil laced with fear that the alpha might not emerge whole. Now, knowing he'd been seen, even in fragments, twisted the knife of his guilt deeper. 

Silence wrapped around them again, heavier now, and he searched for more words, but they lodged firm, an unyielding lump. Why was this so damn hard—to own the hurt he knew he’d likely inflicted on the alpha? Admitting the potential scar he'd left felt like carving into his own skin, exposing the fear that his care could twist into harm.

“Which is why,” Jeongguk continued after drawing another long drag, the ember flaring briefly in the dimming light, “I don’t care about what you said before. I’ve been here long enough to know how you operate, Park Jimin. I know you care about me.”

He pivoted then, body angling toward Jimin, and blew a stream of smoke right into his face—deliberate, teasing, the sweet mango tang curling in the air. Jimin blinked through the haze, a cough building but held back; he caught the glint in Jeongguk's eyes, the playful curve at the corner of his mouth. Months ago, that would have sparked fire in him, hand fisting the alpha's collar, pressing him back against the rough wood for the insolence. But tonight, exhaustion softened the edges, and he leaned into it instead, letting the lightness pierce his brooding fog.

Reaching down quickly, Jimin snatched the cigarette pack from Jeongguk's lax grip, the waxy paper crinkling under his fingers. “You know these are bad for you, right?” 

He turned it over, scanning the faded label, a grimace tugging his lips at the cartoonish mango splashed across the front. Of all the scavenged vices to hoard in this crumbling world, he’d chosen this? Forget any solid flavors—menthol, tobacco, anything remotely mature—Jeongguk had latched onto this sugary nonsense. It was so utterly him; defiant in the smallest ways, chasing whimsy amid the ruin. Jimin nearly scoffed, the sound caught in his throat, a mix of exasperation and that unwelcome fondness swelling again.

Jeongguk arched a brow, drawing deep on the cigarette, watching Jimin's reaction with quiet amusement. “We’re in an apocalypse, hyung. I’ll get killed by one of those damn howlers before these cigarettes get me.” A low chuckle rumbled from him, head shaking as if the very idea was ridiculous.

Jimin wasn't so convinced. Jeongguk carried that otherness like a shield—the rapid healing, the shift that bent the world's rules around him. He'd outlast the howlers, the pack, maybe even the wreckage of everything they'd lost. The certainty settled in Jimin's gut, bittersweet, a reminder of how deeply unshakable this alpha’s vitality was.

“Could’ve at least gotten an adult flavor. What are you, 19?” Jimin shot back, flicking the pack lightly against his palm, the tease slipping out lighter than he'd intended.

“This is all they had—believe it or not, people still wanted cigarettes after the world went to shit.” Jeongguk grabbed the pack from Jimin's hand, tucking it away, but he extended the burning cigarette between his index and middle fingers, holding it out like an olive branch. The smoke trailed invitingly, the offer clear in the tilt of his wrist. Jimin eyed it, the glowing tip inches from his nose, and shook his head. 

“No thanks, smoke your death stick by yourself.” He turned away pointedly as Jeongguk inched it closer, the sweet haze brushing his cheek, persistent and coaxing.

“God, just relax, hm? You of all people need to let loose for once.” Jeongguk's voice dipped, laced with that same playfulness.

The words pricked at him, stirring the embers of exhaustion Jimin had ignored all day. He leaned back against the trunk, the bark digging into his spine, and let his eyes drift to the horizon where the last sliver of sun bled into purple night. Relax—as if it were that simple.

Before he could fire back with something sharp to deflect the alpha’s prodding, the warm end of the cigarette nudged against his lower lip, insistent. It slid past his teeth, Jeongguk's fingers grazing the soft skin there—callused tips lingering just a beat too long, sending an unwelcome spark through him that had nothing to do with the heat of the ember.

Jimin's mind blanked for a split second, caught between outrage and the sheer audacity of it all. The alpha's grin widened, eyes crinkling with that infuriating mix of mischief and victory, as if he'd just claimed some small territory in their ongoing skirmish. Jimin's mind raced—he ought to shove Jeongguk's hand away, swat the hand back, reassert the line he'd drawn so carefully over months of guarded distance. He should. The impulse burned hot in his chest, a reflex honed from years of command and control.

But his body betrayed him, because he didn't pull back. Instead, his lips closed around the filter as he drew in a slow breath, the mango-laced smoke flooding his lungs with a familiar burn, sweet and cloying. No hacking cough rose up; he held it steady, exhaling through his nose in a thin stream that curled toward the darkening sky. It had been years since he'd let this vice in, but muscle memory took over—his body remembered the ritual too well, muscles relaxing into the haze despite himself. He'd indulge the idiot. Just this once.

Memories unspooled unbidden, pulling him back to those early days in uniform, when the world still made a twisted kind of sense. Back in those mandatory years, when the world still had borders and rules, stress had clawed at him relentlessly. Unprepared for the grind—the endless drills, the mud-slick nights—he'd turned to the small white sticks for escape. His senior, Kwon Joonkyung Soryeong, had spotted the tremor in his hands that first brutal evening, assigned to hunker in a tank like a bullet in its chamber. The older man's eyes had softened with something akin to sympathy as he pressed a menthol into Jimin's palm and nodded toward the sparse treeline. 

"Go on, kid. Clear your head."

Jimin had stumbled out there, fumbling with the lighter with numb fingers, inhaling too deep on the first pull. It had wrecked him—lungs seizing, throat raw, a bitter flood making him bend at the waist, hacking until tears blurred the stars and an icy burn spread like frostbite in his chest. But he'd forced it down, puffing until the butt scorched his fingers, returning to the unit with lungs raw and a stubborn set to his jaw. Joonkyung's laugh had rumbled low as he had clapped Jimin’s shoulder, taking in the mess of his face—tears streaking dirt, nose dripping—but there was no mockery, just a nod of quiet approval.

After that, it became a crutch, those stolen drags being his pocket of calm amid the chaos. He'd pass the shared cigarette to Taehyung during lulls, their shoulders brushing in the dim glow of a lantern, words sparse but the silence companionable. 

The habit stuck until Dongwoo's scream shattered it all—that tripwire ambush, the metallic reek of blood and explosives, his teammate's leg torn away in a spray of red. Jimin had watched the medevac haul him off, the weight of it settling like lead. If the unit had to endure the unrelenting weight of patrols and losses with nothing but grit, Jimin couldn't lean on crutches anymore. He'd crushed his last pack underfoot, vowing to toughen up. 

He'd armored himself instead with the weapons around him—the cool heft of a rifle in his palms, the precise click of a safety flipping off. Guns, once a source of dread, shifted into allies. They kept him alive, kept the pack safe, turning fear into precision. In their grip, he found a steadiness that the cigarettes never quite matched, a comfort born of control.

Now, perched high in the tree with the world's remnants sprawling below, the flavor hit different—worse, really, the artificial fruitiness twisting the nostalgia into something sour. Yet beneath it, a thread of solace wove through, a ghost of pre-Day Zero simplicity, when threats were mostly human and the nights didn't echo with the cries of ragers and howlers.

He exhaled finally in a thin stream, pulling the cigarette free with a faint pop against his lips. "This tastes like utter shit."

Jeongguk's brow quirked, amusement dancing in his gaze as he took another drag himself. "What, you hate mangoes or something?"

"Yeah, actually. Can’t stand it." Jimin handed the cigarette back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the ghost of the flavor clinging stubbornly. The alpha's proximity felt heavier now, the playful nudge giving way to a quieter undercurrent, one that tugged at Jimin's resolve.

Jeongguk snatched the cigarette from between Jimin's lips with a dramatic flourish, his expression twisting into mock offense that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He pulled it to his own mouth, inhaling deeply, and Jimin found his gaze snagging on those lips despite his best efforts, tracing the way those lips wrapped around the filter—full and inviting, the silver piercings glinting faintly in the low light. 

Damn, they were unfairly pretty, curved just right, like they were sculpted to draw eyes and stir stupid, forgotten urges. Sharing the damn thing felt too close, too intimate, like a brush of mouths without the commitment. Jimin swallowed hard, heat prickling under his skin at the absurdity of noticing. Who the hell cared about indirect kisses in a world like this? They were grown men scraping by, not some starry-eyed kids. Survival has long since trumped any sentiment that Jimin used to harbor. Besides, he'd tasted those lips before, direct and unfiltered—soft presses turning hungry, slick and insistent against his own.

They weren't as lush as his lips—Taehyung had never shut up about Jimin's mouth during their frantic hookups, always murmuring praises mid-thrust, words tumbling out like he was composing some endless ode. Jimin could probably stack those compliments high enough to rival the library of Alexandria if he bothered cataloging them. 

But Jeongguk's fit him perfectly, that thinner upper lip dipping into a fuller bottom one, always flushed a soft pink that begged to be bitten. When the alpha grinned wide, those two front teeth peeked out, rabbit-sharp and boyish, cutting through the hardness of his jawline and the ink snaking over his skin. Lately, though, Jimin hadn't caught many of those smiles; the bottom lip stayed trapped between Jeongguk's teeth more often than not, worried raw during the endless hours he spent lost in his head.

Jimin blinked hard, the warmth creeping higher, shame twisting in his gut. A selfish prick—that's what he was. The alpha had just clawed his way back from another gut-wrenching shift, one Jimin was damn sure he'd triggered with his reckless words, and here he sat, fixating on piercings and pouts like some lovesick fool. His mind was unraveling, threads of guilt and want tangling tighter with every stolen glance.

“I can’t believe you hate mangoes. What else is wrong with you?” Jeongguk's voice cut through the haze, low and teasing, pulling Jimin back to the branch they shared.

“Excuse me?”

“Mangoes are the sweetest fruit, Jimin. They’re so juicy and never too acidic. They’ve also got a pretty yellow color.”

“Jeongguk, I don’t know if you know this, but there are plenty of yellow fruits that are non-acidic and sweet.”

“Such as?”

“A banana, you dipshit.”

Jeongguk let out an exaggerated groan, slapping a palm to his forehead with enough force to rustle the leaves around them. The motion dragged a reluctant chuckle from Jimin's chest, bubbling up before he could clamp it down. The alpha slumped back against the rough bark, head tilting skyward as he drew in another long pull, exhaling a lazy plume that drifted into the twilight. Jimin tried—really tried—to look away, to focus on the distant flicker of pack lights or the rustle of wind through the branches. But his eyes betrayed him, lingering on the column of Jeongguk's throat as it worked, on the broad stretch of shoulders that strained against his shirt, tattoos peeking at the collar.

Then Jeongguk shifted, head lolling to the side, those furrowed brows softening into a small, pained curve of his mouth—a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, shadowed by whatever lingered from the shift. “It’s been so fucking long since I’ve had a banana, hyung. I miss them so much.”

Jimin arched a brow, surprise flickering through him. “Really? Didn’t take you to be a banana guy.”

“I could strangle a horse for some goddamn banana milk right now. No joke.”

The words felt much like a curveball, absurd and out of nowhere, yanking an incredulous laugh from Jimin that echoed softly in the cooling air. Jeongguk, this towering alpha with his piercings and inked skin, the one who could rip through howlers like paper—craving something as simple and nostalgic as banana milk? It was almost too wholesome, a crack in the armor that revealed glimpses of whimsy beneath the edge.

Jimin had pegged him as unpredictable before, but this? This looped back to boyish, almost sweet, clashing with the broad shoulders and the scars that mapped his recovery. It tugged at something in Jimin's chest, easing the knot of regret just a fraction, even as the evening chill settled around them.

Jeongguk shifted closer, his shoulder brushing Jimin's in the dimming light, and tucked the cigarette back between Jimin's lips with a deliberate press of his fingers. The acrid mango bite invaded his mouth instantly, sharp and unwelcome—he despised it, and Jeongguk's knowing smirk said he reveled in the discomfort. 

Yet Jimin drew in the smoke regardless, holding it in his chest until it warmed him from the inside, filling his lungs with that false burn of ease. For the first time in ages—longer than he could pin down with any precision—a sliver of ordinary settled over him, absurd and grounding. This ridiculous act, passing a cheap, flavored stick with Jeon Jeongguk, smoothed the jagged knots in his mind. He stared at the ember's glow, lost on how to unravel the quiet comfort it brought.

“You gonna tell me what your most favorite food was, or do I have to wait until next month for that information to be released?” Jeongguk teased, reclaiming the cigarette as Jimin exhaled a thin stream toward the treetops.

“Are you going to give me my own cigarette, you stingy little shit?”

“Because of the name calling? Fat chance. Plus, supplies are tight—we gotta stretch 'em. Not like your lips haven't been on mine already, Jimin-hyung.”

Jimin let out a slow breath, turning his eyes to the fading line where earth met sky. The pack's silhouettes dotted below them, scattered like fading shadows while they headed toward their shelters as dusk claimed the land. Hyejin and Areum emerged from the bathhouse, their laughter light and muffled, carrying on the cooling air like a distant echo. The sun bled its final crimson streaks across the clouds, yielding to the deepening blue, the temperature dropping with a bite that seeped through his jacket.

“Pork belly.”

“Huh?”

“Pork belly. Grilled crisp, paired with steamed rice and a kick of spicy noodles on the side.”

Jeongguk let out a thoughtful rumble, leaning back on his elbows. “Man, I'd trade my left arm for a plate of that now.”

“No pigs around these parts, I’m afraid. We don’t even dare to think about slaughtering the chickens either. They provide too much protein with their eggs. Not worth one measly meal of meat.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jeongguk started, but sighed as he bowed his head forward, nodding. Then he glanced over, tilting his head in Jimin’s direction. 

“But the rare rabbit doesn’t quite cut it. Barely scratches the itch, you know?”

“Christ, it really doesn't,” Jimin muttered, folding forward with a dramatic hunch as Jeongguk's bark of laughter rolled out, deep and unfiltered, echoing off the branches.

The craving hit hard then, a phantom ache for the charred crisp of samgyeopsal wrapped in lettuce, the sizzle of fat rendering over coals, or even the hearty simmer of kimchi jjigae from Choi Minji's steady hands back when meals meant more than survival. He shoved the thoughts down, always did—refused to dwell on the before, when bellies filled without rationing and loss didn't shadow every bite. But here it crept in, unbidden, twisting his gut with a hollow pang. 

This was the risk he'd skirted, the reason he'd kept distance. Jeongguk pried open doors Jimin had bolted shut, unearthing more than Taehyung's easy familiarity ever had. It baffled him, that pull. Taehyung was woven into his bones, from the awkward sprawl of teenage years in Seoul's smog-choked streets to the raw grind of enlistment—their bond a decade-thick armor, familiar as his own pulse. If anyone could coax out those buried fragments, it should have been him, the one who'd become like a limb, predictable and safe. With Taehyung, the past stayed compartmentalized, a locked drawer he rarely rattled.

Jeongguk, though—this alpha was chaos incarnate, a wildcard who'd stormed into his life mere months ago and upended everything. Hailing from Busan's briny shores, same as him, he summoned ghosts Jimin had chained in the depths: the rhythmic pound of surf on cliffs, the steam rising from a laden table after school, the unshakeable ease of youth untouched by ruin. Even the sway of dance—bare feet sliding over chilled tiles to the radio's crackle, his mother's hands guiding his with patient rhythm, her laughter blending with the melody.

His mother.

She had been the quiet force in their cramped Busan apartment, her hands deft as they sliced vegetables or mended tears in worn fabric, always with that focused precision that turned necessity into care. Jeongguk mirrored it now, in the way he assisted in doling out rations during patrols, measuring each portion with a seriousness that bordered on reverence, as if feeding the pack was a sacred duty rather than mere logistics. Or how he gravitated toward the faded dulled color shirts in their scavenged piles, just like the aprons she'd favored, muted but soft against the steam of boiling pots.

And that smile—God, that unguarded flash of teeth, wide and unapologetic, lighting his face like dawn breaking over the sea. It was her joy reborn, the way she'd laugh during family gatherings, head thrown back, drawing everyone into her warmth without effort. Jeongguk's version hit Jimin the same way, a jolt that bypassed defenses and landed straight in the hollows of his heart. Jeongguk embodied that lost era, a living reminder of what had been stripped away, leaving Jimin exposed in ways no battlefield wound ever could.

"I can practically hear your mind racing right now, hyung."

Jimin's gaze lifted at the sound of Jeongguk's voice slicing through the quiet, a welcome interruption that yanked him from the relentless churn of his thoughts.

Jeongguk shifted, his thigh pressing warmer against Jimin's, oblivious to the storm raging beneath Jimin's skin. “Zoning out on me already? Thought we were trading war stories over this mango poison.” His voice was still light and teasing, but his eyes held a flicker of concern, dark depths searching Jimin's face.

Without breaking eye contact, Jimin plucked the spent cigarette from Jeongguk's fingers. He drew in the final drag, the mango tang sharp on his tongue, and felt a pang of regret as the ember guttered out too soon. Flavor be damned, it was the ritual that anchored him. Jeongguk caught the shift in his expression, his dark eyes flicking to the spent butt pinched between Jimin's fingers. With a soft sigh, he fished out another from his pocket, the lighter's spark illuminating his face in a brief, warm glow. He chuckled low, passing it over.

"Not so shitty now, huh?"

"Be grateful I didn't steal these from you back at the gas station, Jeongguk."

The retort drew a full laugh from the alpha, his head tipping back against the tree trunk, throat bobbing with unrestrained mirth. In the faint moonlight that dappled through the leaves, Jimin's eyes snagged on details he'd somehow overlooked before—the subtle dimple that carved into his left cheek when he grinned like that, not the right one everyone noticed, but this hidden one that deepened only in genuine amusement, pulling his skin taut in a way that revealed the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. It was a small asymmetry, a crack in the alpha's otherwise symmetrical intensity, and it hit Jimin like a revelation, making his pulse stutter. He realized then, with a quiet jolt, that he couldn't tear his gaze away; every laugh, every shift, drew him in deeper

Jeongguk straightened then, passing the fresh cigarette over, his voice dropping into something warmer, more insistent. "I want to know more about you, but you're like a goddamned brick wall. Tell me something, yeah? What did you love to do most before you enlisted?"

Jimin inhaled deeply, the smoke filling his lungs as he stared at the gray coil rising from the tip. He tapped it lightly with his index finger, watching the brittle ashes drift down to scatter across the weathered wooden planks below. The question landed like a stone in still water, rippling through defenses he'd built high. Jeongguk's directness had unnerved him from the start, ever since that chance encounter at the derelict station months ago—a boldness that pried at sealed compartments in Jimin's chest, making his skin prickle with unease. To peel back those layers, to voice the fragments of a life before boot camp and barked orders, felt like inviting ghosts to the fire.

He didn't want to linger on the pull of those old days—not the fluid hours in dimly lit studios, where music pulsed through his veins and his limbs stretched into shapes that silenced the chaos outside; not the way his mother's touch had steadied him during those sessions, her quiet encouragement a steady anchor amid the whirl of steps and spins.

Yet here was Jeongguk, offering an olive branch without words for the earlier cruelty—the push that had shattered the alpha's control, risking everything in a haze of fear and fury. The least Jimin owed was a crack in the wall, a tentative step forward. He exhaled slowly, the smoke blending with the twilight haze. 

“I used to dance.”

The quiet stretched between them, heavy and unbroken, catching him off guard. He'd braced for the usual rush—Jeongguk's puzzled hum, the flood of questions that always followed his rare openings. This stillness pressed in, forcing him to hold the confession close, its weight settling like frost on his skin. He turned his eyes back to the alpha, finding Jeongguk watching him with the faint curve of a smile tugging at his mouth, shadows playing across the sharp line of his jaw.

“What?” Jimin prompted.

Jeongguk just shook his head, reaching over to pluck the cigarette from Jimin's fingers. Their skin grazed in the exchange, a fleeting warmth that sent a tremor racing down Jimin's spine. He blamed the dropping temperature, the way the night air thickened around them, swallowing the final trace of moonlight until only the cigarette's glow pierced the dark. ‘Better this way’, he thought—half-hidden outlines keeping Jeongguk's features from pulling him in too deep.

“Nothing,” Jeongguk murmured, voice laced with amusement as he drew in a quick pull of smoke. Jimin caught the tilt of his head toward the farmhouse, a deliberate turn that couldn't quite conceal the grin threading through his tone. 

“It just... suits you. I’m not sure why—it just seems like something like that would be hidden within you.”

Warmth prickled up Jimin's neck, unexpected and insistent, blooming despite the chill that nipped at his ears. He hadn't anticipated this—Jeongguk's easy acceptance, the quiet approval that stirred something unguarded in him. His mind flickered to the way Jeongguk moved, all coiled strength and effortless lines, and wondered if the alpha saw echoes of that in him too.

“What makes you think that?”

“You carry yourself with this... ease, hyung. Grace that sticks out, even when you're aiming a rifle in my face. Like a goddamn swan, all poise and mystery and shit.”

Jimin huffed a soft laugh, shaking his head as embarrassment twisted low in his gut, hot and unfamiliar. The comparison landed oddly, making him shift on the rough wood beneath them, the splinters pressing into his palms. 

“It's been over ten years since I last danced, Jeongguk. You don't need to flatter me.”

“Flatter? Nah.” Jeongguk's gaze sharpened in the dim light. “You've still got that build too—lean lines, the kind that move right. I can tell you must’ve been an exceptional dancer.”

The words halted Jimin mid-breath, a flush creeping higher as realization hit like a cold splash. How would Jeongguk know that he even had a dancer’s body? The barn's dim heat surged back unbidden—rough hands mapping his sides, Jeongguk's tongue tracing hot paths along his jaw, down the column of his throat, breaths mingling in the close air. He swallowed hard, throat clicking dryly, and forced his eyes to the horizon, willing the images to fade, the heat in his cheeks to cool. His heart thudded too loud in the silence, betraying the calm he tried to project.

“Come on, show me a few moves,” Jeongguk said then, grinning mischievously. He leaned back on one elbow, the cigarette dangling loosely from his fingers, smoke still curling lazily upward. “Just something simple. Bet you could still pull it off.”

Jimin shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips despite the knot in his chest, the doubt that coiled tight around his ribs. The idea felt ridiculous out here, under the empty sky, no music or anything to really guide him. He hasn’t heard any music in so long. Sure, Mrs. Han had an almost obscenely large collection of vinyls stored away, but they’d rarely play them, seeing as their battery-powered generators were needed for more important causes than plugging in a record player. The occasional humming from pack members is all they had these days.

“I seriously doubt it. It's been too long—my body's forgotten how.” 

He paused, the words pulling more from him than he'd meant, the chill air sharpening the edges of old memories that tugged at him insistently. He could almost hear the faint noisy hiss of a cd player starting up, feel the worn floorboards under his bare feet. 

“I started young, though. Like, really young. For my Doljanchi, they’d set out the most stereotypical shit ever—stethoscope, law book, soccer ball—you know the shit.”

Jeongguk nodded his head in understanding. “Sounds about right.”

Jimin then shook his head, a small smile tugging on the corner of his mouth as he recalled the moment. Well—not exactly from his own memory, but rather the gleeful retelling his mother had always made sure to recite before he blew out his candles every birthday. 

“Well, I ignored them all. Crawled right past my mom, my aunt and uncle, straight to her vinyl collection. Classical ballet music, the kind with those sweeping strings. Grabbed the handle of the case and just...I don’t know—held on.”

Jeongguk's eyes lit up in the faint glow, his head tilting as he listened, no trace of mockery in the way he nodded. The genuine spark there eased something in Jimin, made the words come easier, like the night itself was listening without judgment. “Sounds like you knew what you wanted from the start, hm?”

The question drew Jimin in, easing the tension in his shoulders as he spoke, the words flowing smoother now, warmed by the recollection that despite being pushed down for so long, still bloomed vividly in his mind. “Of course I did. I had this pull toward music, always. By elementary school, I was in classes—contemporary, ballet. Kept at it until I was fourteen, pushing through the aches and the routines because I was good—damn good. It felt... free, you know? Like nothing else mattered.”

“Yeah?” Jeongguk shifted slightly, his voice soft with real curiosity, the ember of the cigarette flaring as he took another drag. “Must've been something to watch. Did you get any shit for it? My parents only wanted doctors for sons, so I can imagine the pushback you probably got.”

A wider smile began creeping onto Jimin’s face without him noticing. “My mom…she loved it. More than anything. She used to dance herself, so when the studios shut down for the night or whatever, she'd clear the living room, put on those records, and we'd move together—her guiding my steps, laughing when I stumbled. It was just us, the music filling every corner until she—”

The smile faltered mid-sentence, dropping as awareness of his rambling crashed in. He'd veered too close, shared too much. Stories of Minji had come out during Jeongguk's recovery in the shed—surface things, but his mother? That was buried deep, untouched, a wound he prodded at in solitude. 

Taehyung knew fragments, vague shadows from late-night talks, but no one else. Jimin's throat tightened, the cold seeping back in like a thief, and he stared at the ground, the rough texture of the wood blurring as the feeling of being exposed clawed at him, urging him to pull back. Jeongguk went still for a beat in what Jimin suspects was him sensing the shift in the air, the sudden wall Jimin threw up. Then, with a gentle nudge to keep things light, he chuckled softly, the sound warm and disarming. 

“Hey, if you dance for me, I'll make it worth your while. Promise I won't laugh—much. And in return, I'll do a chore you were assigned to this week. Or hell, I'll even share my last cigarette. Deal?”

The silliness broke through the haze, pulling a reluctant huff from Jimin, relief flooding in at the easy pivot. Jeongguk's eyes crinkled with that boyish warmth, cutting the heaviness just enough to breathe, reminding Jimin why he kept letting the alpha close despite the risks.

“Not a chance, mutt.”

“What would it take,” Jeongguk asked then, his voice dropping low and coaxing as he shifted nearer, the space between them shrinking to a whisper, “to watch you dance for me?”

Jimin felt the mingled heat of the smoke and Jeongguk's breath ghosting across his face, close enough to stir the fine hairs at his temple, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he rolled his eyes, a scoff bubbling up from his chest like an old habit he couldn't quite shake. As if he'd ever lace up shoes for that again, let alone out here in the frozen dark.

"Hell would have to freeze over for that to happen."

Jeongguk's chuckle rumbled low, vibrating through the narrow space between them, his hand gesturing lazily toward the frost-laced grass stretching out below the perch. The white sheen caught the faint moonlight, like the world itself had given up on trying to thaw itself. 

"Hell has frozen over," he said, amusement threading his voice, thick as the chill air. "Might even snow, the way the temperatures keep dropping."

Jimin shot him a sidelong glare, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. "Don't be a smartass."

"What? I'm serious, hyung. Tell me."

The plea hung there, simple and insistent, pulling at the threads of Jimin's resolve. He paused, mind scrambling for something sharp, something Jeongguk couldn't twist his way out of with that easy grin. God, what a little brat—always pushing, always coaxing with those dark eyes that seemed to see right through the cracks. Annoying as hell, but damn if it wasn't pulling a reluctant spark of entertainment from the numbness settling in his bones. He wouldn't admit that, though. Not out loud.

"I'll dance for you the moment you get pigs to start flying."

Jeongguk straightened up then, his shoulders squaring as if weighing the challenge, the movement shifting the warmth of his body just a fraction closer. Jimin watched the play of shadows across his face, waiting for the inevitable comeback. Sure enough, Jeongguk snorted, shaking his head with a defeated huff. "Dammit, I can't really do that."

"I know."

"I can shift into a wolf, though. That close enough?"

Jimin barked a laugh, short and disbelieving, the sound echoing oddly in the quiet night. "In your dreams."

Silence settled over them like a blanket, heavy and expectant, broken only by the faint crackle as the cigarette's ember died out between Jeongguk's fingers. The moonlight spilled pale and thin across the porch, stripping away the last veil of the smoke's glow, leaving just the two of them exposed in the dim. Shit, it was getting colder—deeper into his bones now, the kind that made his teeth ache. He'd forgotten his gloves back in the farmhouse, too caught up in the pull of this conversation to think straight. A shiver betrayed him, rippling down his spine despite his best efforts to lock it down, shoulders hunching against the bite.

Jeongguk noticed, of course. His gaze flicked over Jimin in a quick, assessing sweep, and before Jimin could brace, the alpha closed the gap entirely, one arm snaking around his shoulders to tug him in close. Their sides pressed together, Jeongguk's body heat seeping through layers of worn fabric like a lifeline in the frost.

"What the fuck—"

"It's cold as shit out here, and neither of us are dressed for it," Jeongguk murmured, voice steady, unapologetic, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

"That doesn't mean you can just grab me like—"

"Humor me, please? I'm freezing my ass off too, hyung. Call it your repentance for being so goddamn mean earlier." Jeongguk cut him off smoothly, his arm sliding up and down Jimin's back in slow, deliberate strokes, chasing away the chill with firm pressure. 

The friction built a strange warmth, blooming across Jimin's skin, but it felt off—too intimate for this exposed perch, too unguarded under the open sky. He knew it was just them out here tonight, the farmhouse dark and the pack tucked away inside, but paranoia prickled at him anyway. What if someone spotted them from a window? What explanation could he possibly give for letting this alpha wrap around him like they belonged this way? Questions he didn't have answers for, and ones he wasn't sure he wanted to chase down in the first place.

But Jeongguk was warm. Undeniably, achingly so—his body a solid wall against the night's grip, steady and firm. Pulling away would be idiotic, a needless shiver in the face of easy relief. Jimin wasn't that stubborn. Not tonight. He'd let it slide, just this once, the tension in his muscles easing as he leaned into it fractionally, telling himself it meant nothing.

Jeongguk let out a deep sigh then, the sound rumbling through his chest and into Jimin's side, his hold tightening just enough to anchor them both against the wind's low whine. He didn't say another word, and neither did Jimin, the quiet stretching companionable now, laced with the unspoken weight of the cold and the warmth they shared.

Jeongguk's voice broke the quiet first, low and probing, his breath stirring the chill air between them. “What are we going to tell the pack, hyung?”

Jimin blinked, the question slicing through the fragile ease they'd carved out. “Regarding…?”

“You know, me shifting and all.”

A heavy sigh escaped Jimin, his exhale blooming into a misty cloud that hung in the frosted night, dissipating slowly under the moon's indifferent gaze. Damn it. He hadn't mustered more than a few clipped words with Namjoon or Jiwon since Jeongguk had clawed his way back to human form, their eyes burning with unspoken demands for answers. Weeks ago, in the dim glow of the kitchen lantern, they'd huddled over steaming mugs of herbal tea, voices hushed as they dissected the risks of exposing Jeongguk's secret. 

Back then, the pack had eyed him warily—a strange alpha that had shown up with a bite—but his human shell had softened their suspicion, letting him slip into the fold. A wolf, though? That changed everything. And with Jeongguk's shifts still erratic, prone to surging without warning, Namjoon had pinned his hopes on Jimin to unravel the chaos. No chance the pack would swallow that whole, not without fractures splintering through their fragile unity.

Honesty should bind them, a single thread holding the group against the world's decay. But the knot in Jimin's gut twisted at the vision of backlash—doors slamming shut, Jeongguk cast into the barren winter wilds, scavenging alone amid the howlers' distant cries. Or worse, the group splintering, old tensions boiling over into fights, bonds fraying like old rope. And deep down, Jimin felt uncomfortable with the image of Jeongguk out there alone, heat fading in the endless cold. It lodged in his throat, thick and immovable. Even if it kept the others safe, the idea shook him harder than he cared to admit.

“I don’t know, Jeongguk,” he admitted, voice rough against the night's hush. “Truthfully, it’s smarter to keep quiet until we lock this down—get you steady.”

“So what, I’m supposed to lie to them?” Jeongguk's tone pitched higher, laced with a raw bite of irritation that vibrated through their pressed sides.

“Yes, to put it plainly.”

“I’ve busted my ass off to fit in here. I won’t let anyone start second-guessing me again—”

“This isn’t about that—”

“Jimin, come on, I’m trying, okay?”

“Would you just… just shut up and let me finish?” Jimin raised a hand, palm out near Jeongguk's jaw, fingers splayed to stem the flood of protests. 

The alpha blew out a sharp breath but went quiet, his arm tightening around Jimin's shoulders in a defiant tug that dragged him nearer. Heat flooded Jimin's right side, overwhelming, like being wrapped in a living furnace—intense enough to steal his breath. Who the hell did that—yanked someone nearer mid-spat? It was absurd, this alpha's brand of stubborn affection, pressing contradictions into Jimin's skin.

“The odds of them turning scared all over again? Sky-high.”

“But they know me now—”

“The version that stays human, Jeongguk. Not the one who sprouts fangs and fur without a say in it. Not when you're still wrestling for the reins on that beast inside.” Jimin dragged his chilled fingers through his hair, strands tugging against the frost, annoyance flaring at the fact that Jeongguk still seemed to be the type that pushed on, missing the point entirely.

“Dumping this on them right now? It’s a gamble we can’t take. I’m not letting them shove you out into this mess alone. So just…” He trailed off, gaze dropping to the shadowed planks beneath them, the wood's chill seeping through his boots. 

Jeongguk probably couldn’t make out his face in the faint glow, but it still burned—how this alpha pulled all the mess inside him to the top. “Wait it out, yeah? We handle this first, then we talk.”

“That Park Jimin from back in August would've decked you for that.”

Jimin whipped his head around, brows furrowing in the dim. “What?”

“Just saying. You'd have kicked my sorry ass to the curb without a backward glance, if I hadn't wormed my way into your heart.”

“You haven't wormed anywhere near my heart. Have you hit your head or some shit?”

“Oh, come on. You can't deny the adoration you have for me. I'll give you props for fighting it, though.”

An astonished laugh burst from Jimin, sharp and disbelieving, echoing faintly off the farmhouse walls. The sheer nerve of it—Jeongguk flipping the script, that cocky glint cutting through the dark. He'd pegged the alpha as just a little bit more reserved, an annoying tease occasionally at most, but this? Jimin felt like there were layers being peeled back like onion skins, revealing a boldness that left him reeling, caught between annoyance and an unwelcome spark of amusement.

“You're such a little shit.”

“Gonna make you a jar for name-calling. Every curse, a coin.”

“Seriously, how did anyone put up with you?”

Jeongguk’s chuckle rumbled out, warm and easy, folding around them in the sharp air. Jimin couldn't pinpoint the shift, but the night felt lighter for it—his own chuckles bubbling up unrestrained, rare and freeing after so long in the shadows. Especially here, tangled with Jeongguk, where the cold faded against the alpha's steady pulse.

"Y'know, I couldn't even say for sure. Never really had that one person who got me completely." He shifted a little, his head tipping back to stare at the stars peeking through the clouds. "But hell, before the world went to shit, there was this one guy. Closest thing I had to a real friend."

Jimin snorted, the sound half-lost in the quiet. "Wow, what a shocker."

"Hey, play nice," Jeongguk shot back, nudging him with an elbow, his voice light with that familiar playfulness. "Just listen to my sob story, yeah? This is payback for being mean.”

Jimin rolled his eyes, though the warmth of Jeongguk’s arm around him made it hard to pull away out of annoyance. He was far too exhausted to give Jeongguk any shit, anyway. "I've done a hell of a lot more than that, and you've never once brought it up."

"True," Jeongguk admitted, his tone dipping into something warmer, more intimate. "But that's 'cause I didn't mind it one bit, hyung. Hell, I kinda liked the rough stuff."

Jimin's pulse quickened at Jeongguk's words, the implication hanging heavy in the frosty air. The barn. That godforsaken night in the barn. Jeongguk pinning him against the rough wooden shelf, hands gripping Jimin's hips hard enough to bruise, thrusting deep and relentless while Jimin gasped through the pain and pleasure that blurred into one savage release. 

He swallowed hard, the memory flooding back, heat pooling low in his gut despite the chill. 'Rough stuff'—yeah, that was putting it mildly.

"Just... keep talking," Jimin grumbled, crossing his arms tighter against the chill, his words clipped but not entirely without the spark of reluctant amusement.

Jeongguk's grin flashed in the dim light, all teeth and mischief, before he sobered a touch, his fingers drumming idly against Jimin's shoulder. "Alright, alright. So, this guy—Yugyeom. We met back in high school, both of us these awkward kids who didn't fit anywhere. He was the first person who didn't look at me like I was some kinda screw-up waiting to happen."

The name hit Jimin like a faint echo from a few weeks back, during those tense nights in the shed when Jeongguk's recovery had been a fragile thread. He remembered waking up to the alpha thrashing in his sleep, body straining against the shift, a desperate cry ripping from his throat. Yugyeom. Jimin had pinned him down then, murmuring low reassurances until the tremors eased, but he'd held back from prying—whoever it was, the name carried weight, a lifeline in the dark. Now, hearing it again, a swell of sympathy bloomed in Jimin's chest, mingling with a quiet solidarity. Yugyeom wasn't just anyone; he was woven into Jeongguk's core, a bond forged in vulnerability that Jimin could only respect from the outside.

Jimin tilted his head, curiosity flickering despite the knot in his chest. He could picture it—a younger Jeongguk—lanky maybe—all restless energy and sharp defiance, bouncing off the walls in some stuffy Busan classroom. It didn't take much effort; he could almost see it, the alpha's dark hair tousled, eyes bright with that same spark while finding a rare anchor in someone who saw the fire without flinching. It stirred something in him, a quiet envy for that uncomplicated bond, lost long before the world ended. 

"What, he just... saw past the whole obnoxious dropout vibe?"

Jeongguk let out a breathless chuckle, the sound vibrating through Jimin's side, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He shifted, picking at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve, fingers twisting the fabric absently. "Dropout? Nah, that came later. But yeah, something like that. My family... they were big on the whole 'success at all costs' thing. Older brother, Jeonghyun—he was the star. Went to med school, became this fancy doctor, had the wife, the kid, the whole package. Me? I was the one doodling on my notebooks instead of studying, getting into scraps at school 'cause I couldn't sit still. ADHD, probably, but they just called it laziness." He smacked his teeth, shaking his head once.

Jimin's brow furrowed, the words sketching a young Jeongguk trapped in a cage of expectations, his restless spirit clashing against strict rules. He could almost see the frustration building in those dark eyes, the way it must have fueled every defiant choice.

"Yugyeom got it, though," Jeongguk continued, his voice steadying as he swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "He was steady, y'know? Alpha like me, but calmer. We started hanging out, skipping classes to mess around at arcades or whatever. Made me feel... normal."

A pang twisted in Jimin's gut at the vulnerability in that word—normal—for someone as fiercely independent as Jeongguk. He watched Jeongguk's hand fidget with the thread, pulling it tighter, the small anxiety betraying the casual tone.

“Okay…” Jimin drawled, lips pursing. He doesn’t want to be playful, but he can feel the looming weight of Jeongguk’s words. “Doesn’t sound like the best influence, can’t say I’m surprised. He kept you out of big trouble though, hm?”

"Trouble found me anyway." Jeongguk's tone dipped, wry and carrying something sharper. He paused, fingers stilling on his sleeve as his gaze grew distant. 

"We enlisted together after school. Same base, same unit. Survived the drills, the bullshit superiors. Then I got into boxing—pro stuff, underground rings mostly. Parents hated it. Dad especially—he wanted me in college, following Jeonghyun's footsteps. But Yugyeom was there, spotting me in the gym, hyping me up after a win. Even when I ditched the 'proper' path and started apprenticing at a tattoo shop. They cut me off for that—inheritance, family dinners, all of it. Called me the black sheep every chance they got."

The words hung there, heavy with a quiet ache that Jeongguk tried to mask. Jimin swallowed, his mind racing to fill in the blanks: Jeongguk's hands, steady now but once inked with fresh designs, needles buzzing under fluorescent lights. The rejection from his blood—cold, final. It mirrored Jimin's losses too sharply, the way the world stripped away what little anchors you had. 

Jeongguk shrugged, but it was forced, his hand dropping to pick at the hem of his pants now, nails scraping lightly against the worn denim. "Yugyeom? He just shrugged and said, 'Screw 'em. You're family to me.' Closest thing I had to a real family. We were tight—shared an apartment in Seoul after discharge, crashed after late nights at the parlor or the ring. He got me, hyung. No explanations needed."

Jimin's breath caught, sensing the turn. He shifted closer, the alpha's warmth seeping through his jacket, grounding him against the chill that had nothing to do with the night air. Jeongguk's profile was sharp in the moonlight, jaw tight, like he was chewing on the words before spitting them out.

Jeongguk's voice roughened further, a hesitation cracking through as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Then...things with Jeonghyun started shifting a bit. After he’d found out that he and his wife—her name was Haewon—were having a child, he reached out. First time in years. He said he was sorry for the family bullshit, and wanted to mend things. Invited me down to Busan to meet her, hold her, be the uncle I should've been. I was pissed at first—thought it was just him collecting his one good deed in life, trying to avoid karma or whatever. Ignored a couple calls. But it stuck with me, y'know? The idea of fixing it."

Jimin nodded slowly, the olive branch from Jeonghyun painting a picture of tentative hope in Jeongguk's fractured world—a chance to reclaim what distance had stolen, centered on that innocent new life. It hadn’t been their fault, Jimin can tell. Parents often had a habit of pitting their children against each other. They were just a product of that mistreatment.

Jeongguk's voice faded into something quieter, his fingers stilling on Jimin's shoulder as he stared out at the darkened fields. He took a slow breath, the words tumbling out like they'd been waiting too long. 

"The last real talk I had with any of them was three months before everything went to hell. Jeonghyun—he'd just become a dad. He called me the day Seomi was born, his voice all excited, saying it was a girl, healthy and perfect. Said his wife was resting, but he wanted me to see her right away."

Jimin listened, the image of a proud brother reaching across the divide settling in his mind, a rare bridge in Jeongguk's fractured family ties.

"I couldn't come down because our parents made it very fucking clear I wasn't welcome at the hospital," Jeongguk continued, his tone hardening just a fraction. He scratched at his jaw, gaze dropping to his lap. 

"So they did a video call. Me and Yugyeom crammed in that tiny apartment, staring at the screen. There she was—a tiny bundle, all wrapped up, those little fists waving. Jeonghyun's grinning like an idiot, zooming in on her face. I got this glimpse, y'know? Those big eyes, soft cheeks. Felt... something. Like maybe I could be part of that."

Jeongguk paused, his hand clenching briefly before relaxing, fingers tapping a restless rhythm on his thigh. "But then our dad barged in. Started yelling about how I was a disgrace, dragging the family name through the mud with my 'hobbies.' Jeonghyun tried to calm him, but it blew up. Call dropped mid-sentence. I called back right away—over and over. No answer. Days passed, nothing. He didn't reach out, and I... I was gutted. Yugyeom kept saying to give it time, but I was done. Swore I'd cut them all off for good."

The alpha's shoulders tensed, a shadow crossing his features as he rubbed the back of his neck. "That anger stuck, but it turned into this guilt I couldn't shake. I'd always been the screw-up, pushing back against everything they wanted. To them, I was just the embarrassment they had to hide. And there I was, ruining the most precious moment in my brother’s life."

Jimin shifted slightly, a newer, impossibly heavier wave of guilt washing over him. No wonder Jeongguk had been so resilient against Jimin's constant rejection of him. No wonder Jimin had felt so put off by the fact that Jeongguk never relented. He’d felt this kind of rejection before.

"Then Day Zero, as you guys like to call it," Jeongguk said, voice dropping lower, rougher. He swallowed thickly, Adam's apple working under his skin. "Though I just call it our ‘reckoning’. I was in the gym, wrapping up a spar with Yugyeom. The phone rings, and it’s Jeonghyun's name. My coach yells it out, but I'm still pissed from those three months of silence. How dare he act like he cared, pull me into that moment with Seomi, only to ghost me after Dad's tantrum? So I let it ring. Ignored it."

His fingers twisted into the hem of his shirt now, the fabric making a slight sound under the strain. "We kept training, but later that night, when the first emergency reports hit the tv... I checked the voicemail. It was him, hyung, sounding so…scared. The hospital in Busan was basically a warzone—patients turning rabid, attacking staff. Our parents were sick and isolated. He told me that he’d sent his wife and Seomi my way—begging me to find them, protect them. Apologizing through sobs for not fighting harder for us, for letting the family bullshit win. I can still hear his voice cracking when he said he should've been a better brother. That he could only think of me when it came to finding someone he could trust to protect his wife and child when he couldn’t. Then a crash, screams... line goes dead."

Jimin's hand moved on instinct, landing softly on Jeongguk's knee—a tentative pat, awkward in the heavy air, but steady. He felt like throwing up, everything in his stomach churning at Jeongguk’s words. He couldn’t begin to fathom what Jeongguk had felt, but he could understand to an extent what that loss felt like—what losing Choi Minji felt like. The alpha glanced down, his expression exhausted, but he covered Jimin's hand for a split second, warm and grounding, before letting go.

Then Jeongguk exhaled sharply, his fidgeting slowing. "Hit me like a truck. I had a panic attack right there—Yugyeom had to hold me up while I hyperventilated, trying to call my brother back a hundred times. Nothing. The sound of my hyung’s voice replayed over and over in my head after that. What if I'd answered that call? What if I'd fixed shit with them sooner?"

Jimin's heart squeezed, visions flashing—a tiny girl with Jeongguk's eyes, wide and trusting, bundled in her mother's arms amid chaos. The guilt in Jeongguk's voice—it was raw, festering, the kind that ate at you in the quiet hours. Jimin knew it well, the 'what ifs' that clawed through sleep. Without thinking, he squeezed harder, willing the alpha to look at him.

"You couldn't have known. None of us saw it coming."

Jeongguk's eyes flicked to him, dark and stormy, but he didn't look away. "We tried, y'know? We bolted to the station, chased every southbound lead, but Seoul locked down fast. Fires everywhere, no trains from Busan—I’m sure you saw all of it. Days of nothing, just worsening chaos. After two days, I... I stopped hoping and just assumed the worst. They're probably gone. And even if not, I don't know if I could face them. I have too much shame, hyung. For ignoring that call, for being the disappointment they always said I was."

The silence stretched, thick with unspoken pain, Jeongguk's body coiled tight beside him. His thumb traced a small circle on Jeongguk's knee, instinctive, soothing. "Hey. That's not on you. The world's a fucking mess now. Everything happened so fast, and there was just simply no way for you to know. I’m sure your brother would’ve never blamed you. It doesn’t sound like him, from what you’ve told me. You did exactly what you could—no one’s a fucking invincible superhero."

Jeongguk exhaled shakily, turning his hand to lace their fingers together, the grip firm. "Maybe. But it drives me, y'know? This pack—you all took me in when I had nothing. So now, I gotta prove I'm worth it. Pull my weight, protect what's mine. Don't wanna let anyone down. Especially not you."

Jimin's throat tightened, the words wrapping around his chest like a vice. Especially not you. He glanced down at his own hand that still lingered on Jeongguk's knee, the warmth seeping through fabric as the alpha's words hung in the chill night air. A question burned in his chest, one he couldn't hold back. 

"Have you... actually been alone this whole time? Since everything fell apart?"

Jeongguk's gaze flicked to the horizon, his jaw tightening as he hesitated, the silence stretching taut between them. He swallowed, the motion deliberate, before shaking his head slowly. "Not at first. Yugyeom and I made it through the early days together. Years, actually. Stuck like glue, you know?"

He leaned back against the rough bark of the tree, arms crossing loosely over his chest as if to steady himself. "Never once tried to one-up the other. Always had each other's backs, no questions. Our skills meshed—he was sharp with traps and scouting, I handled the close fights. Made us tough to break."

Jimin watched the way Jeongguk's fingers drummed lightly on his bicep, a subtle tic yet again betraying the ache beneath the surface. The alpha's voice softened, eyes distant. "But I…I lost him. Months before you and the pack crossed my path. It happened so fast. Didn't even get a chance to say goodbye, just like with Jeonghyun."

He trailed off there, jaw clenching as he stared at the ground, unwilling or unable to dive deeper. The raw edge in his tone sliced through Jimin, stirring the sweltering storm of guilt and sympathy that twisted in his gut. A sinking dread pooled low in Jimin's stomach, the weight of Jeongguk's words dragging him under. He could too easily imagine the agony of it—ripping away someone so essential, so irreplaceable, in the blink of an eye. 

Jimin knew that kind of loss intimately; Choi Minji's death had shattered him six years back, a void that time hadn't filled, and Nabi's three years ago had torn open the scars anew. They lingered like festering wounds in his heart, constant reminders of his failures to protect them, to hold the world together just a little longer. Yet here was Jeongguk, his grief raw and recent, barely months old, and somehow the alpha pressed on with a resilience that made Jimin's chest tighten. Was Jeongguk truly stronger, at least in the mind—able to shoulder the unbearable without crumbling, while Jimin still staggered under shadows long faded?

Jeongguk wasn't the monster he'd painted him as—not even close, and he couldn’t help but realize this the more and more they spoke. If only they'd met under different stars, back when the pack was forming, before survival had carved Jimin into something sharp and unyielding to shield them all. Regret gnawed at him, hot and unrelenting.

Without thinking, Jimin shifted closer, his body curling tentatively against Jeongguk's side. The move felt clumsy, his arm brushing the alpha's as he pressed his shoulder in, offering what little comfort he could muster. God, it made him feel so uncomfortable and frustrated to see Jeongguk like this—stripped bare and exposed. Jimin's throat tightened, unsure if the gesture even registered, but he couldn't pull away.

Jeongguk stiffened at first, surprise flashing in his eyes as he glanced down. Then, slowly, the tension eased from his frame. He didn't speak, just let out a quiet breath and let his draped arm slink even further past Jimin's shoulders toward his waist, accepting the awkward press of bodies with a subtle nod. The contact was solid, reassuring in its simplicity.

Jimin's mind reeled. Jeongguk hadn't breathed a word of this to anyone—not the pack, not even in passing hints. And yet here he was, laying it all out for the one person who'd met him with walls and barbs from day one. It felt wrong and almost too real, like a crack in the foundation of everything Jimin thought he knew.

But beneath the jarring surrealness, that pull tugged again—undeniable, threading through his veins. He felt it in the way his pulse synced with Jeongguk's steady heartbeat, in the quiet ease settling between them. What was it? And more than that... maybe they weren't so different after all, both scarred by loss, both fighting to hold onto what scraps of connection remained.

The hours slipped by, the moon dipping lower as exhaustion crept into Jeongguk's posture. His responses grew shorter, eyelids heavy. "You should head in," Jimin murmured, voice low against the night's hush. "Get some real sleep. I can handle the watch."

Jeongguk shook his head, stubborn even as a yawn cracked his words. "Not leaving you out here alone. We're good like this." He settled deeper against the tree, but soon his breathing evened, head lolling until his chin rested atop Jimin's hair, warm weight pressing down.

Jimin froze, the alpha's scent completely enveloping him. Part of him wanted to nudge him awake, send him stumbling back to the shed. But the other part, the one softened by shared secrets, couldn't bring itself to disturb the fragile peace. So he stayed put, letting the quiet rhythm of Jeongguk's dozing breaths lull him into a wary vigil, the world beyond the fence forgotten for a moment.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The morning light filtered through the windows of the communal hall, casting pale shadows across the scarred wooden tables where the pack gathered for breakfast. Jimin moved through the motions on autopilot, his body heavy with the remnants of a night that refused to fade. The warmth of Jeongguk's chin on his head, the steady rise and fall of the alpha's chest against his side—it all replayed in fragments, leaving him raw and unsteady. 

His mind screamed at him to retreat, to bury it under layers of routine and distance. Why had he let that happen? Why had he leaned in, offered that clumsy comfort to someone who'd clawed his way under his skin? The vulnerability terrified him, a crack in the armor he'd forged from years of loss and survival. But exhaustion warred with it—the weariness of always running, always pushing away what felt too real. Jeongguk had cracked open last night, spilling pieces of his fractured past. Ignoring him now would echo the isolation Jimin's own family had inflicted, the cold silences that had shaped his guarded heart. No. He wouldn't do that. Not to Jeongguk.

He slid onto the chair across from the alpha, the scrape of wood against the floor drawing a few idle glances from the others. Jeongguk looked up from his plate of reheated stew and bread, steam curling lazily from the bowl.

His dark hair was tousled, eyes still shadowed from the night's chill, but there was a quiet alertness in his posture. Jimin met his gaze, offering a small nod and the barest curve of a smile—tentative, but genuine. For a beat, Jeongguk's expression froze, surprise flickering in those sharp features, as if he'd braced for avoidance. The alpha's widened eyes hit Jimin like a quiet punch to the gut, a flicker of disappointment twisting in his chest. 

Had Jeongguk really expected him to slip back into ignoring him, to pretend the night's shared warmth and confessions had never happened? Jimin knew he could be strict, even mean when the walls went up high enough to protect what was left of him. But cruel? No, he didn't see himself that way—not truly. 

Yet maybe the alpha's shock was fair, warranted even, because Jimin had toyed with the idea himself just moments ago, contemplating how easy it would be to act like they hadn't edged a little closer, like the fragile shared moment between them was just a fleeting dream. But that same exhaustion clawed at him deeper than temptation.

He was tired—bone-tired—of fighting Jeongguk at every turn, resisting his slow weave into the pack's fabric. Tired of his own doubts and fears dictating every move, building barriers that only left him more isolated. For once, just this once, he wanted to let it drop, to stop battling and simply acknowledge what was building between them.

Then Jeongguk nodded back, his own smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, soft and fleeting.

A sniffle broke the moment—Jeongguk rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand, the sound congested and unmistakable. The cold had sunk its teeth into him after all, despite the shared body heat under the stars. Jimin couldn't stifle the quiet chuckle that bubbled up, light and unexpected, easing the knot in his chest just a fraction.

Beside him, Taehyung paused mid-bite, fork hovering as he shot Jimin a curious sidelong glance, one eyebrow arched in silent question. Jimin just shook his head, focusing on his own meal, the warmth of the food doing little to chase away the lingering chill in his bones.

After the plates were cleared and the pack dispersed into the morning's tasks, Jimin lingered on the porch, the crisp air biting at his cheeks. Namjoon approached, hands tucked into the pockets of his worn jacket, his expression open and patient as always. The leader's presence grounded him, a steady anchor in the swirl of his thoughts.

"I'm sorry," Jimin started, the words tumbling out before he could second-guess them. He rubbed the back of his neck, gaze dropping to the splintered boards underfoot. "For storming out yesterday. I... it was too much. Everything hit at once, and I just—"

Namjoon held up a hand, his nod gentle, cutting through the apology without judgment. "Hey, no need. I get it. We've all got our limits." He leaned against the railing, voice low and measured, the empathy in his eyes pulling more from Jimin than any demand could. "But if you're up for it, walk me through what happened out there. Anything we can use to help him—to help all of us."

Jimin exhaled, leaning beside him, the wood creaking under their weight. He pieced it together as best he could, the words halting at first but gaining steadiness. "He's starting to come back during the shift. Not fully, but enough—he recognized my voice that night, so that’s why he seemed to respond to it. Listened when I told him to hold on." 

He paused, the memory of Jeongguk's wolf form flashing vividly—those golden eyes locking on him, wild but tethered. "And he mentioned last night that he was remembering bits of it, vaguely. Flashes, mostly. We know emotions play into it now, trigger it or make it worse. We'll need to focus on keeping him steady, regulating that somehow."

Namjoon absorbed it all, brow furrowing in thought. "And how'd he shift back? You see it happen?"

Jimin shook his head, a flush of embarrassment creeping up. "I... don't know. I fell asleep. It was late, and he was calming down. Woke up to him human again, hurting but back."

The admission stuck in his throat, heavy with self-reproach. He'd never done that—never allowed himself to drift off on watch, not even in the safest stretches of their patrols when threats were miles away. Vigilance was his default, etched into him from military days and the endless fight for  survival since. Slipping like this, letting exhaustion pull him under beside a volatile alpha in wolf form? It was utterly unlike him, a lapse that left him exposed and questioning his own reliability. What if something had gone wrong? What if he'd failed not just Jeongguk, but the pack?

The leader's eyes widened briefly, shock rippling across his face—Jimin, the vigilant one, always on watch, letting his guard slip? But it softened into a small, knowing smile, warmth crinkling the corners. "Hey, don't beat yourself up over it. Everyone can't give a hundred percent every single hour—especially not someone like you who's always pushing for one-ten. You needed that rest, and look, it worked out. He came back on his own, safe and sound." 

He paused, a playful glint sparking in his gaze as he added lightly, "Besides, who wouldn't want to catch some shut-eye next to a giant puppy? Sounds like the best guard dog story I've heard in ages."

The light joke helped to ease the tension coiled in Jimin's shoulders, drawing a reluctant huff of laughter from him despite the lingering flush on his cheeks. "I'm glad," Namjoon continued, his tone shifting back to earnest warmth. "Truly. It means you felt safe enough around him, even in that state. He trusts you in those raw moments, reaches for you. I'd like you to keep at it—work with him up close. Help him sort through this mess."

This time, the agreement came without the usual knot of reluctance twisting in Jimin's gut. "Yeah. I will."

Hoseok's footsteps thudded up the porch steps then, rifles slung over his shoulder, the metal glinting dully in the light. He handed Jimin's over with a nod, the weight familiar and reassuring in his grip. "Horses are saddled and ready. Patrol route's clear so far—no tracks near the fence line."

Jimin took the rifle, slinging it across his back as he straightened. Before he could step off the porch, Namjoon clapped a hand on his shoulder, the touch brief but solid. "One more thing. Thanks—for everything. We butt heads sometimes, but I don't know where this pack would be without you. You're irreplaceable."

The words settled warm in Jimin's chest, chasing away the last of the morning's fog as he headed toward the stables, the promise of the day ahead pulling him forward.

The stable air hung thick with the scent of hay and horse sweat as Jimin swung onto Cheol's back, the stallion's muscles shifting solidly beneath him. Cheol nickered softly, ears flicking forward in anticipation, his warm breath puffing against Jimin's knee. Taehyung was already settled on his mare, Bora. The reins were loose in his hands while Hoseok adjusted the strap on his saddlebag before mounting up with efficient grace. No fanfare, no goodbyes beyond a quick nod to the sentries at the gate—their departure was a whisper in the crisp morning, the compound's wooden palisade creaking open just enough to let them slip through.

Outside, the world stretched barren under a leaden sky, frost-crusted fields giving way to skeletal trees that clawed at the horizon. The horses' hooves crunched softly over frozen earth, their pace deliberate and quiet, breaths clouding in the chill. Jimin's rifle rested easy across his lap, the weight a familiar comfort against the uncertainty of the wilds.

Their task was straightforward but came with risk: shadow the howler herds, map their migration to winter dens. The creatures could endure weeks without a meal, their decayed bodies hunkering down as temperatures dropped, movements sluggish to hoard what little energy remained. But spring would stir them, ravenous and relentless. If too many clustered near the compound, thawing into a horde come spring, it could spell disaster. So they culled when chances aligned—ambushes on stragglers or isolated packs, thinning the threat before it swelled.

Hoseok led, his posture straight as he scanned the treeline, bow slung across his back for silent kills. "Quiet winter so far," he murmured over his shoulder after a stretch of riding, voice low to carry no farther than the wind. "Heard from the eastern scouts—herds pushing north, but some loops bring 'em back our way."

Taehyung nodded, guiding his horse closer to Jimin's side, the animals falling into an easy trot. "Yeah, last year they bedded down in those ravines by the old mill. Slowed 'em enough we picked off a dozen without a chase." He paused, blowing on his hands for warmth. "Cold keeps 'em dumb, at least. No sprinting after rabbits in this freeze."

“We should make it interesting when the worst hits. Shooting bets? See how many we can drop before they scatter." Hoseok mutters, adjusting his scarf under his chin.

Taehyung perked up, guiding his horse closer, the animals falling into an easy trot. "Hell yeah. Loser owes the winner a prize. If I win, Hoseok, you're scouting for genuine booze—the most expensive whiskies we can find. None of that homemade rotgut."

Hoseok barked a laugh, shaking his head as he adjusted his grip on the reins. "How am I supposed to know what's the best? I can't exactly do a Naver search anymore, in case you forgot. You're trying to get me killed just so Yoongi will top you again."

Taehyung's eyes widened in mock offense, but he leaned forward with a smirk. "Dude, you have to help me out! Look—if you win, I'll go find that pasta maker Seokjin-hyung is always whining about, and then maybe he'll let you and Joon-hyung finally hit—"

"Oh my god, shut up please," Hoseok cut him off, swatting at the air between them, his face flushing under the scarf. Jimin couldn't help a quiet chuckle, the easy ribbing cutting through the morning's chill like a spark. It was these moments that made the patrols bearable, turning grim necessity into something almost fun amid the frost.

"Better than summer swarms," Jimin added, his gaze fixed on the distant hills where faint, shambling shapes might lurk. "At least we can see 'em coming now, line up shots without the heat haze screwing us over."

The banter flowed light, a ritual to stave off the silence that amplified every snap of branch or distant groan. But Jimin's mind wandered, snagging on the morning's fragments: Jeongguk's surprised eyes at breakfast, the alpha's tentative smile cracking through the guarded layers. The pull toward him felt both inevitable and treacherous, a warmth that thawed parts Jimin had long kept iced over.

Hoseok raised a fist, signaling a halt as they crested a low rise. "Hold here. I'll scout the ridge—make sure no surprises in the draw below." He dismounted fluidly, tethering his horse to a gnarled stump before vanishing into the underbrush, footsteps muffled by the snow-dusted ground.

The wait stretched, Cheol shifting restlessly under Jimin as Taehyung cleared his throat, the sound deliberate in the quiet. Jimin glanced over, catching the furrow in his friend's brow, the way Taehyung's fingers tightened on the reins. The playful lilt had faded, leaving something softer, more intimate—the kind of talk they'd shared since the early days, when trust was forged in shared silences and scavenged meals.

"Look, Jimin-ah," Taehyung started, voice pitched low and gentle, eyes flicking to where Hoseok had gone before settling back on Jimin. "I've been thinking about that night we brought Jeongguk back from the forest. I was too harsh on you. Snapping like that—it wasn't the right moment. You were already dealing with enough, and I'm sorry."

Jimin's grip eased on the reins, a flicker of surprise warming his chest. He shook his head, meeting Taehyung's gaze with a small nod. "I can’t really fault you for it, can I? I’m not someone with impeccable timing either.”

“You know I only want the best for you.”

Jimin huffs softly at the alpha before nodding.  “ I know, Tae. We're good."

“Always?”

“Always.”

Taehyung exhaled, relief softening his features as he leaned closer. "Yeah? Okay. But... I've noticed you and him getting close. Like, actually connecting, not just tolerating each other. It's good to see, Jimin—relieving, even. But with this shifting thing, I'm still worried. Just be cautious until we figure it out, yeah? I don't want you getting hurt."

The words settled warm in Jimin's chest, easing the knot of isolation he'd carried since dawn. He nodded, the admission hanging between them. "I know. It's not like I'm blind to it. The shifts—they're unpredictable, but he's trying, Tae. And the other night... it feels like there's a solid chance of progress."

Taehyung reached out, clapping a gloved hand on Jimin's shoulder, the touch solid and reassuring. Cheol didn't so much as twitch, unfazed by Bora's proximity as always—the stallion had never minded the mare's easy nearness. Taehyung's hand lingered a moment before drifting up, his fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from Jimin's eyes. 

"You know I love you, Jimin," he murmured, the words soft but steady, a quiet affirmation in the frozen quiet.

Jimin's throat tightened, the simple declaration cutting through the chill like sunlight. He leaned into the touch for a beat, eyes meeting Taehyung's with unwavering warmth. "Of course I do. I love you too, Tae."

Taehyung's smile bloomed, brief but bright, before he pulled back, the moment sealing their bond tighter against the world's unraveling ends. "You've always got me in your corner, no matter what. Even if you get on my nerves sometimes—you’re my soulmate."

Jimin met his eyes with a small, genuine curve of his lips. "I know. Thanks."

Hoseok emerged from the treeline moments later, his boots crunching over the thin layer of ice as he jogged back to his horse. He untied the reins with quick, practiced motions, swinging up into the saddle without breaking stride. 

"Clear down there," he reported, voice carrying just enough to bridge the gap between them. "Spotted a small pack—maybe six or seven howlers huddled in the draw. They're burrowed deep, but barely moving, thank god. Looks like they're settling in for the long haul, and not migrating much further south. We could pick off a couple if we wanted, but I'm not sure. They're too clustered for a clean shot without drawing out the rest from who-knows-where."

Jimin nodded, scanning the ridge himself now that Hoseok had the lay of it. The information slotted into place, easing a fraction of the tension in his shoulders. One less herd swelling near the compound meant fewer nightmares come thaw. "Good enough for today," he said, his breath fogging the air. "Mark the spot on the map when we get back. We'll circle it on the next run."

Hoseok leaned forward in his saddle, rubbing gloved hands together against the deepening chill.

"Yeah, about that... while I was up there, I thought I caught something off by the city outskirts. Smoke, maybe? Or a glint—like metal catching the light. Could've been survivors signaling, but..." He trailed off, squinting into the distance as if willing the shapes to clarify.

"Probably just my eyes playing tricks. Frostbite's a bitch, makes everything shimmer."

Taehyung snorted, shifting in his seat as Bora stamped a hoof impatiently. "Hallucinating, more like. If anyone's dumb enough to hole up there, the Howlers would've had them for lunch by now. That area's crawling with the bastards—prime feeding ground before they den up. No way anyone's lasting long without turning into bait."

"Keep an eye on it anyway," Hoseok added, though his tone carried the weight of doubt. "Unlikely, but if it's raiders instead... we'd need to know. That hotspot's too volatile for surprises."

Jimin felt a prickle at the base of his neck, the mention of raiders stirring old instincts. The city ruins were a graveyard of rusted cars and crumbling towers, but they drew the desperate—and the dangerous. Howlers were one issue, a predictable horror they could track and thin. But humans? The thought twisted in his gut.

He really hoped Hoseok's eyes were playing tricks on him. Dealing with more of their kind right now—survivors with their pleas or raiders with their greed—would crack him open. He couldn't handle it, not with the fragile threads of trust and exhaustion already fraying inside him.

 "Agreed. We'll log it, check on the next patrol. But not today." He glanced skyward, where the clouds hung heavier, bruising the gray with hints of white. The wind had picked up, slicing through his layers like a blade, numbing his fingertips even through the gloves. 

"The air’s turning brutal. We've seen what we need on the herds—they're hunkering, not advancing. No point pushing further."

Taehyung tilted his head, assessing the sky with a grimace. "And it smells like snow. Flakes in the air already, if you squint. Without a weather channel feeding us updates, we're flying blind half the time. Better to head back, bunker down before it hits."

Hoseok wheeled his horse around, falling into line as they turned toward home. “Smart call. The last thing we need is getting caught out here when the storm rolls in. Those raggedy fence walls we’ve got up have never looked so good.”

Taehyung and Hoseok fell back into their easy chatter, voices overlapping with jokes about the cold and half-hearted bets on who'd spot the first snowflake of the season. The group fell into a steady canter, the horses' breaths syncing with the rhythm of their retreat. Jimin urged Cheol onward, but still slow enough that they lagged a bit, riding absentmindedly at the rear.

He couldn’t help but let his gaze drift backward toward the hazy outline of the city. The ruins loomed like jagged teeth against the horizon, silent and foreboding. He urged Cheol to keep pace, but the weight of unspoken worries clung to him as the compound's silhouette sharpened against the fading light.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The relentless patter against the window yanked Jimin from sleep, a sharp rhythm that drilled into his skull like insistent fingers. He blinked into the dim room, disoriented, the faint glow of moonlight filtering through frost-laced glass. Snow. Heavy, relentless snow, blanketing the world outside in a hush broken only by the wind's low moan. Shit. The laundry—he'd left it out on the lines by the bathhouse, forgotten in the haze of the day's patrol and the weight of unspoken worries. Namjoon's prediction had been off; the alpha had sworn the first flakes wouldn't hit until next week, but the evidence piled up outside, thick and unforgiving.

A week or so had passed since that night on the perch, when Jeongguk had cracked open his guarded shell and let the words tumble out—raw confessions that had shifted something fundamental between them. Things had smoothed over since then, interactions turning cordial, almost easy in a way Jimin hadn't anticipated. 

Jeongguk's openness had unlocked a door, though, one that led to the alpha's bolder side emerging with frustrating regularity. Playful jabs during meals, a lingering brush of shoulders on patrols, teasing remarks that bordered on flirtatious—it all grated on Jimin in moments, stirring an urge to snap back. But annoyance aside, he knew it was necessary, this easing of tensions. 

The pack had been wound tight, their unease palpable in every sidelong glance and hushed conversation, all stemming from the friction between him and Jeongguk. Seeing the others finally unwind, shoulders dropping and laughter flowing freer as he and the alpha bantered more openly, made it bearable. It knit the group back together, even if it meant enduring Jeongguk's relentless charm. Though Jimin would never admit it out loud, Jeongguk's closeness was beginning to seriously throw his focus off-kilter, if the fact that his clothes were being frozen solid outside were anything to go by.

Jimin swung his legs over the bed's edge, the chill seeping through the floorboards and nipping at his bare feet. No time for proper layers. He yanked on his boots, the laces slapping against his ankles as he bolted from the room, thin sweater clinging to his frame and pajama bottoms offering no barrier against the bite waiting beyond the door.

The front entrance creaked open under his shove, spilling him into the storm's embrace. Flurries whipped across his face, stinging like needles, and the ground crunched underfoot, already slick with a layer of ice beneath the powder.

The moonlight reflected off the fresh snow, casting the entire yard in a pale silvery hue that made the world glow without a single lamp lit. It was beautiful, ethereal almost—a sight Jimin had never grown tired of in all these harsh winters—but there was no time to admire the view now, not with his clothes stiffening into frozen husks on the lines.

"Fuck—" The word tore from him in a gasp as he sprinted toward the clotheslines, arms pumping to ward off the wind's assault. 

The lines sagged under the weight of frozen sheets and sweaters, fabrics stiff as boards, encrusted with rime. His fingers, numb before he even reached them, fumbled at the wooden pins securing the massive bedsheets first. They resisted, swollen and unyielding from the frozen moisture, refusing to release their grip. 

"Come on, you bastards—" He yanked harder, breath clouding in frantic bursts, lungs burning as the cold clawed through his sleeves, soaking into the thin cotton. The sheets dragged like lead when they finally gave way, heavy and crackling with ice, forcing him to wrestle them down with both arms, nearly toppling him into a drift. Snowflakes tangled in his hair, melting into icy rivulets down his neck, and his curses grew sharper, frustration mounting with each stubborn fold.

A shadow materialized from the swirling white, solid and sudden, blocking the faint path to the bathhouse. Jimin jolted back, heart slamming against his ribs, a curse dying on his lips as recognition hit. Jeongguk. The alpha stood there, snow dusting his broad shoulders, dark eyes glinting with amusement amid the flurry. He'd appeared out of nowhere, silent as a ghost in the storm.

"Fucking hell, Jeongguk—don't sneak up like that," Jimin snapped, voice hoarse from the cold, one hand clutching a half-frozen sheet to his chest while the other battled another pin. His pulse still raced, irritation flaring hot against the chill.

Jeongguk's lips quirked, unrepentant, as he stepped closer, gloved hands already reaching for the nearest line to help with the remaining sweaters. "Heard you out here wrestling with the ghosts. Figured you could use a hand before you turn into an icicle." 

His enhanced senses—sharper now, more attuned since the shifts—had picked up the curses and struggles from inside the farmhouse, drawing him out into the night without a second thought.

Jimin scowled, but didn't pull away when Jeongguk's fingers deftly unclipped a sweater, shaking off the snow with efficient tugs. "I had it under control. Just... go back inside. This is my mess."

"Sure you did," Jeongguk shot back, voice laced with teasing warmth as he bundled another sheet and draped it over his arm, easing the load from Jimin's grip. 

"Grumpy omega in the snow—looks like a recipe for frostbite. Here, pass that one." He nodded at the sheet Jimin wrestled, his breath steady despite the wind, body heat radiating like a furnace even through the layers.

They worked in tandem for a few minutes, banter cutting through the storm's roar. Jimin grumbled about Namjoon's weather guess, Jeongguk ribbed him for forgetting the lines in the first place, their words overlapping in quick jabs.

Snow clung to Jimin's dark hair, flecking his shoulders like stars caught in the chaos, and his shivers grew harder to hide, teeth chattering faintly as he stuffed the last sweater into his arms.

Jeongguk paused, eyeing him with a grin that sharpened into mischief. Without warning, he scooped a loose handful of powder from the ground and lobbed it at Jimin's chest, the impact soft but startling. "Lighten up, hyung. Can't let you freeze without a fight."

"What the fuck—hey!" Jimin sputtered, snow crumbling down his sweater, the cold shock pulling a yelp from him. He swiped at the mess, annoyance bubbling over into something sharper, anger rising in his chest like a spark catching dry tinder. 

"I'm freezing my ass off here, and you want to play? Cut it out, Jeongguk. This isn't funny."

But Jeongguk laughed, low and infectious, already packing another snowball. He tugged Jimin forward by the elbow, drawing him into the open space away from the lines. "Come on, one throw. It'll warm you up. You look like you need to loosen that frown."

Jimin's jaw tightened, irritation flaring hotter as the alpha persisted, his insistence grating against the exhaustion and cold. "No. I'm serious—stop pushing. I just want to get back inside." He stepped back, arms crossed over the bundled clothes, the wind slicing deeper now that he'd stilled, fueling the storm inside him.

Jeongguk didn't relent, his grin unwavering as he lobbed another light toss that grazed Jimin's arm. The snow hit like a taunt, and Jimin's temper spiked, a low growl building in his throat. How dare he keep this childish act up, acting like everything was light and easy when Jimin felt like he was unraveling? The hesitation deepened, a voice in his head screaming to walk away, to end this before it dragged him under, but Jeongguk's presence loomed, relentless in its warmth.

But then, in the silvery glow, Jimin's gaze caught on the alpha's eyes—big and bright, shining with a pure, unfiltered happiness that lit them from within. He'd never seen them like that before, so alive and unguarded, cutting through the storm like beacons. Jimin's breath stuttered for a second, the anger faltering, caught off guard by the warmth in that look. It pierced through the haze of his frustration, softening the edges just enough.

He was still stiff, shoulders tense, the hesitation lingering like a shadow, but something shifted. The competitiveness he'd buried under layers of weariness stirred, pulling him forward despite himself. Fuck it, Jeongguk wanted a snowball fight? He’d give him one hell of a snowball fight. 

A reluctant huff escaped, and he bent to gather a handful of snow, packing it tight. "Fine. But if I hit you too hard, don't whine." He hurled it, watching it splatter against Jeongguk's jacket, a flicker of satisfaction easing the knot in his gut.

"Not bad," Jeongguk conceded, before charging forward. Jeongguk dodged the snowball with a fluid sidestep, the packed ice sailing past his shoulder and exploding against the shed wall in a puff of white. His laughter rang out, deep and unfiltered, cutting through the wind like a challenge. 

"Oh, it's on now, hyung. That's all you got? I expected better from a guy who dances like he owns the stage."

Jimin's cheeks burned, and not just from the cold. Jeongguk didn’t know anything about how Jimin actually danced, but this assumption coming from the alpha that he was an excellent dancer made his chest flutter. He shook it off, scooping another handful of snow, his fingers stinging as he compressed it into a tighter ball. The alpha's words hung there, teasing the edges of his guarded memories, but the spark of competition drowned it out. 

"Keep talking, pup. I'll bury you before you can shift into a fluffball." He lobbed it low, aiming for Jeongguk's knees, watching with a grudging thrill as the alpha jumped back, boots kicking up fresh powder.

"Fluffball? Harsh." Jeongguk feigned a wounded look, hand over his heart, but his eyes danced with mischief. He retaliated fast, arm whipping forward to send a snowball arcing straight at Jimin's midsection. It connected with a solid thump, snow spraying up to dust Jimin's chin. 

"Bet you can't hit a moving target. Come at me—prove you're not all bark."

Jimin yelped, swiping the cold mess from his sweater, but a reluctant grin tugged at his lips. The anger from earlier ebbed further, replaced by the rush of the game, his body warming from the exertion. He darted to the side, using the clothesline as cover, heart pounding in rhythm with the falling flakes. 

"Moving target? You're standing still like a tree. What, afraid to run?" He packed and fired again, this one grazing Jeongguk's thigh, close enough to make the alpha stagger dramatically.

Jeongguk's grin widened, teeth flashing in the moonlight as he charged a few steps, closing the gap just enough to lob one back. It clipped Jimin's shoulder, sending icy shards down his neck, and he shivered violently, but the laugh that bubbled up surprised even him—sharp and genuine, slicing through the night's hush. 

"Afraid of you? Please. I could outrun you blindfolded. But fine, let's see those dancer legs in action." He scooped a double handful, splitting it into two quick throws, one high and one low, forcing Jimin to twist away.

Jimin bolted then, legs pumping through the deepening drifts, snow crunching under his boots as he put distance between them. The yard blurred into a silvery haze, the farmhouse a distant shadow, and for a moment, the weight of the world—the patrols, the Howlers, the endless winter—faded under the absurdity of it all. 

"Then catch me if you can, mutt!" Jimin called over his shoulder, voice breathless but laced with defiance. He spun mid-stride, hurling a snowball backward without looking, the satisfying crack of it hitting Jeongguk's chest echoing back to him.

"Direct hit!" Jeongguk whooped, undeterred, his longer strides eating up the ground as he pursued. He was relentless, snowballs flying in rapid succession—one whizzing past Jimin's ear, another thudding harmlessly into the snow at his feet. 

“You're quick, hyung, but predictable. Left, right—ah, there you go again!" His taunt pulled another reluctant chuckle from Jimin, who veered sharply toward the fence line, breath coming in white plumes.

Jimin paused to reload, back against the rough wooden slats, chest heaving as he eyed Jeongguk's approach. The alpha slowed to a jog, packing his own ammo with exaggerated care, brows furrowed in mock concentration. 

"Truce? Or are you surrendering already? Your aim's improving, but those eyes are telling me that you're plotting revenge."

"Surrender? To you? Dream on." Jimin straightened, launching his next shot with pinpoint accuracy—it smacked Jeongguk square in the forehead, snow blooming across his bangs like a crown. The alpha blinked, stunned for a beat, then burst into laughter, wiping it away with his hand. 

"Okay, that was good. But payback's coming." He surged forward, and Jimin took off again, weaving through the open space, their banter a steady rhythm amid the chaos.

"Payback? From the guy who can't even dodge a straight throw?" Jimin shot back, glancing over his shoulder just in time to duck an incoming snowball. 

It sailed overhead, and he countered with a low slide, scooping snow on the move and flinging it wildly. The cold bit deeper now, seeping through his damp clothes, but the adrenaline kept it at bay, his muscles loosening in the playful pursuit. Jeongguk's presence chased away the last remnants of his earlier ire, that bright-eyed joy pulling him deeper into the moment.

They circled each other near the shed once more, breaths ragged, faces flushed under the moon's glow. Jeongguk lobbed a final, lighter toss that Jimin batted away with his arm, snow scattering like confetti. 

"You're ruthless, hyung. I like it." The alpha's voice softened, his gaze lingering a second too long, the playfulness shifting into something warmer, more intent.

Before Jimin could retort, Jeongguk lunged, closing the distance in a blur. He tackled gently, arms wrapping around Jimin's waist to pull him down into a soft drift, their bodies tumbling together in a tangle of limbs and laughter. Snow puffed up around them, cushioning the fall, and Jeongguk pinned him lightly, knees bracketing his hips, blocking the wind with his bulk. Up close, his breath ghosted warm against Jimin's cheek, eyes still shining with that unguarded light. 

"Got you. Now, about that truce..."

Jimin panted, caught beneath him, the heat of Jeongguk's body a stark contrast to the chill seeping from the ground. His shivers returned in force, but he didn't push away, the proximity stirring a different kind of warmth low in his belly. 

"Yeah... truce," he murmured, voice rough, letting his hands rest on Jeongguk's arms. The alpha's grin softened, and he helped Jimin up, brushing snow from his shoulders with careful swipes. 

"Shed's calling. Can't have you turning blue on me."

Jimin’s lips parted in a weak protest, but the words faltered under the alpha's gaze. Jeongguk's hands steadied him, one rubbing slow circles on his arm. "You're shaking like a leaf. Come on—I’ve got some blankets stashed and the fireplace warmed up. Just to thaw out a bit. I promise no more snow."

The offer hung there, quiet and coaxing, Jeongguk's voice dropping low against the storm. Jimin hesitated, the pull of warmth too tempting to ignore. Then he nodded, the fight's energy settling into quiet contentment as they trudged toward the door, the storm's howl fading behind the promise of shelter.

The shed enveloped them in a cocoon of warmth, the fireplace they'd jury-rigged months ago crackling steadily, its flames pushing back the night's bite. Flickering light danced across the rough-hewn walls, throwing elongated shadows that twisted like forgotten memories. Near the door, their coats hung limp, gloves tossed beside them, and the damp laundry piled in a soggy heap, snow pooling on the worn floorboards and seeping slowly into the cracks.

The air smelled of that telltale woodsmoke and wet wool, a faint tang of earth from the frozen ground outside clinging to their clothes. Jimin and Jeongguk sat side by side on the narrow bed near the hearth, their shoulders brushing with each shift, the contact sending a quiet spark through Jimin.

The shed's warmth seeped into Jimin's skin as he sat on the narrow bed, the fire's crackle filling the quiet. Jeongguk settled beside him, their thighs pressing together, coats and damp laundry heaped by the door where snow melted into shallow pools on the floorboards. Jimin glanced around the space, noting how the flickering light softened everything, the air carrying a faint, comforting scent of aged wood and pine smoke. 

It felt worlds away from that first tense night he'd spent here, chained to the wall while monitoring Jeongguk's fevered recovery after his initial shift—the air then thick with fear and the metallic tang of blood, every creak a potential threat. Now, the shed wrapped around them like a reluctant sanctuary, the tension eased into something almost domestic.

Jeongguk leaned forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands near the flames. "Well, shivering and sniffling or not, it looked like you needed it."

Jimin crossed his arms, glancing at the fire to avoid Jeongguk's gaze. "Could've gone without it just fine, thanks." His voice stayed even, a faint edge cutting through the warmth.

Jeongguk turned his head, smirking as he nudged Jimin's shoulder with his own. "Well, it was you humoring me with the snowball fight, or you dancing, so."

Jimin's jaw tightened, and he shot Jeongguk a sidelong look, fingers tapping against his bicep. "You're seriously not letting that go? I told you I'm not doing that."

Jeongguk straightened up, eyes lighting with mischief as he gestured toward the corner where an old record player gathered dust. The sneaky alpha must’ve grabbed it from the farmhouse storage. "I will find a way to play music—maybe convince Namjoon to let us hook up the record player to a generator for just a little."

Jimin shook his head, uncrossing his arms to poke at a loose thread on the blanket. "Like hell he'd do that now, especially when we need it for the coldest nights."

Jeongguk groaned, flopping back against the wall with a dramatic sigh, his arm draping loosely behind Jimin. "Jimin, you have got to work with me here."

Jimin's lips twitched, but he kept his expression flat, leaning away just enough to create space. "Nope."

Jeongguk tilted his head, studying Jimin with a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "God, I can tell you were a real brat when you were younger."

Jimin paused, his poking fingers stilling as he met Jeongguk's stare, voice softening despite the retort. "Actually, I was a saint according to my mother, so get your facts straight, mutt."

Jeongguk's grin faded into something curious, his arm shifting to rest lightly on the bed behind Jimin without closing the gap. "Is that so?"

Jimin nodded once, gaze dropping to his hands as he twisted the thread free. The fire popped, and he exhaled slowly, the words hovering on his tongue before spilling out quieter than before. Jimin wondered why he was even starting this—Taehyung had only heard fragments, and even those were guarded whispers.

Jeongguk, though? This felt different, the shed's coziness loosening the locks he'd placed on these memories. He swallowed, forcing himself to push on, the vulnerability twisting in his chest like a knot he couldn't untie. But now, as the silence stretched, that urge clawed at him again, pulling him toward confession even as his mind recoiled. 

His lips parted, a faint breath escaping, words forming silently in his throat—she was everything—only for doubt to slam them back down. Why fight it? Why did sharing feel like cracking open a wound that never fully healed? Exhaustion weighed on him, heavy as the blanket that was across his lap, making his shoulders sag. He glanced at Jeongguk, those steady eyes waiting without pressure, and the internal war raged on—speak and risk the raw ache, or stay silent and let the isolation fester. His mouth moved again, barely a twitch, testing the air.

"She... she was the one who made everything okay. Used to dance—ballet mostly, but gave it up when she got pregnant with me young. Her boyfriend from college thought marriage would fix things, but money dried up quickly."

Jeongguk stayed silent, his body still as he watched Jimin's profile, one hand curling loosely in his lap. The quiet from him felt heavy, expectant, and Jimin hesitated, glancing up briefly to gauge his reaction—those dark eyes steady, no judgment, just listening. Jimin cursed inwardly; he'd started now, and backing out would only make the ache sharper. But the pull to continue battled the push to retreat, his pulse thudding in his ears, every breath a reminder of how tiring this tug-of-war had become.

Jimin picked at his sleeve now, shoulders hunching slightly as he stared at the flickering light on the wall. "Father bailed before I even reached three years old. Divorce papers showed up one day, no note, nothing. We were on our own in this tiny apartment. Grandparents threw scraps our way, but mostly she was the family screw-up to them." His voice dipped, the old resentment bubbling up, and he clenched his jaw, the rawness of it all hitting harder in this quiet space. 

Jimin realized he hadn't laid out the full tangle like this for anyone, not even Taehyung grasped the depth of the isolation. But Jeongguk's steady presence chipped away at his resolve, making the words flow despite the reluctance gnawing at him. "Factory work—double shifts, hands always rough and stained. Never let it show, though. She'd come home exhausted, but she'd smile, pull me into the living room for dances."

He mimed a small step with his foot, then stopped abruptly, heat rising to his face as he rubbed his palm over his knee. Jeongguk leaned in a fraction, his breathing steady, thumb brushing idly against the blanket—no words, just that subtle shift that made Jimin feel seen, exposed. Jimin questioned why Jeongguk's gaze pulled this from him so easily, the fire's glow mirroring the warmth he hadn't expected to find here.

"Ballet steps at first," Jimin continued, his tone measured, each word dragged out like he was testing the waters, "then whatever she remembered from classes—contemporary stuff, flowing and free. She'd guide my hands, laugh when I stumbled over my feet." A faint, bittersweet smile tugged at his lips for a second before fading, and he pressed his fingers into his thigh, grounding himself.

Jimin reflected on those fourteen years, the rhythm of her hands on his, the music from a cracked radio filling their cramped space. Those were memories he'd buried deep, surfacing now with a clarity that unsettled him. What was it about this moment, this shed, that felt like it was thawing the frost around his heart?

"We had fourteen years like that. I swore I'd take care of her, make up for everything."

A log shifted in the hearth, sparks flying up, and Jimin swallowed hard, his fingers clenching the fabric as the next part loomed. He glanced at Jeongguk again—still quiet, still there—and the hesitation swelled, a voice in his head urging him to stop, to deflect with a joke. But the words pressed forward, unbidden, the comfort of the fire and Jeongguk's nearness eroding his defenses. Jeongguk had laid himself bare first, spilling those painful parts of his own past without flinching, and that act hung between them like an unspoken pact. 

Jimin hated this—peeling back layers he'd buried deep, the exposure leaving him raw and unsteady—but fairness tugged at him. If Jeongguk could trust him with that vulnerability, how could he not offer the same in return? It felt like the only way to balance the scales, even as every instinct screamed to pull back. His throat tightened again, mouth opening and closing once before he forced the breath out.

"Cancer diagnosis came pretty quickly, actually. It was in her lungs, despite her never having smoked a single, goddamn day in her life. Must’ve been those stupid factories and their shit working conditions that took my mother away from me. They forced her to work in poor conditions, but gave no insurance. We had no cash for any real treatment."

Jeongguk's hand twitched in his lap, but he didn't interrupt, and Jimin barreled on, voice tightening. Jimin seethed inwardly at the family's indifference—they'd treated her like an afterthought, a burden to discard. The betrayal stung fresh, fueling his words as he wondered why he trusted Jeongguk with this wound, why it felt less like bleeding out and more like healing. "Family? They cut us off. 'Can't take on more burden,' they said over the phone. I hated them for it—betrayed her when she needed them most."

His breath stuttered, and he looked away, toward the melting snow by the door, the chill seeping in reminding him of those endless hospital waits. Jimin pondered the irony of sharing this now, with the one person who'd seen him at his most guarded, yet somehow made vulnerability feel safe. "I scraped jobs after school, anything shady for money. Oxygen, pills—it barely helped. She'd wave it off, force a smile through the coughs. 'Save it for you,' she'd whisper, even as she was clearly in agony."

Jimin's throat bobbed, and he pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on the flames as memories flooded in unfiltered—the sterile smell, her frail hand in his, the way she'd hum off-key to distract from the pain. He wiped at his eye with his knuckle, quick and discreet, the embarrassment mixing with the ache. Jimin chided himself for unraveling like this, for letting the grief spill unchecked, but Jeongguk's silence invited it, turning the shed into a confessional he hadn't sought.

"She still watched me practice," Jimin said, softer now, the words fracturing, "sat there with her blanket, humming tunes, pretending the pain wasn't eating her alive." He paused, chest tight, the fire's heat doing nothing to warm the cold knot inside.

Jeongguk exhaled softly, his hand hovering near Jimin's back before settling on his own thigh, giving room but staying close. That restraint—it pulled more from Jimin, against his better judgment, the intimacy of the moment amplifying every unspoken regret. Jimin grappled with the helplessness of those final days, the way her strength had mirrored his own stubbornness, now echoing in his reluctance to fully let go.

"One afternoon, I got home—paramedics rushing her out, neighbor at the door yelling for me to hurry. They got her to the hospital, but she passed a day later. I was there, holding her hand by the bed, and like the—” he paused, trying to grit back the overwhelming frustration that filled him.

“Like the little weakling I was, I spent the whole time crying as she slipped away. The very last thing she managed to say, between those painful breaths, was that she loved me. That she wanted me to take care of myself, and that she'd always watch over me. To dance under the stars, and never stop." His voice cracked fully then, and he turned his face away, breath hitching as the heat blurred the edges of the firelight, the weight of his past crashing over him like the snow outside. 

Jimin couldn't bring it in him to dance after that. Not ever again—the words she'd left him with twisted into a promise he couldn't keep, a final thread snapping in the silence of that hospital room.

The funeral came next in the torrent of memories, unbidden and sharp. Jimin stood there in a borrowed suit too stiff against his skin, the chapel air thick with the scent of lilies and insincerity. They made him give a speech—those same relatives who'd turned their backs, now dabbing at dry eyes with handkerchiefs, fake sobs echoing off the walls as if they'd ever lifted a finger for her.

He loathed them, and every crocodile tear that felt like a fresh stab. Their whispers of condolences rung hollow while he gripped the podium, words choking out about her grace, her fight, her love. But inside, the failure gnawed at him—he'd failed to protect her, to shield her from the cancer, the neglect, the world that had ground her down. The words he'd spoken felt like lies to himself, a performance for fellow vultures. And when it ended, he walked out alone, the weight of her absence settling like lead in his chest.

Back in the shed, the fire crackled louder, pulling Jimin from the haze. Jeongguk remained silent for a while, granting a small reprieve from reliving that moment, from the small, almost patronizing words like 'it's not your fault' that others might offer. He knew it wasn't his fault—it never had been—but it didn't make the hurt any less, the guilt a persistent shadow that no logic could chase away. 

Jeongguk seemed to sense it, reading the cracks in Jimin's armor better than most, almost better than Taehyung. Almost. Jimin blinked away the tears pricking at his eyes, heat flooding his cheeks in embarrassment that he'd actually gotten this emotional, laid bare in the fire's glow. He tried so hard not to think about her, not to dwell on the comfort, the warmth, the safety she'd wrapped around him like a second skin—how he'd craved to give that back, to be her shield, and couldn't. The failure echoed in the quiet, but Jeongguk's steady presence dulled its sharpness just enough to breathe.

Jeongguk shifted closer, his arm wrapping loosely around Jimin's shoulders in a gentle pull, holding without squeezing. The silence wrapped around them, broken only by the fire's steady snap, Jeongguk's chin dipping to rest lightly against Jimin's hair. Jimin let out a shaky breath, leaning into it despite himself, the weight feeling shared, lighter in the shed's unexpected embrace.

The silence stretched between them a bit longer as Jimin stared into the flames, his throat tight, the act of spilling those buried memories leaving him feeling exposed, like a wound freshly reopened. He braced for questions, for pity, but Jeongguk just sat there, steady and quiet, his presence a balm rather than a probe. 

After a long moment, Jeongguk shifted, his voice light as he lifted his hands toward the wall, fingers twisting into the rough outline of a wolf's snarling head—instinctive, like breathing, the fire's glow stretching the shadow into something wild and alive across the rough wood. No commentary, no 'how are you feeling?'—just this simple, silly distraction, pulling them away from the darkness without a word.

Jimin blinked, caught off guard, his gaze flicking from the flames to the playful silhouette. Gratitude flickered in his chest, warm and unexpected. Jeongguk had transitioned so quickly, so seamlessly, from the heavy ache of his mother's funeral to this childish game, making the air feel lighter, more normal. Like Jimin wasn't some broken thing to be tiptoed around, but just him, sharing a quiet night with a friend. It eased the knot in his stomach, letting him breathe a little easier. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, voice soft, laced with curiosity he couldn't quite hide, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth despite himself.

Jeongguk didn't turn right away, just kept his hands steady, the wolf's jaws opening wider in the flicker. "Ever made shadow puppets with friends before?" he replied, casual, like it was the most natural question in the world, his tone easy, inviting without pressure.

Jimin shook his head, a faint crease forming between his brows as he leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. "No. Never really had the chance for that kind of stuff growing up. Kept to myself mostly, just me and my mom. We didn't... we weren't the type for playdates or neighborhood games." 

His words slipped out quieter, a feeling of weakness still lingering, but it felt less heavy now, buffered by the shift in mood. Jeongguk nodded, his own shadow wolf tilting its head as if listening, and Jimin watched, intrigued despite the lingering ache.

"Come on, it's easy," Jeongguk said, beckoning with a tilt of his chin, eyes glinting with that easy warmth. "Try it with me. Spread your fingers like this—yeah, curve them for the ears. See?" 

He demonstrated again, the wolf bounding playfully across the wall, and Jimin hesitated, fingers twitching in his lap. The idea felt childish, exposed after everything he'd just shared, but the shed's coziness wrapped around him, and Jeongguk's encouragement was gentle, no mockery in it. He raised his hands anyway, mimicking the shape. His first attempt wobbled, the wolf's ears sagging comically, more like a lop-eared dog than anything fierce. 

"Wait, like this?" Jimin muttered, adjusting his thumb, frustration flickering briefly before it smoothed out.

Jeongguk chuckled low, the sound rumbling through the space between them, warm and genuine. "Close—tilt your wrist a bit. There, got it. Now make it howl." He twisted his own hands, and their shadows merged on the wall, two wolves facing off in a mock battle, snapping and circling in the dancing light.

A laugh bubbled up from Jimin's throat, light and unexpected, as they twisted their hands together, making the wolves chase each other across the planks, bounding and pouncing with exaggerated snarls that Jeongguk voiced in a goofy growl. "Yours is feistier—look at that bite!" Jeongguk teased, glancing over with a grin, and Jimin shot back, "Yours looks half-asleep. Wake it up before mine eats it alive." 

It was stupid, yeah—ridiculous even—but the laughter came easier, chasing away the shadows of his story, and for a moment, the world outside—the snow, the ruins, the endless grind—faded. Jimin felt it hit him like a quiet wave. This ease, this safety, it was the kind he hadn't known since he was a kid, curled up with his mom on worn cushions, her stories painting pictures in the dim light of their tiny apartment. The realization snagged in his chest, nearly throwing him  off-balance. 

The shadow loomed large now, gentle in its playfulness, a symbol he couldn't quite name but felt deep in his bones—connection, maybe, simple and pure.

Jeongguk glanced over fully, his smile soft, pleased in a way that lit his face from within, while Jimin stared at the wall, a faint curve tugging at his lips—almost disbelieving, like he was testing if the feeling would shatter. 

"Not bad for a first try," Jeongguk said softly, lowering his hands but keeping his gaze on Jimin. "You pick it up quickly. We could make a whole pack if we keep at it."

Warmth bloomed in Jimin's chest, separate from the fire's heat, spreading slowly and insistent. He just let it settle, shoulders brushing Jeongguk's, hands still raised in the air for a beat longer, the moment theirs alone. 

"Yeah?" Jimin replied, voice hushed, a light playfulness creeping in. "As long as mine doesn't have to share the den with your lazy one."

They let their arms drop after that, the silence returning, but softer now, laced with the echo of their laughter. Jeongguk turned fully, eyes tracing Jimin's profile with a depth that made the air thicken—warmth there, yeah, but adoration too, unguarded and raw. 

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his low voice threading through the crackle of logs. "Not just your face, Jimin. Your mind—it's full of all these layers, these stories. I ache to know more of you, if you'll let me."

Jimin's breath caught at the declaration that came out of left field, words lodging in his throat as heat flooded his face, heart slamming against his ribs like it wanted to escape. Flustered didn't cover it. He felt stripped bare, the alpha's gaze peeling back defenses he'd built for years. Shit. It feels like he’s harboring a ridiculous crush of sorts—this forbidden pull in a world that punished softness. It twisted in his gut, dangerous and thrilling. 

"Jeongguk, I... I need to check the storm outside," he stammered, shooting to his feet, fingers fumbling for the doorknob, needing distance from the intensity coiling between them.

Jeongguk's hand caught his wrist before he could twist it open, firm but not trapping, pulling him back just enough. Those dark eyes locked on, pleading, a quiet storm brewing in them. "It's too cold out there, hyung. Stay."

"I can run to the house," Jimin shot back, voice steadier than he felt, but his pulse betrayed him, racing under Jeongguk's thumb. He tugged lightly, testing, but didn't pull away hard.

"You'll get sick," Jeongguk insisted, his grip tightening a fraction, concern etching his features as he stepped closer, the warmth of his body cutting through the chill seeping from the door.

"I won't be out long. Just need some air."

"Your room doesn't even have a fireplace—you'll freeze in there before you even get warm under those blankets."

"I have plenty of them. Thanks for the worry, but I'll manage just fine—"

"Please stay, Jimin." Jeongguk's voice dropped, raw now, his free hand hovering near Jimin's arm, not quite touching. "Don't run from me this time. Not when things are finally... good."

They stared, the shed shrinking around them, time dragging to a crawl. Jimin's mind reeled—lost, stuck, every instinct screaming to bolt while another part rooted him in place, drawn to the earnest plea in Jeongguk's eyes. "I... I'm not running," he whispered, but it sounded weak even to him, his hand still caught, body leaning instinctively toward the alpha's heat.

Jeongguk closed the gap then, his free hand gently prying Jimin's fingers from the knob, calluses rough against smooth skin, thumb brushing over his knuckles in a soothing stroke. Their eyes never broke contact, intense, electric, like a standoff neither wanted to win. Threat hummed in Jimin's veins, omega instincts flaring at the alpha's nearness, but it tangled with overwhelm, thoughts scattering like ash. Fear coiled tight—he was scared, yeah, but leaving? That felt impossible now, the warmth of Jeongguk's touch anchoring him more than he cared to admit, the fire's glow wrapping them in fragile intimacy.

Jeongguk's fingers wrapped around Jimin's wrist with a firmness that felt like an anchor in the swirling storm of his thoughts. The alpha's thumb moved in lazy, soothing arcs over the fluttering vein, his gaze holding Jimin's captive, refusing to let go. The shed's air felt heavy, laced with the earthy bite of burning logs and the subtle, warming notes of their mingled scents weaving together in a way that made Jimin's chest tighten. Inside, his mind spun wildly. This draw to Jeongguk was a dangerous whisper, forbidden, like crossing a line he couldn't uncross in their fragile world. 

He'd spent so long guarding his heart, keeping everyone at arm's length after his mother's death, after the losses that carved him hollow. Yet here was Jeongguk, with his steady presence and those eyes that saw too much, chipping away at Jimin's defenses. He shouldn't want this—shouldn't crave the solid press of Jeongguk's body, the way his scent wrapped around Jimin like a promise of safety he didn't deserve.

Jimin's free hand clenched at his side, nails digging into his palm to anchor himself against the heat flooding his veins. His breath came shallow and measured, refusing to let any weakness slip out. Jeongguk's proximity was overwhelming—the broad shoulders blocking the door, the faint stubble shadowing his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell with controlled breaths that mirrored Jimin's own restraint. 

Every inch between them felt like a battlefield, Jimin warring with the urge to shove him away or yank him closer. His skin prickled under that stare, hyperaware of how close Jeongguk's lips were, how one shift could bridge the gap. A low heat stirred in his belly, unbidden and insistent, and he pressed his lips together to hide the way his cheeks heated. This wasn't him—yielding to some alpha's pull like a heat-drunk fool. But God, the forbidden thrill of it, the raw need to claim something for himself in this broken world, made his resolve fray at the edges.

Jeongguk didn't move at first, just held his gaze, his expression soft but intent before his free hand rose to tuck a fallen strand of hair behind Jimin's ear. The graze of his fingertips was feather-light, sending a shiver racing down Jimin's spine that he tried to ignore. 

"Stay," Jeongguk said softly, the word roughened by emotion, carrying a plea that echoed in the quiet space. 

He tugged gently on Jimin's wrist, pulling him back from the door until their chests nearly brushed, the heat radiating from Jeongguk's body cutting through the chill like a blade. Jimin's pulse thundered in his ears, his body betraying him as his hips shifted forward on instinct, drawn to that magnetic pull despite the scream in his head to resist.

Their breaths mingled, hot and uneven, the space between their mouths shrinking with agonizing slowness. Jimin's eyes flicked to Jeongguk's lips, full and parted, then back up, challenging, daring him to make the move while Jimin fought the urge to close the distance himself. The alpha's hand slid from his wrist to his waist, fingers splaying possessively, thumb grazing the strip of skin where his shirt had ridden up. 

God, he needed to run, to get out of there, but his feet stayed planted, rooted by the pull he couldn't deny. The warmth of Jeongguk's breath ghosted over his lips, stirring all the desire he'd buried deep, surging back now like a flood he couldn't contain. Jeongguk seemed to feel it too, his other hand lifting to cup Jimin's cheek, thumb tracing down to press lightly against his lower lip, parting it just enough to send a jolt through him.

"Can I ask for one more favor?" Jeongguk murmured, his voice low and teasing, carrying that familiar warmth. "You know, since you were mean to me when I was shifting."

Jimin could feel the touch on his lip igniting a spark that raced straight to his core. He searched Jeongguk's eyes, seeing the mix of playfulness and something deeper, more earnest, and it made his resolve waver. Jimin's voice then came out steadier than he felt, laced with a forced indifference. 

"You’re pushing it, Jeongguk." But his eyes fluttered shut, blocking out the sight of his own unraveling. Jeongguk was fucking up his mind entirely, unraveling the careful threads of control Jimin had woven around himself for so long.

Jeongguk's breath ghosted warm against his skin, closer now. "Just hear me out."

Jimin stayed silent, his throat tight with the fear that his voice would crack, exposing the raw want twisting inside him. Had he still felt sane, this would be the moment he’d tell Jeongguk to keep his affections locked down tight. But the words died unspoken, drowned by the heat pooling low in his gut.

"Don’t deny the pull this time. Don’t run away from me."

Jeongguk's lips met his in a soft press, warm and perfect. Jimin knew this already—he'd tasted them before, in two stolen moments that lingered like ghosts in his dreams. But here, in the heart of winter's bite, those lips felt like salvation—soft, coaxing, chasing the chill from his bones while igniting a fire he couldn't ignore. 

The kiss started slowly, Jeongguk holding back as if waiting for Jimin to pull away, to slap him like before, Jimin thought with a flicker of wry amusement amid the haze. But he didn't. Instead, he met it, his hand rising to grip Jeongguk's collar, holding him there as the alpha pressed deeper, lips parting with careful intent.

Jeongguk's thumb lingered a moment longer on Jimin's lip before sliding away, his hand cradling the side of his face to tilt it, guiding them into a better angle. The taste of him bloomed—tea and something uniquely Jeongguk, sweet and grounding—and Jimin felt a rush of need he couldn't suppress.

Jeongguk guided him backward with gentle hands on his waist, their mouths never breaking apart as he angled Jimin's head for better access. The alpha's tongue delved bolder now, tasting, claiming, and Jimin felt a surge of defiance rise up. He wouldn't just let this happen, wouldn't surrender control so easily. 

If this was the mistake he was making, he'd own it. Jimin deepened the kiss himself, opening his lips wider to draw Jeongguk in, their tongues brushing in a tentative exploration that quickly turned fervent. Fuck, Jeongguk tasted so good, like warmth and promise, and the kiss built with a hunger that left Jimin dizzy, his body pressing closer without thought. Their hands moved restlessly, fingers tugging at collars and hems, seeking more skin, more contact. 

The kiss turned frantic, a clash of need and desperation. Their hands roamed restlessly, fingers clawing at collars and shirts, bunching fabric as they sought skin. Jimin's nails scraped lightly down Jeongguk's back, pulling a low groan from the alpha that vibrated against his mouth. They stumbled together until the back of Jimin's knees buckled against the bed, sending him tumbling backward onto the mattress with a soft thud. Jeongguk followed without pause, his body covering Jimin's in a heated press, one hand bracing beside his head while the other pinned his hip down with firm insistence.

Jimin twisted beneath him, trying to flip them over and reclaim the upper hand, but Jeongguk held steady, his strength firm yet careful. Lips trailed from Jimin's mouth to his jaw, then down the column of his neck—hot, open-mouthed kisses that skirted the edges of his scent glands without quite touching, teasing the sensitive skin enough to make Jimin's nerves sing with electric pleasure. A shiver wracked him as Jeongguk's hardness ground against his thigh, the thick length of his cock straining through his pants, rutting in slow, deliberate rolls that dragged friction over Jimin's growing arousal. 

Jeongguk's mouth continued its descent, nipping lightly at Jimin's collarbone before he tugged up the hem of Jimin's sweater with his teeth, exposing the flat plane of his stomach. His lips followed, pressing wet kisses along the soft skin, tongue flicking out to taste the salt there. Jimin's back arched off the bed, a gasp escaping as goosebumps prickled in the wake of Jeongguk's breath. When Jeongguk's fingers hooked into the waistband of Jimin's pants, he paused, lifting his head to meet Jimin's eyes—dark with lust, but searching, waiting for the wordless go-ahead.

Heat throbbed through Jimin, his body aching, slick soaking through his briefs. Jeongguk would smell it, the alpha's senses sharp enough to catch every pulse of desire. No hiding now, no retreat. Jimin nodded, short and sharp, his chest heaving as he granted permission.

Jeongguk moved with agonizing slowness, sliding the pants down Jimin's legs, his fingers trailing feather-light paths over thighs and calves, raising fresh shivers with each pass. The cool air hit Jimin's skin, but Jeongguk's touch warmed it instantly, palms kneading gently as he tossed the pants aside. Then came the briefs, peeled away inch by inch until Jimin was bare, slick folds glistening in the firelight. 

Jeongguk inhaled deeply, his gaze fixed on the sight like it was a revelation. Jimin could feel another wave of slick dribbling out in the most humiliating way, dripping in a manner that he knew could only come off as an invitation to the alpha in front of him. Jeongguk’s eyes flicked up to Jimin's, raw hunger there, but tempered with reverence, as if committing every detail to memory.

Jimin lay exposed on his back, the exposed position making his mind race. His heart couldn’t seem to stop pounding in his chest, every nerve ending alive with the chill of the air against his heated skin, making him hyper-aware of how open he was. Instinct kicked in—he shifted to close his legs, muscles tensing as he prepared to flip Jeongguk beneath him and seize back some semblance of control. But the alpha anticipated it, his strong hands clamping down on Jimin's thighs, spreading them wider with pressure that pinned him in place. 

The grip was firm, fingers pressing into the soft flesh just enough to bruise lightly, sending a spark of heat straight to Jimin's core. Jeongguk's gaze locked onto Jimin's, dark and intense, refusing to break as he lowered his head between his legs. Jimin's breath hitched sharply, chest rising and falling in ragged bursts, the anticipation coiling tight in his core like a spring ready to snap.

Jimin watched as Jeongguk pressed a soft kiss to his slicked folds, right at the entrance, as if savoring a gift. The warmth of his lips contrasted sharply with the cool air, making Jimin shudder from head to toe, a low whine building in his throat that he swallowed down. The kiss lingered, Jeongguk's mouth molding gently to the swollen lips, and Jimin felt the subtle suction as the alpha tasted him, drawing out more slick in response. It felt intimate, almost adoring, stirring a confusing mix of tenderness and raw need in Jimin's stomach. 

Then came the licks—hot, deliberate strokes of his tongue that parted the sensitive lips, tasting the slick that dripped freely. Each pass sent electric jolts through Jimin's nerves, his inner walls clenching desperately around nothing, the heat of Jeongguk's tongue making his clit throb with neglected attention. Jimin gasped, his stomach twisting with a surge of intense arousal that made his toes curl into the bedsheets, his entire body flushing hot despite the lingering chill from outside.

Jeongguk's fingers dug into Jimin's thighs, holding him open as he ramped up the intensity. His tongue lapped broader now, circling the entrance before sucking gently on the swollen folds, drawing out more slick with each pull that made Jimin's hips twitch involuntarily. The suction pulled at his sensitive skin, creating a delicious ache that bordered on pain, heightening every sensation until Jimin's mind blurred with the overwhelming pleasure. 

He watched, mesmerized, the sight of Jeongguk's face buried there while those eyes stayed fixed on his—watching every twitch, every flutter of Jimin's lashes. It was intoxicating, the way Jeongguk devoured him without shame, his own arousal evident in the way his cock strained against his pants.

But for Jimin, it was the eye contact that amplified everything, making him feel seen, desired, exposed in a way that twisted his embarrassment with thrill. His breath came in short pants, each inhale sharp, as if the air itself was too thick to breathe.

Jimin's hands flew to the alpha’s hair, fingers threading through the dark strands, gripping tight in a desperate bid for anchor amid the storm building inside him. He tugged, trying to guide the rhythm, but Jeongguk only hummed in response, the vibration buzzing against Jimin's clit and making his hips jerk upward, chasing more. The sound reverberated through him, sending waves of pleasure radiating outward, his inner muscles spasming in response. 

The alpha grew bolder, tongue dragging flat and firm over every sensitive inch—flicking his clit with quick strokes that made Jimin's vision spot, probing the entrance with the tip before thrusting shallowly inside, sucking until Jimin's core throbbed with need, swollen and hypersensitive. More slick poured out, coating Jeongguk's lips and chin, even dripping down his jaw, but he chased it eagerly, moaning low in his throat like the taste was his undoing. 

For Jimin, the slick's release felt like relief and more humiliation intertwined—his body betraying how much he craved this, the wetness easing the friction but making everything slicker, messier, more intense. Jeongguk’s eyes finally squeezed shut, lost in the act, brows furrowing with pure bliss, but Jimin couldn't look away, the visual feeding his arousal until his thighs quivered uncontrollably.

A precise flick of Jeongguk's tongue against Jimin ripped a gasp from him, the sound echoing in the quiet shed despite Jimin's efforts to stay silent. The direct contact was like fire igniting, pleasure spiking so sharply it bordered on overwhelming, his back arching off the makeshift bed as stars burst behind his eyelids.

That single noise flipped a switch—Jeongguk redoubled his efforts, alternating sucks on the clit with deep, thrusting licks into him, his hands kneading Jimin's thighs to keep him spread wide, thumbs pressing into the crease where thigh met groin, adding pressure that made Jimin's nerves sing. 

Jimin couldn't hold back anymore; whimpers spilled out, raw and needy, each one pulled from his chest like it hurt to keep them in, fueling Jeongguk's fervor as he worked to coax every one. The sounds embarrassed him, but they also freed something within him, making the pleasure sharper, more real.

It overwhelmed him, the pleasure building like a storm, too intense to resist—his clit pulsed with each suck, his entrance fluttered around Jeongguk's invading tongue, and the constant lap of hot muscle against his folds built a pressure in his lower belly that made him feel full, aching, ready to shatter. His hips bucked upward, chasing the heat of Jeongguk's mouth, rutting shamelessly against his face. The alpha took it all, tongue relentless, pushing Jimin closer to the edge with every swipe and suck, his body trembling on the brink, every fiber screaming for release.

Jimin's fingers tightened in Jeongguk's hair, hips grinding down instinctively, chasing the building wave that threatened to crash over him. A final, firm suck on his clit shattered the tension—pleasure exploded outward, ripping a choked cry from Jimin's throat as he clenched hard, waves of release pulsing through him. His inner walls spasmed, slick gushing in hot spurts against Jeongguk's lips, body arching off the bed in sharp, shuddering jerks.

The orgasm dragged on, intense and all-consuming, leaving Jimin gasping, vision blurring as aftershocks rippled through his core, his clit throbbing under the alpha's persistent licks that prolonged the bliss until he whimpered from overstimulation.

But as the high faded, something deeper surged up—an overwhelming, primal urge that drowned out everything else. Jimin needed Jeongguk closer, needed him inside, surrounding him, claiming every inch until there was no space left between them. It clawed at his mind, fierce and insistent, like his omega had taken the reins, demanding connection, possession, unity. His thoughts fragmented, words dissolving into raw instinct—he felt unmoored, teetering on the edge of madness, body still humming from release but craving more, deeper, now. 

Without pause, Jimin yanked Jeongguk up by the hair, the strands slipping through his fingers as he pulled the alpha's face to his own. Their lips crashed together in a frantic, aggressive kiss—Jimin's teeth nipping at Jeongguk's lower lip, tongue plunging deep to taste his own slick on the alpha's mouth, sweet and musky, fueling the fire raging inside him.

Jeongguk matched the intensity, growling low into the kiss, his hands sliding up Jimin's sides to grip his waist, but Jimin wasn't relenting. He shoved hard, forcing the alpha onto his back with a surge of desperate strength, straddling him in one fluid motion. Jeongguk's eyes widened, breath coming in heavy pants, but Jimin gave him no time to react—his hands clawed at the alpha's pants and briefs, nails digging into fabric as he yanked roughly. 

The material tore with a sharp rip, the sound echoing in the dim shed, drawing a startled gasp from Jeongguk's parted lips. Jimin barely registered it, his mind a haze of need; no apology formed, no hesitation slowed him. He needed Jeongguk bare, exposed, ready—his body burned with the ache to feel the alpha everywhere, to make Jeongguk feel him in return, their scents mingling, skins pressing until boundaries blurred.

Pants and briefs hung half-off Jeongguk's hips, forgotten in Jimin's frenzy. He reached down between his legs, fingers dipping into his soaked folds, gathering the fresh slick that still leaked from his recent climax. His eyes locked onto Jeongguk's, dark and unblinking, as he wrapped his hand around the alpha's thick cock, stroking firmly from base to tip. The length throbbed hot in his grip, veins pulsing under his palm, and Jimin coated it generously, slick easing over the shaft in glistening layers, making it shimmer in the low light. Jeongguk's cock twitched at the touch, pre-come beading at the slit, mixing with the wetness as Jimin pumped once, twice, ensuring every inch was slicked and ready.

"Jimin, you d-don't have to—" Jeongguk's voice broke, rough and strained, but the words cut off as Jimin shifted, positioning the blunt head of the alpha's cock at his entrance. 

A thrill raced up Jimin's spine, his pulse hammering with a mix of nerves and raw need—he'd craved this fullness for so long, the alpha's scent flooding his senses like a drug. He could feel himself fluttering in anticipation, inner muscles eager despite the lingering sensitivity, clenching around nothing until Jeongguk filled that ache. Jeongguk's eyebrows knit together, mouth falling open in a silent moan that made Jimin's core tighten with possessive heat, as he sank down slowly, the thick girth stretching him open inch by inch.

The burn of the stretch was there, a delicious pull at his entrance, but far less sharp than before—Jeongguk's thorough attention with his tongue had left him loose, pliant, slick easing the slide until the alpha filled him completely, bottoming out with a wet press that reached deep and sparked stars behind Jimin's eyelids.

Jimin sighed a deep, shuddering exhale of pure relief that loosened the knot of tension in his chest, his body settling fully onto Jeongguk's, connected at last in the way his omega screamed for. From this angle above, he took in the alpha's form—scars mapping Jeongguk's torso like badges of battles won, pale lines crisscrossing toned muscle, adding a rugged beauty that made Jimin's chest tighten with something fierce and admiring. 

His own skin bore marks too, faint bruises blooming on his thighs from Jeongguk's grip, and pride swelled in him, hot and unyielding. They were survivors, forged in hardship, strong in ways that went beyond flesh. His omega preened at the sight, joyful and loud in his mind, a vibrant hum of contentment he'd never known—finally in sync with himself, whole in this union with an alpha who matched his resilience, someone he could lean on without fear of breaking.

Jimin's hips circled slowly at first, savoring the deep stretch of Jeongguk's cock buried inside him, the thick length pressing against his inner walls with every subtle shift. Slick eased the glide, coating them both in a warm, slippery sheen that heightened every sensation—the drag, the fullness, the way his body clenched around the alpha in instinctive response. Jeongguk's hands settled on Jimin's waist, fingers splaying wide to steady him, thumbs tracing the faint bruises already forming on his skin. The touch grounded Jimin further, a silent affirmation that pulled a soft moan from his lips as he lifted slightly, then sank back down, taking Jeongguk deeper with a deliberate roll.

The alpha's breath hitched, eyes darkening as he watched Jimin move, his own hips twitching upward in subtle encouragement. 

“Fuck, Jimin,” Jeongguk rasped, voice rough with restraint, the sound vibrating through his chest and into Jimin's core where they connected. 

Jimin leaned forward, palms pressing flat against Jeongguk's scarred torso for leverage, the raised lines under his fingers a raw reminder of shared endurance that ignited a possessive fire in his core. Pride twisted with the heat coiling low, his omega instincts demanding more as he rose and fell with building intent, the wet squelch of slick-coated flesh filling the shed each time Jeongguk's thick cock drove deep.

Jeongguk's hands clamped firmer on his hips, steering the motion with a controlled pull that sent jolts racing up Jimin's spine, thumbs pressing into flesh that would bruise by morning. Inside, the alpha's thickness pulsed against his fluttering entrance, every slide stretching him wide and scraping nerves that sparked outward, his thighs trembling from the burn but driving him on, refusing the ache.

The alpha's form seemed to glow in the firelight, a beautiful image of resilience that made Jimin's omega hum with satisfaction. Jeongguk was a strong, unyielding presence beneath him, matching his fire, filling the void he'd carried for so long. He ground down hard once, circling his hips to rub against that spot deep inside, drawing a deep groan from Jeongguk that echoed his own building tension.

The pace splintered into something wilder, Jimin's hips rolling down with frantic insistence, grinding to chase the searing pull that edged toward pain, more slick flooding out to coat Jeongguk's base and seep into the tangled blankets. He felt the alpha's palms glide up his sweat-sheened back, then down to grip his ass cheeks, fingers kneading hard and hauling him in tighter, forcing the cock deeper until it nudged that insistent pressure low in his belly.

His nails raked over those chest scars as Jimin bowed forward, the knot in his gut ratcheting impossibly tighter. His walls clenched involuntarily around the invading heat, body hovering on the brink—every shared exhale heavy in the dim air. He could practically feel Jeongguk's dark eyes locked on him, silent and devouring, as the shed's wooden frame groaned faintly under their rhythm.

“So good, Jimin... fuck, you feel so good,” Jeongguk gasped, voice breaking on a praise that sent heat flooding through Jimin's veins. Their bodies glistened, sweat mixing with the remnants of slick and pre-come, a sticky mess that smeared between them, heightening the raw friction.

Jimin's breath hitched as he glanced down, locking eyes with Jeongguk—those dark irises glossy and wide, brimming with raw wonder, as if the alpha were staring at something sacred amid the chaos. The intensity punched through Jimin's haze, igniting that deep, instinctive pull, and he lunged forward, sealing their mouths in a fierce, sloppy clash. Their lips mashed together, tongues thrusting wet and urgent, devouring the sharp tang of sweat and desire—no space for words, just the seamless lock of their bodies, pulses hammering in unison like predators closing in on the kill, driving them toward that razor-sharp brink.

Jeongguk braced his feet into the rumpled blankets, the leverage letting him surge upward with bruising force, fingers digging into Jimin's hips like brands, thumbs grinding against hipbones as he hammered deep. Each brutal drive slammed against that raw bundle of nerves inside, blurring Jimin's vision with white-hot sparks. Broken whimpers escaped Jimin's throat, high and fractured, blending with the alpha's deep, rumbling groans and the faint snap of embers in the fading firelight.

The rhythm fractured into frenzy, Jeongguk's hips snapping with unyielding power, hauling Jimin down onto every plunge, the air heavy with their mingled scents—musk and slick coiling like invisible chains. He reared up halfway, one arm snaking around Jimin's spine to crush their torsos flush, breaths ragged and shared in the crush of another devouring kiss, the new angle burying his length even fuller, grinding against Jimin's core until stars burst behind his eyelids.

“Mine,” Jeongguk snarled into the heated press of their lips, the single word rumbling like thunder through Jimin's bones, utterly possessive. 

It should have jolted him back—should have made him shove away, remind them both this wasn't some eternal bond, just a desperate clash in the shadows that dawn would rip apart. He knew better than to let it sink in, to feed the illusion of unity amid their scars and survival; come morning, it'd crumble, leaving only echoes of heat and hollow aches.

But thought dissolved in the blaze—everything felt too damn perfect, the stretch and slide igniting nerves that sang with rightness, his body arching into the claim despite the warning screams in his mind. He couldn't fight it, didn't want to, lost in the euphoric rush that drowned out the end.

Jimin bowed backward, palms splaying over Jeongguk's chest for anchor, nails carving fresh lines across those raised scars as he rocked down to counter the onslaught. Pressure knotted viciously in his belly, more slick surging free to drench Jeongguk's sack and seep into the fabric beneath, easing the punishing rhythm.

Then a final, savage thrust shattered the dam. Jimin's cry tore free, raw and unrestrained, his frame locking rigid as ecstasy exploded outward, muscles rippling in fierce contractions that clamped down on Jeongguk's cock, drawing out the alpha's release. Heat bloomed deep inside, thick pulses flooding him full with hot spurts until it overflowed, trickling warm down his thighs in the aftershocks. 

Jimin's body felt heavy, limbs tangled with Jeongguk's in the dim glow of the fire, their breaths slowing to match the quiet crackle of embers—a rhythm that soothed the wild flutter in his heart. The alpha's cock slipped free from him with a slick, intimate sound that sent a fresh wave of heat to Jimin's face, even as satisfaction hummed through his veins like liquid gold, leaving him boneless and sated yet yearning for more of this quiet intimacy.

No words passed between them; none were needed, the air thick with their shared exhaustion and budding trust. Jeongguk's eyes met his, dark and knowing, conveying a silent understanding that wrapped around Jimin's mind like a warm fog, easing the edges of his fears. He knew what Jeongguk needed—rest, closeness, the simple anchor of touch after years of running—and somehow, the alpha seemed to sense the same in him, the ache for gentle care after the storm of their joining, making Jimin's throat tighten with unspoken gratitude.

Jeongguk moved first, his lips brushing Jimin's temple in a feather-light kiss that made Jimin's chest tighten with something soft and unfamiliar. The alpha eased back, but his gaze stayed locked on Jimin's, steady and warm, pulling a quiet hum from Jimin's throat. Jeongguk reached for the stack of clean towels by the door, selecting one with careful fingers. He returned, kneeling between Jimin's parted thighs, the fabric cool against overheated skin as he began to wipe away the evidence of their passion—the sticky trails of cum and slick that coated Jimin's inner thighs and folds. Each stroke was tender, Jeongguk's touch light but thorough, tracing over sensitive flesh without demand.

Jimin shivered, not from cold but from the intimacy of it, the way Jeongguk's focus made him feel exposed yet cherished. His mind, usually a whirlwind of strategies and worries, drifted into a hazy blankness, thoughts dissolving like mist. He watched Jeongguk's hands, strong and scarred, moving with such care, and felt a flush creep up his neck. When the alpha paused, offering the towel with a tilt of his head, Jimin took it without hesitation, his fingers brushing Jeongguk's in the exchange. He sat up slowly, legs unsteady, and leaned forward to return the gesture—dabbing at the alpha's softening length, still glistening with their shared release, then up over the sweat-slick planes of his abdomen and chest.

Jeongguk's eyes never wavered, that warm intensity holding Jimin's gaze, making his pulse quicken and his cheeks burn hotter. The alpha's expression softened, a single word slipping out in a low rumble.

"Beautiful." It landed like a spark, sincere and rough, stirring flutters in Jimin's stomach. 

He could only roll his eyes, words failing him as embarrassment tangled with affection. Why did this feel so right, so easy? His mind stayed fuzzy, empty of the usual sharp edges—no regrets, no second-guessing, just the simple pull toward Jeongguk's presence.

Jeongguk rose then, his muscles shifting fluidly under scarred skin as he gathered fresh bedding from the corner. Jimin watched him shake out the clean sheets, the fabric whispering as it settled over the rumpled mattress, followed by thick blankets that promised warmth against the winter chill seeping through the walls. The motion drew Jimin's eyes to the fire, its flames flickering low, casting dancing shadows across the room.

He pushed himself up, knees protesting faintly, and shuffled to the hearth on bare feet. Kneeling, he added a couple of logs from the pile, the wood catching with a fresh burst of heat that licked at his skin. His thoughts remained scattered, pleasantly vacant—no plans for patrols, no frets over the pack or the Howlers lurking beyond the fence. For once, his mind was quiet, a rare peace settling over him like the blankets Jeongguk had just laid.

Strong arms encircled his waist from behind, Jeongguk's chest pressing warm against his back. Without a word, the alpha tugged him upright and toward the bed, the pull gentle but insistent. Jimin didn't resist, protesting not even bothering to cross his mind as Jeongguk drew him down onto the fresh linens, maneuvering them until Jimin's back was flush against the alpha's broad chest. Jeongguk's hand splayed over Jimin's hip, anchoring him, while the other threaded through his damp hair, fingers combing soothingly. Their legs entwined naturally, bodies fitting together as if molded for this. 

Jimin's eyes drifted shut, the steady thump of Jeongguk's heartbeat against his spine lulling him deeper into the haze, the world outside fading to nothing but shared warmth and silence.

Absolutely stunning art by dolcca (1st - 4th photo) and soaryve (5th photo) on Twitter! Please show them lots of love!!

Chapter Text

Chapter 10 : Ghosts

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Jimin stirred awake, enveloped in a cocoon of warmth that pressed close from behind, a steady rhythm of breaths ghosting across the nape of his neck. He didn't question it at first, simply melting into the comfort, the subtle haze of smokey scent threading through his senses and enveloping him in a warm blanket of safety. 

His thoughts drifted back to simpler times, to the cramped twin bed in Choi Minji’s spare guest room, its thin sheets scratchy against his bare arms. Taehyung had always been the one to pull him close there, their bodies pressed together in the narrow space. It was a choice between being jammed against the cold, peeling wall or molded flush to the alpha’s broad chest, Taehyung’s scent seeping into his pores until it felt like home. 

And then there were the deeper winter nights, when the frost clawed at the windows and the air bit like teeth. Yoongi and Taehyung would insist on piling in with him, sandwiching his smaller frame between their solid forms despite his half-hearted grumbles and pushes. His protests would eventually dissolve into reluctant sighs as their combined warmth drowned him, their scents blending into a heady cover that smothered his shivers and quieted his restless mind. 

That must have been what pulled him under last night, he realized dimly. The relentless snowstorm had raged outside, blanketing everything in white silence. They’d probably stirred in the dead of night, Taehyung’s stubborn determination dragging Yoongi along as they shuffled to his room and slipped beneath the covers, their presence a silent promise against the cold.

But then the pieces shifted, sharpening into focus. The only way he knew it had snowed so fiercely was because he’d been out in it. Alone, fumbling with his clothes scattered carelessly on the line, the wind whipping flakes into his face as he cursed under his breath. Oh shit. Jeongguk.

The memories crashed over him like an avalanche: Jeongguk appearing out of the storm, his strong hands steadying Jimin’s trembling ones as he helped untangle the frozen fabric. The alpha’s playful insistence on that ridiculous snowball fight, pelting him with soft-packed snow until Jimin’s protests cracked into laughter he couldn’t contain. 

How, against all odds, Jeongguk had coaxed him into lowering his walls, sharing fragments of himself he’d guarded fiercely. The gentle persuasion he’d used to get Jimin to come inside, to stay away from the biting cold. And then, in the dim glow of the fire, their lips meeting in heated kisses that built into something raw and urgent—sex that flowed without the sharp edges of resentment, just skin sliding against skin, breaths mingling, bodies locking together in a rhythm that left him breathless and spent.

The scent hit him fully then, pine smoke thickening in his lungs, no longer a vague comfort but unmistakably Jeongguk’s. His eyes fluttered open, blinking against the grogginess as the room came into view. The fire in the hearth had long since died to ash, leaving only faint embers that cast no light. Pale morning filtered through the sheets draped over the windows like improvised curtains, turning the space soft and diffused.

Yeah. This wasn’t his room. This was Jeongguk’s shed, tucked away in the woods, a sanctuary of rough-hewn walls and lingering warmth.

Carefully, Jimin tilted his head, craning his neck to peer at the alpha curled around him. Jeongguk slept soundly, his face relaxed in repose, dark lashes fanned against his cheeks. His chest rose and fell in deep, even breaths, each one syncing with the subtle thrum of his heartbeat against Jimin’s back. For a suspended heartbeat, Jimin let himself drink it in—the sharp line of Jeongguk’s jaw, the soft tousle of his hair, the quiet beauty that seemed almost unfair in the morning light. He was striking, even in stillness, a pull that Jimin couldn’t quite deny.

But the tenderness shattered as last night’s emotions surged back, unbidden and overwhelming. The way he’d unraveled under Jeongguk’s touch, the intimacy that had felt like drowning in sensation—too much, too close, stripping him bare in ways he wasn’t ready for. Guilt twisted in his stomach, sharp and unrelenting. Not just for the walls he’d let crumble, but for this—for craving a connection that echoed the life before Day Zero, the one he’d buried under layers of survival and suspicion. How could he feel this pull toward someone he’d snarled at from the start, someone who’d invaded his world and upended it? 

The alpha’s arm around his waist now pressed in like a weight, his body heat morphing from solace to a scorching blaze that made Jimin’s skin prickle with unease. Suffocation clawed at his throat, the air in the shed suddenly too thick. He couldn’t stay here, tangled in this. He needed space, fresh air to undo the knot in his chest and sort through the chaos before it consumed him.

Jimin shifted carefully, his muscles tensing as he attempted to ease away from the solid wall of Jeongguk's body. He aimed to slip out silently, inching forward as slowly as possible, holding his breath to avoid any rustle of the sheets. But the alpha's arm, heavy and unyielding around his waist, tightened instinctively, pulling him back flush against the warmth of Jeongguk's chest. Jimin's heart stuttered, trapped in the vise-like hold that left no room for escape.

He exhaled a quiet sigh, the sound barely audible in the still-morning air, resigning himself to the inevitable. Waking the alpha was the only way out now. 

"Jeongguk, wake up," he murmured, his voice soft but insistent, laced with the urgency bubbling under his skin.

Jeongguk didn't stir at first, his breathing remaining deep and even. Then, without warning, his other arm slid beneath Jimin's body, wrapping around his waist from the front to complete the enclosure. Jimin's breath caught, his body fully caged now, pressed immovably between the alpha's limbs. Shit. This closeness, this possession—it was too much, stirring something deep and unwelcome in him. They couldn't stay like this, tangled in the aftermath of last night.

"Jeongguk," Jimin tried again, gentler this time, his fingers wrapping around the alpha's to pry them loose one by one. He moved with caution, not wanting to provoke but desperate for freedom.

A low growl rumbled from Jeongguk's throat, vibrating through Jimin's back as the alpha's eyes cracked open, hazy with sleep but sharpening quickly. He huffed, the sound rough and edged with irritation. 

"Already trying to run away, hyung?"

"Don't start right now," Jimin huffed out as he struggled, his tone clipped.

Jeongguk growled again, deeper this time, his grip readjusting with effortless strength, locking Jimin even tighter against him. "I'm not going to let you go. Suck it up and go back to sleep."

Jimin winced at the alpha's stubborn defiance, the words hitting like a challenge he wasn't equipped to meet. "Jeongguk, I need to—"

"You will be just fine if you sleep a few more minutes," Jeongguk interrupted, his voice muffled against the nape of Jimin's neck as he pressed a firm kiss there. 

The touch sent electric shivers racing down Jimin's spine, a traitorous warmth blooming in his core. His omega stirred, preening at the simple affection, uncoiling from the depths where Jimin had shoved it years ago.

Jimin's eyes widened, shock jolting through him like ice water. His omega? What the fuck? He hadn't felt his wolf so vividly, so insistent at the front of his mind since those rare, forced heats with Taehyung—brief flares of need that left him hollow afterward. This was different, sharper, alive in a way that terrified him. It clawed at his resolve, whispering urges he couldn't afford to heed. He couldn't let Jeongguk think this meant anything real, that it could build into more. It never did. Not in this broken world, where connections shattered under the weight of survival. Jimin knew better; he'd learned the hard way.

With a surge of panic, he twisted sharply, shoving up from under the covers and forcing Jeongguk's arms to slacken just enough to break free. The cold air rushed in, prickling across his bare skin and raising goosebumps in its wake. He grimaced, the chill a stark reminder of their nakedness—bodies still marked faintly from the night's frenzy, exposed and vulnerable in the dim light. His clothes lay discarded somewhere on the floor, no doubt stiff and icy from the snow, promising discomfort he would endure over this suffocating intimacy. He couldn't linger here in the shed any longer, not with the alpha's scent clinging to him like a claim he wasn't ready to wear.

Jimin froze mid-motion, his fingers fumbling with the hem of his shirt as Jeongguk's voice cut through the quiet, rough and edged with confusion. "W-what—"

The sheets rustled behind him, a soft scrape of fabric against skin that painted a clear picture in Jimin's mind: the alpha pushing himself up, probably propping on one elbow, those dark eyes fixed on his back. Jimin didn't dare turn, couldn't risk meeting that gaze and seeing the questions brewing there. 

He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding as he yanked on his pants, the icy fabric clinging to his legs like a punishment. The chill seeped straight into his bones, but it was nothing compared to the dull ache throbbing in his lower back—a sharp reminder of how fiercely they'd moved together last night, bodies slamming and grinding without restraint.

An unpleasant, chalky edge spiked through Jeongguk's scent, cutting under the lingering pine smoke like ash in the air. Upset. The alpha was hurting already, and Jimin hadn't even said a word yet. His stomach twisted, guilt coiling tight, but he shoved it down. He couldn't face it now, not when the big question hung unspoken between them: What are we? It loomed like a storm cloud, ready to break, and Jimin knew his answer would fall flat, inadequate against whatever hopes Jeongguk might have sparked.

There was something there, he couldn't lie to himself about that. The raw confessions they'd traded in quiet moments, the tentative friendship weaving through their guarded interactions, the fierce urge to shield each other that pulled at him like a tether. And last night—the way Jeongguk had claimed him, thrusts deep and unrelenting, filling him until pleasure blurred the edges of pain. But it couldn't grow into more.

Jimin carried the weight of the pack on his shoulders, decisions that kept them all alive in this unforgiving world. Jeongguk was one of them now, woven into the fabric of their survival, which made his well-being Jimin's burden above all else. Prioritizing safety meant drawing lines, keeping emotions locked away where they couldn't cloud judgment or lead to reckless choices. Love, or anything close to it, would fracture that foundation. He wouldn't allow it, no matter how his chest ached at the thought.

This was his mess. He should've stopped that first kiss, turned away from the heat building between them. Shouldn't have surrendered, letting his omega rise to the surface and drink in Jeongguk's dominance like it was oxygen. The instincts had surged, needy and alive, responding to every growl and grip as if they belonged together. But they didn't. Not like this. For what felt like the hundredth time since Jeongguk stumbled into their lives, Jimin would have to break him—shatter that fragile trust with cold reality. Maybe it was a mercy in disguise, forging the alpha's resolve, building walls to match the hardness of the world outside. Or maybe Jimin was just fooling himself to ease the sting.

He swallowed hard, a lump swelling in his throat as he snatched his jacket from the floor, the leather stiff and frosted. His eyes stayed glued to the door, the faint outline of morning light seeping through the makeshift curtains a beacon of escape. Words tangled in his mind, none of them right, none kind enough to soften the blow he knew was coming. 

"We'll—" he started, voice cracking slightly before he forced it steady by clearing his throat. He tugged the jacket over his shoulders, ignoring the protest from his sore muscles. "We'll talk later."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Two weeks had slipped by since that morning, each day layering a fragile routine over the tension between them. In the first week, Jimin kept his distance, retreating into the familiar rhythm of pack life—tending to the gardens, assisting with repairs, anything to avoid the alpha's orbit. To his quiet relief, Jeongguk mirrored it without complaint. The alpha stayed cordial, his presence a steady hum in the background of their daily routines—greeting him with a nod during meals, offering a hand with heavy loads without any lingering words spoken between them. 

They hadn't dissected that morning's abrupt departure, hadn't circled back to the weight of what they'd shared under the sheets, but the message seemed to have sunk in. Jeongguk didn't press for closeness, didn't crowd him with scents or stares that demanded more. Still, Jimin caught those fleeting glances, the way Jeongguk's eyes would track him across the common room, dark and unreadable, stirring something low in his gut.

Even in that small moment of reprieve that Jeongguk granted Jimin, there were still accidental brushes happening too often to ignore—a shoulder bumping in the narrow hallway, fingers grazing when passing tools in the workshop. Each time, the air crackled, charged like the moments before a storm, and Jimin's skin prickled with awareness. His instincts clawed at the edges of his control, louder now than it had been in years, demanding that he seek attention whenever the alpha drew near. The pull was relentless, granting him no mercy as his pulse raced near the alpha, and his thoughts scattered. 

He'd slip away to the edge of the property or the quiet of the storage shed, breathing deep until the frenzy ebbed, willing his instincts to quiet. It was exhausting, this constant battle, and Jimin clung to the hope that the intensity would fade, letting him refocus on the pack without this distraction gnawing at him.

By the second week, as they resumed tasks together, Jeongguk started to inch back into Jimin's personal space—subtle at first, a step closer during fence repairs, his arm brushing Jimin's as they hauled supplies. 

And of course, they continued shifting practice under the cover of night, much more frequently. Since that last attempt that had left both Jimin and Jeongguk alone in the ring, Jeongguk had managed to shift successfully twice more out of the five attempts they'd made. They'd settled on Jimin being alone with Jeongguk in the enclosed space, while Hoseok and Taehyung kept watch from afar, their silhouettes faint under the moonlight. Sometimes Namjoon joined them and kept watch from afar as well, too eager to see the phenomenon unfold with his own eyes, rather than wait for Jimin’s report come morning.

It was still quite difficult, because Jeongguk couldn't exactly shift on command—the transformation came in fits and starts, triggered by deep breaths and focused intent rather than a snap of will. By the fourth time around, it was a little less painful, the shift quicker as his body adapted, bones cracking and reforming with less resistance. And though Jimin’s mental fortitude allowed him to witness a lot more than the average person, to look at the raw agony etched on Jeongguk's face and the way his muscles seized and twisted, was still quite difficult. But, he stomached it regardless of his own feelings. If Jeongguk had to suffer, Jimin would give him the respect he deserved in that regard. At least so the alpha didn't feel alone. 

Jeongguk even seemed to understand him a little more in wolf form. They couldn't really communicate per se, but the alpha did a lot less growling around him now, replacing it with curious sniffing—nose nudging at Jimin's hand or leg, warm breath ghosting over his skin in tentative exploration.

But despite the awkward silences and the careful space between them during the day, they ended up together more than before. Jeongguk orchestrated it subtly, volunteering for tasks that overlapped with Jimin's, his persistence wrapped in casual efficiency. Jimin wanted to bristle at it, to snap about the alpha's overeagerness, but irritation never fully took hold. There were moments—fleeting, unexpected—where Jeongguk's earnestness cracked through, drawing a reluctant huff of amusement from him. The way the alpha fumbled with a stubborn latch on the gate, muttering curses under his breath, or how he'd mimic Yoongi's dry sarcasm during dinner, earning a rare chuckle from the group. Sometimes, the alpha was almost endearing. Almost.

As Namjoon handed out assignments over breakfast, Jimin didn't miss the glint in the pack leader's eye when he paired Jeongguk with him for animal care. It was an odd combination of love and spite from the alpha. Namjoon knew damn well that Jeongguk could learn from Hoseok or even Seokjin just as easily. But protesting felt pointless. The pack's shiftiness had smoothed out since Jimin had stopped treating Jeongguk like an intruder. Tensions that once simmered like embers had cooled, the group settling into a rhythm that included Jeongguk without friction. 

And truthfully, a small part of Jimin anticipated the day ahead, curious how Jeongguk would fare with the livestock. He'd botched his own early attempts spectacularly when he first arrived on the farm—chased by an irate goat, pecked bloody by the hens—until patience and scraps of feed won them over. Watching the alpha stumble through it would provide a welcome distraction.

Stepping onto the farmhouse porch, the crisp air nipped at his cheeks, carrying the earthy tang of hay and frost-kissed soil. Jimin scanned the yard, half-expecting Jeongguk to be posted at the bottom of the steps like clockwork. It had become their unspoken routine: no matter the chore—perimeter checks, armory maintenance, greenhouse tending, or livestock rounds—the alpha was there, armed with a barrage of questions. Jimin had realized the alpha tended to ask the same questions repeatedly about feed ratios or fence repairs looping back under the guise of needing clarification. It was a ploy, obviously, to keep words flowing between them, but Jimin let it slide.

He didn't spot Jeongguk right away, though. Instead, a muffled 'oof' echoed from the direction of the chicken coop, followed by Sooyeon's sharp cackle slicing through the morning quiet. The hens erupted in a chorus of agitated clucks, wings flapping in protest. Jimin's lips twitched as he descended the steps, boots crunching over the thin layer of snow-dusted gravel. He veered toward the coop, the wooden structure coming into view with its wire enclosure dotted in feathers and scattered feed. 

The sight that greeted Jimin was one he'd never witnessed before—not in all his years tending the farm's stubborn flock. Sooyeon's face flushed crimson, her hand clamped over her mouth in a futile bid to stifle her laughter, while the other clutched a wicker basket brimming with fresh eggs. Confusion tugged at Jimin until his gaze sharpened on the chicken coop. 

Through the wire mesh, Jeongguk was locked in what looked like a full-scale brawl with Misun, their most notorious hen—a pint-sized terror with a beak like a dagger and an attitude to match. It was almost poetic, this feathered hazing; Misun didn't pity fools, and even Jimin, who'd earned a grudging tolerance from her, still rolled the dice each time he reached for the nests, bracing for a sharp nip.

Jeongguk, though? He was getting the full initiation, it seemed, the alpha's broad frame twisted awkwardly as he tried to corral her without getting shredded. 

“If you would just—oh my god, you little feathered shit—ow!” Jeongguk's voice cracked with exasperation, the words tumbling out amid frantic dodges. Jimin pressed his top and bottom lips together hard, sealing in the bubble of laughter threatening to escape. He shouldn't find this funny—the alpha was his shadow these days, competent in most things—but the sheer absurdity of it all chipped away at his restraint.

Drawing closer, the chaos unfolded in sharper detail. Jeongguk's pleas devolved into muttered curses as Misun's allies, Jia and Satang, piled on with gleeful abandon. Their wings beat like tiny war drums, squawks rising in a delirious cacophony that sent straw and feathers swirling. Jeongguk lost his footing in the frenzy, toppling backward into a heap amid the dust and debris. Sooyeon, doubled over in a crouch, was beyond help—tears streaming down her cheeks as her body shook.

“Jimin-ah, Jimin—” she gasped, spotting him and waving him over with a frantic hand, her words choking on giggles. “I'm gonna piss myself, oh god—” She swiped at her eyes, barely upright.

Jimin latched the fence behind him and stepped into the enclosure, arms folding across his chest as he fought to keep his expression neutral. An amused smirk betrayed him anyway. “Want to explain why Jeongguk's fighting for his life against Misun right now?”

Sooyeon risked a glance back at the spectacle before beckoning him nearer, her voice a wheeze. “He wanted to get a head start on cleaning the coop—you know I had to let him experience this at least once.”

Jimin extended his arm, steadying her as she hauled herself up, her laughter finally tapering into hiccuping breaths. The coop reeked of damp earth and agitated poultry, the air thick with the rustle of unsettled birds. 

“Not how I expected this morning to start,” Jimin admitted, turning just in time to catch Jeongguk staggering out of the henhouse, miraculously intact but sporting a crown of crimson feathers tangled in his tousled hair. A faint warmth bloomed in Jimin's chest unwelcomed, seeing the alpha like that, rumpled and ridiculous. His omega stirred faintly, a soft hum of affection that he quickly shoved down. No, not now.

Sooyeon seized the moment to bolt, her giggles trailing as she secured the gate with a click, leaving Jimin alone with the aftermath—and the alpha, who was now brushing off his clothes with a mix of defeat and determination etched on his face.

Jimin watched Sooyeon vanish around the corner of the barn, her laughter echoing faintly before fading into the crisp morning air. The enclosure felt smaller now, the wire fence closing in like a stage set for whatever awkward confrontation awaited. Jeongguk straightened up slowly, plucking a stubborn feather from his hair with a grimace that twisted into something sheepish when his eyes met Jimin's. Dust clung to his knees, and a faint red mark bloomed on his forearm where Misun's beak had left its calling card—a badge of dishonor from the coop's reigning tyrant.

The hens had settled somewhat, their indignant clucks subsiding into wary pecks at the scattered straw, but Jia eyed Jeongguk with lingering suspicion, her head cocked as if plotting round two. Jimin bit back another smile, the tension in his chest easing just a fraction at the sight. It was disarming, this glimpse of the alpha undone—not the possessive force who'd pinned him to the bed that snowy night, but a man bested by poultry. His omega purred softly in response, a traitorous warmth uncoiling low in his belly, but Jimin stamped it down, focusing instead on the practicalities. Those eggs wouldn't collect themselves, and the coop still needed mucking out.

Jeongguk looked over at him then, completely defeated, his cheeks tinted red from both the humiliation and the frantic fight for his life, or so Jimin presumed. The alpha's dark eyes held a mix of exasperation and reluctant amusement, his broad chest rising and falling with heavy breaths that stirred the feathers still tangled in his messy hair—he hadn't noticed them yet. Jimin chuckled lightly to himself, the sound escaping before he could catch it, and stepped closer, boots crunching softly over the dry earth.

"Had fun in there?" he asked lightly, tilting his head toward the coop, his voice carrying that dry edge of amusement he couldn't quite suppress.

"Fun is one way to fucking describe that," Jeongguk huffed, brushing straw off his shoulder with a swipe of his hand. He rubbed the back of his neck, the flush creeping higher up his ears, and shot Jimin a mock glare. "That demon bird's got it out for me. What's her deal? I was just trying to help." 

His gaze narrowed in playful accusation. "You set this up, didn't you? Initiation ritual or something?"

Jimin snorted, shaking his head as he hummed noncommittally and moved nearer still, close enough now to catch the agitated edge to Jeongguk's scent—pine smoke sharpened with frustration, wrapping around him like a haze. Before he could think better of it, Jimin reached up, fingers brushing through the alpha's dark strands to pluck out the stray feathers. 

Jeongguk went still, bowing his head slightly to give him better access, his breath warm against Jimin's wrist. The touch lingered a beat too long, sending a subtle spark through Jimin's skin, but he pulled back quickly, holding up the last feather between his thumb and index finger, waving it back and forth like a trophy.

"I see you met Misun," Jimin said, his lips quirking into a grin.

Jeongguk scoffed in disbelief, planting his hands on his hips as he straightened. "No way you guys named that little hellspawn Misun."

Jimin laughed outright then, the sound bright and genuine, amused by the alpha's distress over something as trivial as a chicken. But when his eyes met Jeongguk's, the mirth faltered. They were standing so close—less than a foot apart—the heat radiating from Jeongguk's body cutting through the morning chill. That scent flooded his senses fully now, rich and insistent, stirring his omega in ways that made his pulse quicken. Jimin's throat tightened, but he cleared it sharply, taking a deliberate step back. He let his gaze dart around the enclosure to will away the unwelcome heat crawling up his nape.

"Well, anyway," he said, forcing his tone steady, "you’ve got bird shit on your knee—and your ego, for that matter. Why don’t you wipe that off first, and then I’ll show you how to clean the coop without losing your life." He stepped aside, gesturing toward the fence gate to give himself some breathing room.

The alpha just huffed in defeat, a wry smile tugging at his lips as he made his way to the gate, brushing at the offending stain on his pants with a rag from his pocket. Jimin watched him go, the knot in his chest twisting with that familiar guilt—the push and pull of wanting this ease between them while fearing what it might unravel. But the pack's rhythm demanded they keep moving, so he turned back to the nest boxes, fingers brushing warm shells as he filled the basket, the routine an anchor against the pull.

Once Jeongguk had cleaned off the worst of it, shaking out his clothes and running a hand through his now-feather-free hair, he returned with the rake in hand, wisely keeping his distance from the hens this time. 

"Need a hand? Promise I won’t touch anything feathered," he said, his broad shoulders relaxed but alert, that quiet intensity in his eyes as he watched Jimin's movements.

Jimin paused, basket filling steadily, and shot him a sidelong glance. The alpha's disarray was endearing still, tugging at something deep despite the walls he'd rebuilt. "Grab the rake," he said finally, nodding toward the tool leaning against the fence—though Jeongguk already had it. "Start on the straw. And watch your ankles—Misun's still got a vendetta against you."

Jeongguk grinned, boyish and unguarded, as he got to work. The scrape of metal on wood filled the air, mingling with the soft coos of the flock, and Jimin guided him through the rest—how to approach the nests without startling the birds, the careful sweep to avoid kicking up too much dust, the spots where Satang liked to hide and peck at unwary fingers. 

The smell, of course, wasn’t anywhere near pleasant—a sharp tang of ammonia and damp earth that hung heavy in the confined space. Jimin had grown accustomed to it over the years, the odor just another layer of farm life, but seeing Jeongguk's face twist in horror, his nose wrinkling as he went a little green around the gills, drew a few muffled chuckles from Jimin. They hurried through it together, Jeongguk's exaggerated grimaces pulling more eye rolls from him. The shared labor under the pale winter sun felt like it was beginning to ease the unspoken tension humming between them like a live wire just beneath the surface.

The coop chores wrapped up quicker than expected, the air thick with the lingering sharpness of ammonia as Jimin latched the gate behind them. Jeongguk hefted the full basket of eggs with a careful grip, his earlier defeat at Misun's talons already fading into a shared joke between them. The sun climbed higher, casting long shadows across the ground, and Jimin led the way toward the goat pen, the wooden enclosure nestled against the barn's weathered side. 

The fiber goats were a far cry from the hens' chaos—docile creatures with soft, inquisitive eyes and soft, fluffy coats that begged for scratches. One had gotten pregnant last year, presumably due to the lack of supervision. And with another stroke of luck—and lots of bribing with food for their other doe—that left them with two does steadily producing milk. Jimin wasn't one for guzzling milk straight, the creamy tang never quite sitting right on his tongue, but damn if he hadn't missed the simple luxury after months of scraping by on whatever the land offered.

Seokjin had jumped at the chance to experiment, his first attempts at goat cheese turning into lumpy disasters that even Byungho and Daehyung—known as the ‘farmhouse garbage disposals’—turned their noses up at. But after a bookstore raid Mira and Hana insisted on doing a few weeks ago, the corner of the kitchen was now housing two tall stacks of homestyle cooking books—the kind probably meant for those traditionalist omegas who dreamed of hearth and home in a world long gone. Seokjin pored over them like sacred texts, and now the cheese came out tangy and firm, a quiet triumph spread on flatbreads during pack meals. 

And when Jimin had also spotted Hana loading a few stacks that suspiciously looked like a never-ending collection of alpha x alpha romance, he turned his gaze the other way. Surely Hana, Areum, and Hyejin would have quite the entertaining few weeks ahead of them. 

Jimin unlatched the pen gate, the hinges creaking softly, and the goats bleated in lazy welcome, milling about with their bells tinkling like distant wind chimes. Jeongguk followed, setting the eggs down on a nearby stump before grabbing the milking stool, his movements still carrying that cautious edge from the coop fiasco. He positioned himself in front of one of the lactating does, a gentle-natured one named Hani, her udder heavy and swaying as she shifted her weight. But the alpha's gaze skittered away, fixing on the horizon instead of the task, his large hands hovering awkwardly before finally cupping the teats.

It was almost too much—watching this broad-shouldered man, all muscle and quiet strength, treat the goat like it might explode. Jimin leaned against the fence, arms crossed, a grin tugging at his lips as Jeongguk squeezed tentatively, the milk dribbling in fits and starts into the pail. The alpha's face pinched in concentration, brows furrowed, and Jimin couldn't hold back the laugh bubbling up.

"Relax," he said, voice laced with teasing warmth, "you're acting like this is your first time touching breasts."

“Actually, mammals don’t have breasts the same way humans do. Just mammary glands,” Jeongguk said matter-of-factly, glancing at Jimin with a triumphant smile before returning back to his task.

Jimin scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You got the point, smartass. You’re milking her like a virgin, and I don’t want to be here all day.”

Jeongguk's head snapped back up, dark eyes locking onto Jimin's with a spark of mock offense, though the corner of his mouth twitched. He kept his rhythm going, the steady pull and release drawing thin streams now, but his cheeks held a faint flush. 

"You and I both know I'm not a virgin, Jimin."

The bold words pulled at the memory of the press of their bodies, the heat of skin on skin. Jimin's pulse stuttered, but he pushed through, stepping closer to adjust Jeongguk's grip, his fingers brushing the alpha's knuckles in the process. The contact sent a faint trail of goosebumps up his arm, his omega stirring with that insistent hum, drawn to the alpha's scent sharpening in the confined space.

"Really?" Jimin shot back, arching a brow as he demonstrated the proper technique, thumb and forefinger forming a firm pinch at the base. "Because the way you're wincing is telling me otherwise. You're not even pinching the teats properly. Like this—steady pressure, no hesitation."

Jeongguk mimicked the motion, milk flowing smoother into the pail with a soft patter, but his eyes flicked down to Jimin's hand, then up again, lingering on his face a beat too long. The alpha's voice dropped lower, rough around the edges. 

"I'd rather be pinching yours instead…"

Is this dude fucking serious? How older were they? Fourteen? He stared at Jeongguk, the alpha's smirk pulling at those full lips, all casual confidence as if he hadn't just dropped a line straight out of some juvenile flirt fest.

But then that heat twisted lower, a faint pulse settling between his thighs, his body responding with a flush that was completely uninvited. Jimin's jaw clenched, frustration spiking immediately. He really needed to get a grip on himself. He yanked his focus back to the task at hand, fingers resuming their pull with more force than necessary. The milk squirted harder into the pail, splashing a little over the rim. No way was he letting this man get under his skin like this—not with that cocky glint in his eyes. He shot Jeongguk a glare, sharp and disbelieving, but the alpha just chuckled, clearly unfazed, leaning in a fraction closer as if daring him to react.

"What was that?" Jimin managed with a strained voice.

Jeongguk shrugged, turning back to the goat with feigned innocence, his shoulders rolling as he continued the milking. "Nothing."

Jimin decided to pretend he hadn't heard, neck still burning as he busied himself with the second pail, positioning it under the other doe. He focused on milking instead, the rhythmic squeeze and release grounding him, the goats' contented munching filling the silence. Yet every glance at Jeongguk, every accidental brush of elbows in the tight pen, amplified the tension, a live current humming just beneath their banter. The alpha's presence was a constant pull, testing the fragile peace Jimin had carved out, and as the pails filled with warm, frothy liquid, he wondered how long he could keep up with pretending the alpha had no effect on him.

The goat pen chores wrapped up with the pails brimming and the does ambling off to nibble at their hay, content in the crisp air. Jimin sealed the lids on the milk containers, his mind still buzzing from Jeongguk's offhand remark, but he shoved it down, focusing on the next task. The stables loomed ahead, a sprawling structure of aged timber that creaked under the weight of winter's chill, the air inside carrying a musty blend of hay, leather, and faint equine musk. Snow dusted the roof, and tiny icicles clung to the eaves like little jagged teeth, but the real disaster waited within—piles of manure half-frozen in the corners, straw scattered like forgotten confetti, and the occasional whinny echoing from the shadows.

Jimin's lips quirked as they approached, knowing Jeongguk's luck with animals was already on thin ice after the coop debacle. Sure enough, the alpha's steps slowed, his nose wrinkling at the threshold. Inside, Hoseok was in one of the grooming stalls, his brush gliding over a mare's glossy flank with practiced strokes, the horse's tail swishing lazily as he murmured encouragements. The mare's winter blanket lay folded nearby, ready to be draped back on once the grooming finished. Hoseok glanced up, offering a quick nod before returning to his work, the rhythmic scrape of bristles the only sound breaking the quiet.

"The good thing about cleaning horse stalls in winter," Jimin started, swinging open the door to an empty stall, the hinges groaning in protest. 

Frost clung to the wooden slats, and the ground inside was a mottled mix of packed dirt and icy clumps. Jimin felt a little sorry, but the barn heaters they used were powered using scavenged car batteries, and they needed to preserve them for night usage only. The animals would have to use their blankets until night came.

"Is that the horse shit nearly freezes close to solid, especially out in the pasture."

Jeongguk peered in, his broad frame filling the doorway as he assessed the mess, exhaling a visible puff of breath. "So, no smell... or at least no awful smell."

"Correct," Jimin confirmed, a light chuckle escaping as he watched Jeongguk's cautious inspection. "Our horses are mostly naturally fed anyway, so their manure doesn't reek too bad. But god, does that shit stink in the summer."

They shared a brief laugh, the sound bouncing off the high beams, easing the knot of tension in Jimin's chest just a fraction. He fetched the shovel and wheelbarrow from the tack room, the metal tools cold against his palms, and handed the shovel over. Jeongguk took it without complaint, diving into the task with that same determined focus he'd shown with the goats. Mucking out the stalls turned out straightforward enough—no feisty beaks or skittish hooves to contend with. Jeongguk shoveled the frozen chunks with efficient swings, his arms flexing under the strain, while Jimin followed behind, spreading fresh bedding from the bales stacked nearby. The work was rhythmic, almost meditative, the scrape of metal on wood and the soft rustle of straw filling the space.

Halfway through, Jeongguk shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over a railing to reveal the short-sleeved shirt clinging to his sweat-dampened skin. He swiped his forearm across his forehead, wiping away the sheen of perspiration, and Jimin's gaze snagged despite himself. The alpha's biceps bulged with each heave of the shovel, veins tracing paths along his thick forearms, the fabric stretching taut over his shoulders. Jimin's omega stirred, a warm flutter low in his stomach. Though weeks had passed, it felt like it’d been only mere hours since those same arms banded around his waist, hoisting him effortlessly. 

Jimin blinked hard, tearing his eyes away. He busied himself forking more straw, the dry prickle against his fingers a poor distraction.

"Hyung? I'm done with this stall," Jeongguk called, his voice carrying a light pant as he propped the shovel against the wall. He straightened, rolling his shoulders, chest rising and falling with the effort.

Fuck. Jimin needed to pull himself together, his pulse thrumming too fast, scent likely spiking with that telltale sweetness his body couldn't suppress. He grabbed the box cutter, slicing open a fresh bag of bedding with more force than necessary, the sharp snick grounding him as he shook out the shavings.

"You... okay, hyung?" Jeongguk stepped closer, boots scuffing the floor, his presence a wall of warmth in the drafty stable. His nose twitched subtly, nostrils flaring, and Jimin cursed inwardly—the alpha's senses were too damn sharp, picking up the shift in his aroma like a predator on the scent.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm fine," Jimin replied too quickly, voice clipped as he raked the bedding into an even layer, avoiding those probing eyes.

To no surprise, Jeongguk didn't drop it. He stepped closer, the air between them humming with unspoken challenge. "Were you enjoying the view?"

Jimin didn't need to look to picture the triumphant curve of Jeongguk's mouth, that cocky glint in his gaze. His ears burned, a flush he couldn't blame on the cold seeping across his skin, his body betraying him with a fresh wave of that intoxicating pull. 

"Don't test my patience, Jeongguk," he said, aiming for nonchalance, but it came out breathier than intended, his foot nudging the straw into place with growing agitation.

The alpha didn't retreat—if anything, he closed the gap even more, his shadow falling over Jimin. "I don't know, hyung. I don't think patience is the thing being tested here."

Jimin's hands stilled on the rake, frustration mingling with the insistent throb of desire, his omega whining softly in the back of his mind for surrender. What the hell happened to respecting boundaries? Jeongguk's proximity was a siege, chipping away at the walls Jimin had so carefully rebuilt.

Jimin's rake scraped against the straw-strewn floor, the sound sharp in the stable's quiet as Jeongguk's breath ghosted over his neck. Just like every other time, the alpha was too close, and  too warm. Irritation flared hot in Jimin’s chest, cutting through the desire to turn around and curl right into Jeongguk’s body heat. Instead, he stayed facing away from the alpha, gripping the tool tighter.

"Watch it, mutt. We're here to clean these stalls." 

The Busan satoori slipped from his tongue unbidden, the dialect's roughness curling around the words like smoke, betraying the flush creeping down his neck. He bit the inside of his cheek, cursing the way his voice tripped over itself, the familiar lilt exposing his rattled state. He could hear the alpha release a breathy chuckle like he'd struck gold, that predatory gleam in his tone sharpening as he closed the distance, his body heat radiating through the chill air of the stable.

"Love it when you slip up, Jimin-hyung. Your satoori sounds so sexy—it's a shame you don't use it more often." 

Jeongguk's response rolled out in flawless Busan satoori, smooth and teasing, as if he'd flipped a switch to match him. He loomed right behind, his breath warm against the nape of Jimin's neck, sending an unwelcome shiver racing down his spine. The alpha's scent intensified, that deep, woodsy musk mingling with the faint tang of sweat from their labor, wrapping around Jimin like invisible fingers. 

"Especially when I know it's because you're embarrassed."

Jimin's jaw clenched, the alpha's cockiness grating deeper with every passing second, his boldness ramping up these days like he was adamant on pushing for a reaction. Just because Jimin offered a scrap of patience didn't invite this endless needling. He straightened his spine, still facing away, the rake forgotten in his hand as frustration boiled over. Only then did he whirl around, chin lifting defiantly despite the tilt of his head required to meet those smirking eyes. 

"I'm older than you, you know that, right? Have you forgotten your place?" The words came out in a huff, his posture straightening, though he hated the necessity of craning his neck to meet those dark eyes, the height difference a constant reminder of the power imbalance thrumming between them.

Jeongguk arched a brow, his smirk unwavering, lips curving in that infuriating way that promised mischief. "And if I say my place is on top of you—"

Jimin didn't let him finish. His palms slammed into Jeongguk's chest, shoving with more force than intended—the omega's suppressed strength surging in a burst of frustration. Jeongguk staggered back, a surprised laugh bubbling out, but his boot caught on the uneven scatter of bedding, the loose straw shifting underfoot.

Jimin's eyes widened as it unfolded in agonizing slow motion. The alpha's arms windmilled for balance, his face twisting in dawning horror, until the backs of his knees buckled against the wheelbarrow's edge. He toppled backward with a yelp, landing squarely in the mounded pile of semi-fresh horse manure, the frozen chunks giving way just enough to squelch under his weight.

Jimin froze, mouth agape, staring at the spectacle. Jeongguk blinked up at him, shock mirroring his own features, before his gaze drifted downward. The alpha's expression crumpled into one of pure dismay as he took in the dark, sticky mess soaking through his pants, the acrid scent blooming sharper now, cutting through the stable's ambient odors.

Jimin winced, a mix of guilt and barely contained glee twisting in his gut. He had no idea how to navigate the alpha’s ass being planted firmly in horse shit. Jeongguk looked utterly defeated, perched there in his ignoble seat, his usual dominance stripped away in an instant of slapstick misfortune.

"Jimin-hyung…" Jeongguk's tone was small, laced with disbelief, his hands gesturing vaguely at the disaster without touching it.

"Yes, Jeongguk?" Jimin replied, aiming for calm, though his voice wavered, the laughter pressing against his ribs as he clamped a hand over his mouth.

"I'm… I'm not sitting in horse shit, am I? Tell me I'm not sitting in horse shit right now."

The desperation in the plea nearly undid him. Jimin glanced away, shoulders quaking, the grin fighting its way free despite his efforts. "That—that would be a lie, Jeongguk."

"Jimin, you've got five seconds to help me out of here."

"I don't have to do anything—"

"What's going on in here—oh my." Hoseok's head poked into the stall, his eyes rounding comically as he surveyed the chaos. The beta's composure cracked in an instant, a peal of laughter exploding from him as he jabbed a finger at Jeongguk like they were kids on the playground. "If only I had a fucking camera on me, oh my god."

Jeongguk let out a pained groan, shifting gingerly, the wheelbarrow protesting with a creak, while Jimin lost the battle entirely. Laughter tore from him, raw and unrestrained. He stumbled toward Hoseok, clutching the beta's arm as they doubled over, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes from the sheer ridiculousness. The alpha's predicament was too perfect—a humbling splash of reality after his earlier cockiness.

"Better get up, Jeongguk, before your body heat warms up the shit even more. Have fun washing it out!" Hoseok wheezed, swiping at his damp cheeks before retreating to his grooming stall, chuckles trailing behind him.

Jimin straightened, sniffling as he caught his breath, a wide grin lingering on his face despite the lingering twinge of remorse. Jeongguk, however, looked anything but entertained, his jaw set in a scowl as he glared up from his unfortunate throne.

"I'm going to get up, and then I'm going to sit in your lap."

"If you even think about getting anywhere near me with those pants, I'm going to strangle you with rope."

Jeongguk's eyes sparkled with defiance, even through the humiliation. "Way to spice it up, hyung. I like it kinky anyway."

Jimin scoffed, rolling his eyes at the audacity—the alpha turning defeat into flirtation without missing a beat. "Oh, shut up and go clean yourself up. That's two different kinds of animal shit you've had on you today."

He turned on his heel, ignoring Jeongguk's indignant protests and pleas for assistance, stalking out of the barn with purposeful strides. The cold air hit his flushed face like a slap, but the smile refused to fade, a rare lightness bubbling in his chest amid the usual tangle of duties and desires. For once, the alpha's persistence had backfired spectacularly, and Jimin savored the small victory, even as the pull between them lingered, unspoken and insistent.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

By the time evening settled over the farm like a soft blanket, the farmhouse glowed with the amber light of lanterns and the hearth's steady crackle. The air inside hummed with contentment, the pack gathered around the scarred wooden table, spoons clinking against bowls as they savored the sigeumchi doenjang guk—rich, earthy broth laced with spinach and fermented soybean tang, courtesy of Mrs. Han's watchful eye and Seokjin's enthusiastic stirring. Steam curled upward, carrying the comforting scent that chased away the day's chill, mingling with the faint woodsmoke from the fire.

Jimin let the warmth seep into his bones, the savory heat blooming on his tongue with each bite, but his mind wandered to the lingering ache in his muscles from the chores. He glanced around the table—Hoseok animatedly recounting Jeongguk's stable mishap to a chorus of chuckles, Namjoon nodding sagely between mouthfuls, Seokjin beaming at the praise for his contribution. Jeongguk sat across from him, still faintly scowling but shooting Jimin a wink that twisted his gut with a mix of amusement and wariness. It was good, this easy camaraderie, but Jimin felt the pull of unspoken weights.

When the bowls emptied and the group began to disperse—some to the fire for stories, others to stretch weary limbs—Jimin rose quietly, gathering the dishes with a nod to Mrs. Han and Seokjin. 

"You've both done enough today," he said, his voice steady despite the fatigue tugging at him. "Let me handle the washing." They protested mildly, but he waved them off, stacking the ceramics in his arms and heading to the kitchen, the floorboards creaking under his steps.

The kitchen was a cozy nook, dominated by the deep porcelain sink and the pump that gurgled cold water from the well. Jimin rolled up his sleeves, the chill of the liquid biting his skin as he filled the basin, adding a splash of the mild soap that smelled of lavender from the herb garden. He was midway through scrubbing the first bowl when footsteps approached, light and familiar.

"Mind if I help?" Taehyung's voice was low, warm like the broth still settling in Jimin's stomach. He appeared at Jimin's side, grabbing a clean cloth without waiting for an answer, his presence a quiet anchor.

Jimin's shoulders eased at the offer. They hadn't carved out much time like this lately, not since the farm's demands pulled everyone in different directions. "Yeah, that'd be good," he murmured, passing over a rinsed plate. The silence that followed was effortless, the kind woven from years of shared glances and unspoken understandings—no need for words when their rhythms synced like this.

But as Jimin worked, suds foaming over his fingers, a thread of guilt coiled in his chest. He'd been leaning into Jeongguk's orbit these past weeks, letting cracks in his armor show in ways he hadn't with anyone else. Fifteen years with Taehyung—through scraped knees, late-night confessions, the raw edges of growing up—and yet Jimin had spilled vulnerabilities to the alpha he'd known for mere months. 

It wasn't erasure, not by a long shot, but the imbalance gnawed at him. Taehyung had always just known, reading the flicker in Jimin's eyes like an open book. Maybe Jimin had taken that for granted, assuming intuition covered everything, when really, Taehyung deserved the words too. The thought of unpacking it all again, baring those tender spots, made his throat tighten. With Jeongguk, it had been a clumsy stumble into honesty; repeating it now felt like tempting fate.

So he let the quiet hold, their shoulders brushing occasionally as he washed and Taehyung dried, the contact grounding, a subtle warmth against the cool evening air seeping through the window. The clink of dishes and the soft slosh of water filled the space, comfortable as an old sweater.

He caught Taehyung's gaze lingering from the corner of his eye, that steady blue intensity pulling at him. "What?" Jimin asked, a soft smile curving his lips as he glanced over, water dripping from his hands.

"Nothing," Taehyung replied, exhaling a sigh that carried no weight, his mouth tipping up in a way that eased the knot in Jimin's gut. "Just confirming Yoongi was right."

Jimin handed him another dish, the ceramic still warm from the soup. "What do you mean? You guys talk about me behind my back?"

"All the time, sweetheart." Taehyung's tone was teasing and affectionate, as he buffed the plate to a shine.

"I should've known you two secretly hated me."

Taehyung bumped his hip against Jimin's playfully, a low chuckle rumbling from his chest. "You know that's not the case." He set the bowl on the drying rack with a precise clatter, then turned, leaning his back against the sink's edge. His eyes fixed on Jimin, tracing the lines of his face with an attentiveness that sent a faint flush creeping up Jimin's neck, unbidden.

"I was just complaining about how I was missing a certain pretty omega."

Jimin arched a brow, crossing his arms over his damp shirt, the fabric clinging slightly. "You've got other omegas?"

Taehyung rolled his eyes, the mock exasperation lighting his features. "Of course not, but it's looking like you might be going behind our backs." He clutched his chest dramatically, eyes widening in feigned betrayal. "Jimin, how could you throw away fifteen years of marriage to Yoongi-hyung and me—"

"We haven't even known Yoongi for fifteen—"

"Fifteen long, joyous years of marriage for an alpha you've known for months?"

Jimin laughed incredulously, his mouth falling open as he shook his head, fighting back a grin. The sound echoed softly in the kitchen, chasing away the last shadows of guilt for the moment, leaving only the easy glow of their bond.

“There’s—there’s nothing—” Jimin started, but Taehyung shook his head, smiling softly. He brushed a stray hair from Jimin’s eyes, before pinching his right cheek lightly to annoy him.

“Relax. Yoongi said you’ve got some color back in your face, and I hate that I have to agree. I miss when I used to give you that cute pink color in your cheeks.”

“Jesus, Taehyung, you have a mate.”

“He feels the same way, must I remind you for the nth time, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin reached into the sink and flicked some soapy water in the alpha’s direction. He knew what Taehyung was starting to imply, and he didn’t want to exactly think about that. As much as Jimin hadn't wanted to admit it, Jeongguk was becoming easier to be around. The alpha was a hard worker—Jimin couldn't deny that. Jeongguk had made that very clear from the moment he arrived on the farm, more than capable of pulling his weight and then some. But especially after today, Jimin was finding it hard not to also find the alpha quite amusing. It was actually jarring to hear himself laugh more often. 

Even despite all of this, it wasn't like Jimin was purposefully choosing to work with Jeongguk. He couldn't help that the alpha was still insisting on trailing him like a pup. So Taehyung talking like this made him feel weird. It felt like Taehyung was coming to terms with passing Jimin along, like Jimin was some omega that was being handed off by his father to the alpha he was supposed to marry. Jimin was not someone to be handed over.

“You’re talking so weirdly, what’s up with you?” Jimin muttered, dodging Taehyung’s attempts to splash water back at him.

“I could say the same. Imagine my surprise when I wanted to cuddle you last week, and didn’t find you in your room. Seriously, imagine my utter shock, when I instead saw you outside having the cutest snowball fight with a certain alpha…”

Jimin froze, unsure of what to say, or what excuse to make.

“Jimin-ah…” Taehyung said, stepping closer.

“Tae?” Jimin swallowed, averting his gaze. He felt like he’d been caught in a scandal, despite knowing his best friend wasn’t upset.

Taehyung’s expression softened, his eyes holding a mix of relief and something deeper, more vulnerable. “I’m just… truly happy, you know? Seeing you finally let some of that weight be carried by someone else. I know you’re not going to fully relent—you’re too stubborn for that—but all I’ve wanted is to see you relax, even for a moment. Actually let go.” He paused, rubbing the back of his neck with his wrist, his voice dropping. 

“I’ve been feeling bad lately. Jeongguk’s mainly here because of me. I was the one who convinced you to bring him back, and since then, you basically haven’t had a break. We’ve all been trying to navigate him, especially now with him learning to shift. But I know that it’s been a lot on you.”

Jimin watched as Taehyung’s gaze flickered with a hint of regret, but then steadied. “But I don’t regret it—not when I see him making you smile. Not when I see you finally seeking pleasures for yourself. I’ve been battling my own protectiveness—which I guess comes from our many, many years of this unorthodox friendship of ours. But regardless, I’m relieved to see you happy.”

Taehyung smiled a little more, nodding to himself.  “Even more so because Jeongguk’s shifting training seems to be making safe progress, albeit slowly. My intuition about bringing him in wasn’t wrong, as crazy as the journey has been so far. I’m just sorry that you were the one shouldering the responsibility over our collective choice.”

Jimin blinked, the warmth of Taehyung’s words settling over him. He hadn’t realized how much his friend had been carrying too—the guilt, the worry. 

“Tae, I… I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said quietly, his voice barely above the gentle lap of the water around them. “But you’re right—we all decided this. And yeah, it’s been chaotic, but… seeing him try so hard, it’s starting to feel less like a burden.” He hesitated, a small smile tugging at his lips. “You don’t have to protect me from everything, you know. I'm more than capable of handling chaos.”

Taehyung chuckled softly, the tension easing from his shoulders. “Handle it? You thrive on it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t worry. Just… promise me you’ll keep this? Letting yourself relax, I mean.”

Jimin gnawed on his bottom lip for a second, letting his gaze drift off to the dishes in the sink. “I can’t promise that Taehyung. You know I can’t…” He looked back at Taehyung then. “But I’ll try, okay? Does that sound like a deal, Kim Jungwi?” 

“Oh, pulling rank I see,” Taehyung said with a grin, flicking water back at him playfully. “That sounds like a deal to me, Park Daewi-nim.” The air between them lightened, the heaviness giving way to their familiar rhythm.

“But I will say this.” Taehyung held a wet index finger up. Jimin raised an eyebrow in question, but remained silent, urging the alpha to continue.

“You can fuck that alpha—sure, I’ll allow it. But from now on, it is an established rule that the first snow will always be reserved for me, do you understand?” He said seriously, swirling his finger in a circular motion, inching closer to Jimin’s face.

They stared at each other for a moment, nothing but silence filling the air. Then Jimin leaned in slowly, gently biting Taehyung’s index finger with a grin on his face. The alpha grinned back, pulling him into a tight hug.

“I’ve just—I feel like we’ve been drifting apart a little. Is that selfish of me to say? I don’t know, I don’t really care if it is. I’m happy that you’re less stressed now, but you’re still my soulmate. I still want to see that pretty face every day.” Taehyung mumbled into the crook of Jimin’s neck.

Jimin sighed, the sound soft and releasing as he breathed in Taehyung’s cedar smoke scent, a welcome shift from the lingering pine that seemed to follow him everywhere these days. The embrace had grounded him, Taehyung's arms wrapping firm and familiar around his frame, chasing away the remnants of the day's chaos. Jimin could feel the tension leaving him, a quiet hum of contentment settling in his chest as he melted into the hold, the soapy water and dishes forgotten in the sink behind them for that brief, stolen interlude.

They pulled back just enough to meet each other's eyes, the kitchen's warm light flickering across Taehyung's features, highlighting the earnest curve of his smile. As they both stood there smiling, Taehyung's expression softened further, his hand lingering on Jimin's arm as he moved to take the next plate from the sink.

"Seriously though," Taehyung said after a moment. "We've missed this. Missed you being around like before."

Jimin paused, sponge hovering over a stubborn spot on a spoon. He rinsed the utensil under the stream, watching the water swirl away the grime. "I know," he admitted quietly, eyes on the sink. "It's just... everything's been a lot. The farm, the pack…the mutt."

Taehyung nodded, drying the spoon with slow, deliberate strokes, his presence steady beside him. "Yeah, I get it. But we're here, you know? Always."

The reassurance wasn’t quite necessary—Taehyung had always been there, Jimin knew that. But it did well to ease the knot in his chest. He glanced up, meeting Taehyung's steady gaze, finding only concern laced with that unwavering loyalty. "It doesn't change us," Jimin said finally, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was even referencing with the word ‘it’. Perhaps their previous arguments, perhaps the fact that Jimin had tried to hide the fact that he and Jeongguk have had sex. Perhaps anything and everything involving Jeongguk. "You and Yoongi—you're family. Always will be."

Taehyung's smile returned, softer now, as he set the spoon aside and bumped their shoulders again. "Good. Because if the farm or Jeongguk starts hogging all your time, I'll have to fight them for you. And you know I'd win." His tone was light, the earlier laughter threading back in, but the underlying promise of protectiveness warmed Jimin from the inside out. 

Jimin felt the guilt ebb further, replaced by the steady reassurance of their unbreakable tie—no matter the pulls from life's endless demands, this foundation remained unshaken. Their shared smile widened just a touch, the kitchen's hum wrapping around them like a cocoon.

“I know, I know, Taehyung-ah. Let’s talk more later, hm?” Jimin said softly, his voice threading through the quiet hum of the kitchen. He leaned over once more, pressing a gentle kiss to the alpha’s cheek, the skin warm and slightly stubbled under his lips. The gesture carried a weight he hadn't planned, a quiet apology woven into the touch. Amid the whirlwind churning inside him—the farm's relentless rhythm, the confusing tangle of scents and glances that clung to his days—Jimin hadn't fully grasped how much he'd let distance creep between them. Taehyung had been his constant, the one who'd anchored him through the rawest storms of their youth, when the world felt too vast and their bond too fierce to name. It wasn't normal, this bond between them, threaded with a depth that blurred far too many platonic lines. But Jimin wouldn't trade it for anything, and he'd be damned if he let it go now.

Seemingly satisfied, Taehyung's shoulders loosened just a fraction before drawing Jimin back in, his lips brushing a soft kiss to Jimin's forehead. The alpha rested his chin atop Jimin's head, pulling him into another hug that enveloped him completely. Jimin wasn't one for overt affection—his skin often prickled at too much closeness from others—but with Taehyung, it was always different. The warmth seeped through his shirt, chasing away the evening's chill, a familiar comfort that settled deep in his chest like embers in the hearth. 

For a fleeting second, his mind flickered to Jeongguk, a quiet whisper urging him to let go like this with the alpha too, to sink into those arms without the constant pushback. Jimin shoved the thought down hard, irritation flickering through him—no, not happening. He’s not sure why that thought even crossed his mind. He continued to stand like that in Taehyung’s embrace for a lingering moment, breaths syncing in the steam-scented air, the drying rack forgotten beside them once again.

Then Taehyung's head tilted slightly, his body tensing just enough for Jimin to notice. The alpha stepped back, a shit-eating smirk curling his lips as he nodded toward the doorway. “What?” Jimin asked, brow furrowing before he followed the gaze.

Jeongguk stood there, framed in the threshold, his fingers clenched white-knuckled around the edges of his empty bowl. His jaw shifted, a muscle ticking under the skin, as his eyes flicked briefly to Jimin before darting away. The air thickened with unspoken tension, the faint pine scent clinging to him cutting through the lavender soap and cedar warmth.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Jeongguk muttered, voice low and clipped. He crossed the room in quick strides, setting the bowl on the counter with a sharp clink, not sparing them another glance before turning on his heel and vanishing into the shadowed hall.

Jimin and Taehyung watched him go, the silence stretching taut for a beat. Then Taehyung's shoulders shook, his pursed lips failing to contain the bubbling laugh that escaped. His eyes raised in amusement, sparkling under the lamp's glow. “Uh oh… that’s, what—three alphas wrapped around your finger now?” He held up three fingers, wiggling them teasingly, the gesture light but pointed.

“Oh, shut up. I don’t have anyone wrapped around my finger—have you bumped your head?” Jimin swatted at Taehyung's hand, the motion half-hearted as he turned back to the sink, plunging his hands into the soapy water once more. 

The suds frothed around his fingers, cool against his warming skin, but a sour twist began to bloom low in his stomach. That look Jeongguk had shot them—the quick aversion, the rigid set of his shoulders—it all gnawed at him, stirring an irrational urge to chase after and explain. As if he owed the alpha anything. They weren't bound, weren't anything official, and Jimin had every right to lean into the comfort of his best friend without apology. No one owned him, no one dictated the shape of his affections. Still, the unease lingered, a quiet ripple under his skin as he scrubbed harder at a lingering spot on the last plate.

Taehyung chuckled again, stepping up beside him to dry the final pieces. The kitchen settled back into its rhythm, the night outside pressing close against the windows, but Jimin's thoughts drifted, caught between the solid warmth at his side and the echo of footsteps fading down the hall.

Jimin then passed the last dish to be placed on the drying rack, the faint clink echoing in the now-quiet kitchen. The steam from the sink had dissipated, leaving behind a clean, soapy freshness that mingled with the lingering aroma of their dinner. Taehyung wiped down the counter with a final swipe of the cloth, his movements unhurried. A soft hum escaped the alpha’s lips, some half-remembered tune from their younger days, and Jimin couldn't help the small curve of his mouth at the sound. It chased away the last threads of the day's weight, if only for a moment.

"All done," Taehyung announced, tossing the cloth over his shoulder with a flourish. He turned to Jimin, eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that always pulled at something deep in Jimin's chest. "You heading out?"

Jimin nodded, drying his hands on a towel before hanging it neatly. "Yeah, just a quick check on the greenhouse. Those seeds... I want to see how they're holding up before bed." He turned to face Taehyung as he made it to the kitchen doorway. “Thanks for the help, Tae,” Jimin murmured, his voice soft.

Taehyung waved it off with a grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Anytime, Jimin-ah. Go check on those babies of yours before you crash.”

Jimin managed a chuckle, the sound light but genuine, as he pushed open the back door. The cool night air hit him as he stepped outside, crisp and laced with the faint scent of frozen earth. The farmhouse lights faded behind him, guiding his path across the yard to the greenhouse, its glass panes glowing faintly under the strung-up lamps powered by the humming generators. The pack had rationed the fuel carefully, but these fragile starts demanded the extra warmth—a gamble on tomorrow that Jimin couldn't bring himself to regret.

As he slipped through the door, the shift in temperature enveloped him immediately—humid and earthy, laced with the fresh tang of soil and the faint, green promise of growth. Jimin exhaled slowly, the tension from the kitchen easing from his shoulders as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the hook by the entrance. The warm lamps cast a golden haze over the rows of pots, their light dancing on the moist earth. He moved toward the trays of seedlings they'd salvaged from the depot, his fingers itching to touch the progress he'd been tracking like a vigil.

He moved between the benches, his fingers trailing lightly over the edges of the trays. Some spots remained barren, dark soil undisturbed—expected losses, the harsh reality of old stock. But others... others thrived. Delicate leaves unfurled, vibrant against the black earth, their edges curling as if reaching for more light. Jimin's breath caught, a flicker of wonder stirring in his chest. 

He wasn't some expert gardener, no green-thumbed house omega tending a perfect domestic haven. Hell, he'd never tended more than a windowsill herb back in the city days. But here, in this humid sanctuary, something clicked. The greenhouse had become his retreat when he needed a break from patrolling. It was a place where responsibility felt tangible, nurturing without the mess of words or emotions.

His mind drifted off to a few days prior, the memory sharp as the scent of pine that had clung to the air then. Jeongguk had followed him through the door, his presence a constant heat at Jimin's back, boots scuffing softly on the gravel path. Jimin had been mid-rant, words tumbling out in frustration as he inspected the trays. 

"It was a good effort, really," he'd said, voice edged with that polite dismissal. "But these seeds... they're too far gone. We got a few sprouts at first, but nothing sustainable. The trip was risky for scraps."

Jeongguk had stayed silent at first. Then he let out a low hum, almost amused, before tilting his head, brows lifting in that knowing arc. "Look behind you, hyung."

Jimin had turned, and there they were—a cluster of shoots he'd overlooked in his pessimism, stronger than before, their stems sturdy under the lamps. His pulse had stuttered, heat rising to his cheeks not just from surprise, but from the way Jeongguk leaned in then, breath warm against Jimin's ear as he peered over his shoulder. Too close, always too close, that solid chest brushing Jimin's arm, the faint musk of sweat and earth seeping through his shirt. This was Jeongguk's bad habit—slipping into unguarded moments like he belonged there, testing boundaries Jimin hadn't mustered the will to redraw. 

The alpha's voice had rumbled low, teasing. "Told you it was worth it."

Jimin had bitten back a smile, feigning annoyance even as pride swelled for the pack's gain. These weren't miracle crops, just humble herbs for flavoring stews and teas, but they signaled potential. If these endured, the bigger seeds—the ones for vegetables that could feed them through lean winters—might follow. Hope, fragile as these leaves, but real. The generators' hum had seemed louder that day, a reminder of the cost, but Jeongguk's quiet satisfaction had made it feel justified.

Now, alone in the greenhouse, Jimin exhaled slowly, the memory fading like mist. No heavy footsteps trailed him tonight, no alpha shadow to disrupt the solitude. Relief washed over him first, cool and clarifying—space to breathe without the itch of proximity, without the pull that left him off-balance. But unease followed, twisting in his chest like an untended root. Was this what he wanted? Jeongguk's absence felt off, like a rhythm interrupted. His mind couldn't settle, bouncing between gratitude for the quiet and a nagging curiosity—why the distance now? Had Jeongguk truly felt bothered by what happened in the kitchen?

He shook it off, kneeling beside a tray to distract himself. The soil was moist, perfect from the last watering, but he fetched the can anyway, pouring gently on the slightly dryer plants to help  coax their growth. His hands moved with practiced care, brushing away stray dirt, peering under leaves for signs of pests. No tiny invaders tonight, just the steady pulse of life under his fingertips. These plants didn't demand explanations or clarity. They carried no voices that challenged him, no touches that sent sparks racing under his skin, no gazes that stripped him bare. Nothing to make his pulse quicken, or his body ache with the echo of heat, mouths claiming, skin sliding slick and urgent, eyes locked in feral hunger. Jimin paused, fingers hovering over a leaf, his breath shallow as the images flooded in—raw, intense, demanding more. He swallowed hard, forcing his focus back to the soil, but the itch lingered, a whisper of want he couldn't quite bury.

“Figured I’d find you in here.”

Jimin had been so lost in his thoughts that he shot straight up from where he was bent over the plants, his heart slamming against his ribs like a caged animal. The sudden voice sliced through the humid quiet, pulling him back to the present with a jolt. He turned quickly, wiping his soil-dusted hands on his pants, to face the source.

Jeongguk filled the doorway, his broad frame blocking the night chill, shoulders squared. Damn it. This was meant to be his escape, a pocket of solitude to untangle the mess in his head, to sort out how to handle the alpha who kept invading his every thought. But here he was, striding in, his presence sucking the air from the room, that brooding pine smoke scent rolling off him in waves, sharp and restless, like a storm about to break.

The alpha didn't speak again right away. He just lingered there, arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on Jimin with an intensity that pinned him in place. It wasn't the nearness that twisted Jimin's gut— he'd grown accustomed to the alpha's shadow trailing him through the days. No, it was this quiet, the way it hung between them, thick and expectant, as if Jeongguk could see straight through the barriers Jimin had thrown up. As if he knew the secrets Jimin hadn't even voiced to himself yet.

"We're not training tonight, Jeongguk. You should rest up from last time," Jimin said, his voice coming out muffled as he busied his hands with the trays, shifting pots that didn't need moving. The air grew heavier, saturated with that underlying bite in Jeongguk's scent, needling at Jimin's senses like tiny sparks against raw skin. 

"Go turn in. It's late."

He pivoted away then, staring down at the soil as if it held answers, pretending the alpha might vanish if ignored long enough. Deep down, Jimin knew exactly why Jeongguk had followed him here—the unspoken stalemate they'd fallen into, the way their interactions teetered on a knife's edge. That's why he clung to this flimsy dismissal, invoking the shifting sessions as cover. But even thinking about it made his head spin, a tightness swelling in his throat that choked off his words. Admitting those slips, the way his focus had wandered from the pack's safety to something far more selfish—it turned his stomach. He just wanted it buried, gone, like a bad dream fading with dawn.

A scoff cut through the silence, rough and disbelieving, followed by the soft thud of the door sealing shut again. Relief washed over Jimin in a rush as he braced his palms against the workbench, exhaling a shaky breath. Quiet settled again, the only sounds the faint hum of the lamps and the drip of water from a leaf. But then footsteps approached, slow and unhurried, closing the distance he'd hoped to keep.

"I said no shifting tonight—" Jimin began, spinning back around, words dying on his tongue. Of course Jeongguk hadn't left. In all the months since they'd crossed paths, the alpha had never backed down from a challenge, always testing limits with that relentless drive. And now he loomed even nearer, close enough that Jimin had to crane his neck to meet those dark eyes, the height difference a stark reminder of the power humming between them. God, he loathed how it made his pulse stutter, how it stirred instincts he fought to keep leashed.

"You and Taehyung are very comfortable," Jeongguk said, the words landing flat and matter-of-fact, like a verdict already passed.

Jimin froze, his grip whitening on the table's edge before he wrenched himself into motion, nudging a perfectly aligned tray just to have something to do. Straight to the point, no softening the blow. In a different life, Jimin would have respected it—the alpha's refusal to dance around truths, his impatience with empty chatter that dragged on. Jimin felt the same way—there was no need to mince what needed to be said straight. But tonight, it grated, and a traitorous part of him wished for evasion, for anything to delay the confrontation.

"I've known Taehyung for over a decade," Jimin replied, arching a brow as he stepped back, forcing casualness into his stance. He kept his tone light despite the coil tightening in his chest. "That's all."

Jeongguk's eyes dropped to the floor, his jaw working as he nodded once, slowly, before pressing his tongue against his cheek in that telltale sign of frustration. Then his gaze lifted, head canting to the side as he studied Jimin. "Is that why I found you two all over each other in the kitchen?"

Found? A sharp spike of irritation lanced through Jimin's chest, hot and immediate. The alpha was speaking to him like he'd been caught red-handed in some illicit act, as if Jimin owed him a confession or justification. He loathed that implication—Jeongguk held no claim over him, no right to demand answers. What burned worse was the treacherous twist in his gut, the instinctive urge to placate Jeongguk, to rush out with assurances that it ‘wasn't what it seemed’. This pull toward the alpha was weakening his resolve, and it terrified him how deeply it unsettled his core.

“Found?” Jimin echoed, the word slicing out sharp and defensive. He straightened his spine, meeting Jeongguk's gaze head-on. “What, you think I’m sneaking around behind your back now?”

“You must be,” Jeongguk fired back without missing a beat, his voice low and edged with accusation. “Because you told me you weren’t his.”

“I’m not anyone’s, Jeongguk—did that part slip your mind?” Jimin shot back, his pulse thundering in his ears. The greenhouse air turned thick, clogged with their clashing scents: Jimin’s rising edge of unease mingling with Jeongguk’s sharp, stormy bite, both laced with frustration that made the humid space feel smaller, tighter. All Jimin craved was escape. To bolt like he had after their frantic coupling in the barn, or the raw tangle in the shed—flee this whirlwind of tangled feelings the alpha stirred up. But he knew Jeongguk too well by now; the man wouldn’t back off, wouldn’t let the words hang unresolved.

Jimin would have to face it head-on, rip open the truth and drag them both into the harsh light of reality, no matter how it stung.

“Then what am I supposed to think when I smell his scent all over you?” 

Jimin shifted to the far end of the workbench instead, dragging a cloth through a patch of soil that didn’t need cleaning, pressing harder than necessary just to give his hands something to do. The greenhouse lamps flickered before resuming their faint hum overhead, and for a second he focused on that—on the quiet, on the predictability of it—anything but the weight of Jeongguk’s attention settling between his shoulders.

“You’re not supposed to think anything,” he said, keeping his voice even as he set the cloth aside. “You’re supposed to drop it.”

A soft scuff of boots answered him, closer now.

“Drop it?” Jeongguk repeated, the words losing none of their edge despite the lower volume. He reached out, not grabbing but hovering, his fingers ghosting near Jimin's arm. "You give me these scraps of yourself, then push me away for weeks. But you have no problem wrapping yourself around another alpha? No, Jimin. I'm not dropping it."

Jimin’s hand paused midway to a tray, fingers hovering over a cluster of leaves before he forced them to move again, adjusting the pot by a fraction.

The words only confirmed what Jimin had suspected, but hadn't wanted to address so soon. Jeongguk's jealousy hung in the air, unfiltered and demanding, as if Jimin were obligated to soothe it. It sparked a fresh wave of agitation in his chest—he'd been crystal clear about Taehyung being his closest friend, their bond deep and unshakeable, even if it didn't fit neat labels. This wasn't some tawdry betrayal, like a character in one of those meaningless romance dramas. Jeongguk's possessiveness felt immature, like a pup's tantrum, and Jimin had no patience for these mind games amid the endless grind of survival. 

With a sharp exhale, he sidestepped the alpha, brushing past his solid frame to busy himself clearing the scattered tools and dirt from the workbench, anything to avoid those piercing eyes. "Then that's your problem," Jimin said, keeping his tone flat and final.

"Don't do that," Jeongguk warned, his voice dropping an octave, closer now behind him.

"Do what?" Jimin snapped, refusing to turn.

"Shrink this whole thing down. Make it something small and simple so you don't have to face the mess you've made." Jeongguk's breath ghosted warm against the back of Jimin's neck, sending an unwelcome shiver down his spine.

Perhaps Jimin’s pride will be his downfall one day—he’s sure of it, actually. Because any restraint he held disappeared when he whipped around to face Jeongguk, heart pounding impossibly harder. The alpha hadn't budged an inch, planted firm right there, his broad shoulders blocking the faint light filtering through the greenhouse glass. Their scents tangled thicker now—Jeongguk's sharp, musky edge sharpening with every word, clashing against Jimin's own rising spike of defensiveness, like storm clouds gathering in the humid air.

"I'm not making anything smaller, and this is not my fault," Jimin retorted, chin lifting in defiance.

"Then say it plainly. Am I just a quick fuck to you? A way to scratch an itch before you run back to your 'very good friend' for comfort?" Jeongguk's fingers curled into air quotes around the last words, his gaze boring into Jimin with fierce intensity. A flash of gold prickles his irises for just a second, barely giving Jimin any a chance to decipher whether it was just his imagination or not.

"It's none of your damn business," Jimin ground out through clenched teeth, "and I sure as hell wouldn't spill it to someone throwing a fit like a damn pup."

"It is my business when you look at me like—" Jeongguk cut himself off, jaw tightening, "—like that, and then pretend this is all worthless."

"It is worthless," Jimin lied, the words tasting bitter even as they left his lips.

"That's bullshit," the alpha growled.

"Oh please, you’re in denial if you think we’ve got anything—"

"Then quit feeding me lies." Jeongguk's hand shot out as Jimin turned to leave, fingers grazing his arm.

Jimin jerked away before contact could happen, skin heating at the near-touch. He couldn't let Jeongguk dictate the terms, couldn't risk the way his body might betray him under that grip.

"I'm not lying. I'm not anyone's to have, Jeongguk. I told you that from the very start." He edged toward the door, putting space between them, but the alpha mirrored his steps, closing in again.

"Here you go, trying to act like you’ve been honest this whole fucking time, but you haven’t," Jeongguk said, voice bleeding with desperation.

“It’s not my fault you’re so delusional!” 

"Oh really? I’m delusional? That makes so much sense, because you definitely didn’t fuck me with that beautiful look in your eyes, and make me feel like it actually meant something. It must’ve just been my pure imagination,” He taps aggressively on his own temple with his index and middle finger, an emphasis that makes Jimin nearly flinch.

“Maybe I need to go see Jiwon, because I clearly hallucinated that we held each other the rest of the night too, yeah?" The alpha's eyes flashed gold again—Jimin’s sure of it this time, frustration etching lines across his face as he followed Jimin, turning the workbench into an unintended barrier in their subtle pursuit. 

"You read too much into everything, and I can’t help you with that. Just keep your distance and don't let these stupid emotions tangle you up—I warned you already," Jimin fired back, dodging around a tray of sprouts.

"You think I can just choose to not feel anything?" Jeongguk's hands gestured wildly, emphasizing the chaos Jimin felt mirroring inside him.

"Everything you do is your choice," Jimin insisted, backing toward the far wall lined with hanging vines. It had to be true. He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the fact that his budding feelings for the alpha couldn’t be staved off. For the sake of Jimin’s sanity, his own words needed to be true.

"Not this. Not how you make me feel." Jeongguk's pursuit didn't falter, his longer strides eating up the gap.

"Then that's your issue to sort." Jimin's back hit a shelf, the faint rustle of leaves underscoring his trapped position.

"No, not when this feeling is clearly mutual. It's our issue." Jeongguk stopped just short, close enough that Jimin could feel the heat rolling off him, their breaths syncing in the charged silence. He could see the pulse jumping in Jeongguk's throat, the way his dark eyes roamed Jimin's face like he was memorizing every flicker of hesitation.

"There is no 'us,' Jeongguk." The denial came out steadier than he felt, and it twisted his stomach into further knots. He was lying straight to Jeongguk’s face. He was lying, and the only justification he had for it, was that it was for their own good. 

Even as he averted his own gaze, he could feel the alpha's stare drilling into him, searching for cracks in his armor, and it took everything not to bolt for the door.

"Yet," Jeongguk countered.

"Can you stop with that already? There’s no ‘yet’, there’s nothing." Jimin's voice cracked slightly, the warning laced with his own desperation that he couldn't quite mask. Jeongguk’s insistence was slowly poisoning him, tearing away his steeled resolve, and clouding his mind with images of a life Jimin could never have. He needed this to stop, and he was just short of begging on his knees for it to happen. This pressure, this desperation to stop this whirlwind of confusing feelings was building up so much in Jimin’s chest that it was actually beginning to feel painful.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I can't afford it." The words escaped before Jimin could stop them, raw and edged with the weight of the pack's fragile peace, the responsibilities that chained him tighter than any physical restraint.

"Afford what?"

"Whatever fantasy you're spinning about this." Jimin gestured vaguely between them, frustration bubbling over.

Jeongguk took another half-step forward, crowding Jimin against a shelf without touching him, the proximity alone enough to make Jimin's skin flush with unwelcome awareness.

"You're running away again, Jimin," he said, his tone low and edged with exasperation, almost like he was just as tired as Jimin was of this.

Jimin swallowed hard, his back pressing into the rough wood behind him, the faint scratch of leaves brushing his shoulders. "Jeongguk, I can't, okay? I've got too much to—"

"Too much what?" Jeongguk interrupted, his voice rising. "You studying for university? Planning on furthering your career? Got a business to run? A mate and three pups to support? Jimin, that life is gone—what responsibilities could you possibly have that you can't squeeze in just a moment of time for us?"

Jeongguk’s words felt like they were stripping away fragile excuses Jimin clung to. His mind reeled, flashing to the endless list: the pack's survival, the animals that needed feeding before dawn, the fragile sprouts that demanded his care, Taehyung's subtle but obvious hurt in the kitchen earlier. Every single one of his responsibilities involved tending to lives, no matter how big or small. How could Jeongguk reduce it all to nothing over rejection? This world didn't pause for feelings, no matter how raw or real they clawed to the surface, and the alpha needed to accept that for once. 

Jimin's hands clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms to ground himself against the alpha's relentless push.

"You don't get it," Jimin whispered, the fight draining from his voice, leaving only exhaustion. "It's not about squeezing in time. It's about what happens when I let this—whatever it is—take over. I lose focus, and people get hurt. The whole pack gets hurt."

Jeongguk's jaw worked, his eyes softening despite the frustration etching his features. He reached out slowly this time, giving Jimin a chance to pull away, but when his fingers brushed Jimin's wrist—light, tentative—the contact sent a jolt through them both. 

"Then let me help carry it. Stop acting like you're alone in this fight."

Jeongguk's touch seeped into his skin, stirring those stupid instincts he fought to bury. He wanted to yank free, to deny them both this contact, but like it seemed to do more often than not these days, his body betrayed him, leaning in just a fraction before he caught himself. 

"I can't," Jimin said, softer now, the words more plea than protest. But even as he said it, doubt crept in, whispering that maybe, just maybe, Jeongguk was right.

Jeongguk's eyes narrowed, the earlier flicker of hope hardening into quiet resolve. He didn't retreat, his presence a solid wall of warmth and scent that wrapped around Jimin like vines, pulling him deeper into the humid embrace of the greenhouse. The faint rustle of leaves overhead seemed to hold its breath, mirroring the tension coiling in Jimin's chest.

"Then spell it out for me. What is ‘this’, really?"

"It's nothing." Another lie, and this time it scorched his mouth as the words came out.

"Say it again. And mean it this time." Jeongguk leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur that vibrated through the scant space between them, sending a shiver racing down Jimin's spine.

"It's nothing," Jimin forced out, injecting as much conviction as he could muster despite the subtle shake that undercut it.

Jeongguk's stare drilled into him, fierce and probing. "No. I need you to say it outright—that none of it matters to you. Not the nights, not the touches, nothing."

The words immediately evoked those haunting flashes of tangled sheets and heated skin that Jimin shoved down ruthlessly. His throat constricted, the air too thick to draw properly. 

"It—it doesn't."

A muscle ticked in Jeongguk's jaw, his expression cracking just enough to reveal the hurt beneath the steel. "You're shit at lying, you know that?" 

The bitterness laced his tone, but there was a softening around his eyes, a glimpse of the vulnerability that made Jimin's chest ache. He was doing it again. He was hurting Jeongguk. He was hurting himself. But it was for the better, so that hurt wouldn’t be as bad later. Jimin was protecting them both, and he just needed to keep reminding himself of that fact.

"And you're pushing too far," Jimin wrapped his arms around himself, fingers digging into the coarse weave of his shirt for some semblance of stability, grounding himself against the vulnerability creeping in. He couldn't keep doing this.

Jeongguk exhaled sharply, his broad shoulders sagging further, the lines of his face etched with a quiet defeat. "I'm just trying to figure out where I fit in your life, is that so wrong of me?"

Why was Jeongguk fighting so damn hard for this—for him—when walking away would be simpler for everyone? The alpha's persistence felt like a weight Jimin wasn't equipped to carry, stirring more confusion amid the exhaustion.

"You're pack now. That makes you my duty to watch over. End of story."

"Your... duty." Jeongguk repeated the word slowly, his brows knitting together in disbelief.

“Yes.” Jimin forced the affirmation out, steadying his gaze on the floor, away from the intensity in those dark eyes.

"So that's it? I'm just another task on your endless list, like feeding the goats or mending fences?"

Jimin finally met his eyes, the alpha's proximity sending a fresh prickle across his skin—the faint brush of Jeongguk's breath that barely dusted his cheek, the subtle flex of muscles shifting under his shirt as he leaned in just a fraction. It was too much, too close.

"That's how it is for everyone here."

"But that's not what I want from you." Jeongguk's voice softened to a near-whisper.

The words ignited the frustration anew, a spark flaring into something sharper. Jimin was so tired of this dance, of Jeongguk refusing to let go when Jimin had made it clear boundaries were necessary. Why couldn't he see that pushing only made the cracks wider, risking everything Jimin held together? 

“Then you should've walked away when you could.” The snap came out too cutting, but Jimin couldn’t help it, the moment pressing in too real, Jeongguk’s persistence seeping past his resolve like water through stone.

"You don't mean that. Not really." Jeongguk's eyes searched his, inching forward, charging the space with latent energy that made Jimin’s pulse repeatedly stutter.

"I mean every word," Jimin insisted, but the quiver in his tone undermined him, a silent beg for the alpha to stop before their facades crumbled entirely, leaving them both exposed. 

“Is it really that hard to tell the truth? Why can’t you just... just be honest with me?”

Jimin swallowed against the dryness in his throat. “I…I have too many people to protect, Jeongguk. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that for you to get it.”

Jeongguk stepped a short distance away, his boots scuffing lightly against the dirt floor as he put a deliberate distance between them, arms folding across his chest. He shook his head in disbelief, the motion sending a stray lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, his jaw shifting with frustration. The alpha's eyes then flicked back to Jimin, one eyebrow arching in a mix of challenge

“And who’s going to protect you, Jimin?” 

“I don’t need—”

“Who is going to protect you?” Jeongguk repeated, his tone even firmer.

“I can handle myself and you know it.” Jimin's words came out sharp, a defensive edge honed from years of standing alone against the world's edges. Even with Taehyung being by his side, even with the care Choi Minji never hesitated to give Jimin, he’s always felt like this. Alone.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Jimin could only let out an incredulous scoff. Jeongguk really had some nerve to demand answers like this. “Taehyung has always had my back. I know that I can always trust him, which is more than enough protection.” It tumbled out as a reflex, a shield against the intrusive question, though a shadow of uncertainty lingered. 

Jeongguk's expression darkened, a flash of something raw crossing his features, jealousy or hurt or both, making his eyes narrow. “Taehyung didn’t have your back at the depot.”

“Don’t you ever fucking speak about him like that.” Jimin's voice rose, heat flooding his face as he shoved forward, their chests nearly brushing again. The alpha's scent spiked, a warning note threading through it, but Jimin didn't back down.

That slip at the depot was never Taehyung’s fault. They had strict protocols to abide by, ones that they’d long since had engrained into their minds from their time in the military. But Taehyung had also expressed his pains from that day. He saw it the same way Jeongguk did, and Jimin was beginning to feel like he was the only one left clinging on to the fact that the pack should always be prioritized over one member. Was that truly so wrong of him? Why was Jeongguk making him slowly feel like it was?

“I’m not insulting him—I’m telling you the truth.” Jeongguk held his ground.

“The ‘truth’ is he’s been here longer than you ever have.”

“And I’m here now.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” But the words rang hollow even to Jimin.

“I’ve had your back when it fucking mattered, so yes it does mean something.” Jeongguk's hand twitched at his side, as if fighting the impulse to reach out.

“You don’t get to decide that.” Dread swelled inside Jimin, hot and urgent, as Jeongguk dismantled his arguments one by one, leaving his mind reeling.

“Then who does get to? Say I'm off base about how you feel—about what this could be.” His words came quieter. “You could at least ease my mind with a solid answer. If you won’t decide who to fall back on for support, then someone has to.”

“Not you.”

“Why not me?” The question hung between them, Jeongguk's voice cracking just enough to reveal the vulnerability beneath his resolve.

“Because I didn’t ask for you.” The more he spoke, the more his own responses began to feel like pathetic excuses. God, this was so fucking exhausting. 

“I didn’t ask for you either, and look where that got me.” Jeongguk’s brows furrowed deeply.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be responsible for the death of people you love. I’m trying to protect you from feeling that pain.”

“I don’t know—what the hell do you mean? Are you saying I haven’t lost people?”

“You lost people, that’s for damn sure—and believe me, I understand that pain. But you don’t know what it’s like to have someone trust you with their life—to look at you like you’re the only one who’s going to keep them safe—and then watch them die right in front of you anyway.” 

Jimin's voice trembled, the words tearing free from a place he'd long sealed shut. The greenhouse seemed to shrink around them, the soft patter of water droplets from overhead leaves amplifying the rawness in the air. Jeongguk's face paled slightly, but he didn't interrupt, his silence urging Jimin on.

“Your poor excuse of a brother shoved his wife and daughter on you without any warning, and let fate decide. That was never on you, Jeongguk. You never even had a chance to try. For me it’s different. You don’t know what it’s like to be the one whose whole career was to protect and serve. To be the one everyone turns to to keep them safe, and still ending up having to make that call. To kill someone you care about because there’s no other option left.”

Jimin's breath hitched, the memory's grip tightening like thorns. He could almost feel the ghost of blood on his hands, the metallic tang mixing with the earthy soil scent around them. He failed at everything he stood for the moment Day Zero unfolded. What was the point of having a military if they couldn’t protect their citizens? What was the point of training for years on end if he couldn’t protect two people he cared about?

“You…you don’t know what it’s like to hold them while they’re dying and realize it’s your fault they were there in the first place.” Jimin blinked furiously, willing away the wetness in his eyes that threatened to spill over onto his cheeks. He’d already made a fool of himself in front of the alpha. He couldn’t cry now—not when he already felt weak.

“So no. I don’t get to have this. I don’t get to want things like this. I don’t get to look at you and think about anything other than keeping you alive.”

Jeongguk's eyes widened, pain etching lines around them, but he shook his head slowly. “I’m not just something for you to protect.”

“That’s exactly what you are.”

“That’s not enough for me.”

“It has to be.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Jeongguk—”

“No. You listen to me.” Jeongguk's voice turned commanding, his hand finally moving to grip Jimin's arm—not hard, but firm enough to anchor him in place. 

“From the moment you pointed that fucking gun in my face at the gas station, from that very moment—even when you were threatening my life—I couldn’t look away from you.” Jeongguk's gaze bored into him, unflinching. 

“You had my life in your hands, and all I could think was ‘my god, that is the most gorgeous person I’ve ever seen in my life’. And I still stand by it. From the very moment we met, I’ve felt this indescribable pull to you.”

“It’ll pass—” 

“It won’t.”

“It has to.”

“It doesn’t. We can have this, Jimin, and still keep everyone safe.”

Jimin's pulse thrummed against his temples, the greenhouse's humid air pressing in even more  like a living thing. Jeongguk's grip on him hadn't loosened, the alpha's thumb still tracing lazy patterns that sent unwelcome shivers racing up Jimin's arm. He wanted to yank free, to rebuild the walls crumbling under the weight of those dark, pleading eyes, but his body stayed rooted in place.

“You don’t know that,” Jimin managed, his voice barely a whisper now.

“I do,” Jeongguk countered, his tone unyielding in its certainty, breath warm against Jimin's skin.

“How?” The question slipped out before Jimin could cage it, his chest aching with the need for something—anything—to make this stop, or continue, he wasn't sure which anymore.

“Because I’ve never felt this before.” Jeongguk's gaze held his, intense and unflinching, the alpha's scent blooming sharper. “Not like this. Not this constant. Not this addicting.”

Jimin swallowed hard. He could feel it too, that insistent, addicting tug between the two of them. But admitting it truly felt like it would unravel everything—the pack, his role, the fragile balance he'd fought to maintain.

“You don’t have to answer right now,” Jeongguk added softly, his free hand lifting to hover near Jimin's cheek, not quite touching, as if afraid one brush would shatter the moment. “But don’t push me away like I’m nothing.”

“Jeongguk…” Jimin's protest died on his lips.

“I’m not asking for everything all at once. I’m asking to be something more to you. Please.” Jeongguk's voice cracked on the last word, his broad frame tensing, muscles coiling like a wolf ready to bolt or pounce. The silence stretched, heavy and expectant, until Jeongguk pressed on. 

“…I know you and Taehyung have a bond. I get that, really, I do. I’m sorry for being a fucking knothead about it—”

“Jeongguk—” Jimin started, but the alpha barreled forward, words tumbling out in a rush.

“But goddammit, Jimin—you’re making me feel like a pup. I can’t stand that he’s the one you give your affection to. I want to be that person. I want you to smell like me.”

Jimin’s inhales grew shorter, doing nothing to ease the burn under his skin. Heat flooded his cheeks at the possessive edge in Jeongguk's voice, his own scent spiking in response. “Jeongguk, you don’t—”

“I know I don’t. I know I don’t get to want that either.” Jeongguk sighs, cutting Jimin off.

Jimin's gaze snagged on the line of the alpha’s throat as he swallowed, then flicked up.  

“But I do. I’m so jealous, Jimin. I’m— I’m so fucking jealous. I want it. I want this with you… even if you can’t give it back completely. Please… just— let me— let me be something more to you.”

The plea twisted that very knot of guilt and longing Jimin had even further into one he couldn't untangle. Jeongguk, this fierce alpha who'd stormed into their lives like a blizzard, reduced to begging—it didn't sit right, stirring a fierce protectiveness he hadn't expected. 

“Have you no dignity, Jeongguk?” he murmured, the words more gentle than scolding, his free hand twitching toward the alpha's chest.

“I could care less about that right now. I have none when it comes to you.” Jeongguk's eyes burned with intensity, every breath he took pulling Jimin deeper into the orbit of his presence.

“You’re—” Jimin faltered.

“Say it,” Jeongguk urged, leaning closer, his breath mingling with Jimin's. 

He tried to fix his mouth to form words, to muster up something that could finally put an end to all of this. But every syllable died in Jimin’s throat, leaving him to open and close his mouth left stupidly agape like a fish out of water.

“You're fooling no one but yourself,” Jeongguk said softly, the timbre resonating deep in Jimin's bones. “And it's tearing me apart seeing it.” Both hands slowly inched down toward Jimin’s hips, pulling him closer to Jeongguk. He couldn’t even do anything to stop the alpha. Jimin wasn’t sure he even wanted to anymore.

“But dammit, Jimin, you’re making it really hard to walk away. You make me want to stay—to show you.”

Jimin stays silent, only able to stare up into his eyes. Maybe just one more time. Maybe he could enjoy this closeness for just a little longer—just one more time.

“Good.” A ghost of a smile tugged at Jeongguk's lips, fleeting but triumphant. “Because you feel it too. You wouldn’t be this quiet if you didn’t.”

Jimin's resolve fractured under the weight of it all—the jealousy, the honesty, the undeniable heat building where their bodies nearly touched. His hand finally settled against Jeongguk's chest, feeling the rapid thud of the alpha's heart mirroring his own. The greenhouse faded, the world narrowing to the man before him in that suspended breath.

Jeongguk drew him in closer, their faces inches apart now, the heat radiating from the alpha's body wrapping around Jimin like a vise. Slowly, Jeongguk tilted his head, his lips brushing against Jimin's in the lightest graze—soft and teasing, a feather-light contact that sent a jolt straight through Jimin's core. Their breaths mingled in the narrow space, warm and uneven, the alpha's pine scent flooding Jimin's senses, dizzying him with its intensity.

“Just once,” Jeongguk whispered then, his voice a husky thread breathed directly into Jimin's mouth, lips still hovering, brushing again with each word, “don’t think about the pack. Don’t think about what happens after. Just feel this with me.”

The words ghosted into Jimin, hot and intimate, stoking the fire that had been smoldering for too long. Jeongguk caught Jimin's upper lip gently between his own, holding it for a lingering moment before pulling back just enough to inhale deeply, drawing in Jimin's scent—sweet and earthy, laced with the faint bloom of arousal that made the alpha's eyes darken.

Then he returned, lips brushing again, softer this time, testing the waters. A hint of Jeongguk's tongue peeked out, tracing the seam of Jimin's mouth in a teasing sweep. Jimin's lips parted on instinct, a soft gasp escaping as he chased that fleeting touch, his body leaning in despite the war raging inside. He wanted to feel it fully, to lose himself in the alpha's taste, and the craving hit him like a punch—he hated how deeply it had taken root, how it clawed at his control.

Finally, Jimin's hands rose, fingers threading into the short hairs at Jeongguk's nape and curling along his jaw, pulling him in with a quiet urgency. Their lips sealed at last in a chaste press—gentle, almost innocent, holding for a lingering moment before Jimin pulled back just enough to draw in a shaky breath, eyes fluttering open to meet Jeongguk's gaze, dark and searching.

It felt like discovery all over again, this tentative exploration, even though Jimin knew every curve of those lips from stolen moments before. They came together once more, softer still, lips parting slightly to map the familiar shape, learning the give and the warmth as if it were brand new. But this wasn't new; Jeongguk's mouth was a familiar temptation, a guilty indulgence that Jimin had tasted before, one that haunted his quiet moments and twisted his resolve. He craved the fullness of it now, the way it promised oblivion from the weight he carried, even as shame burned low in his belly for surrendering to it again.

They broke apart once more, noses brushing, eyes locking in the scant space between—Jeongguk's dark and intent, Jimin's wide with the storm of need and regret. Their lips then met anew, still soft, still learning the give and take, Jimin's tongue darting out hesitantly to trace the edge of Jeongguk's lower lip, testing, tasting the faint bitterness of sweat and earth. The alpha responded in kind, a light nip that sent sparks racing down Jimin's spine, their breaths syncing in uneven hitches.

The desperation built slowly, inexorably, Jimin's hands tightening in Jeongguk's hair as the kisses deepened fraction by fraction—chaste presses turning hungrier, mouths opening wider, tongues sliding against each other in a bid for control. Jimin pushed forward, angling to take more, to claim the alpha's heat as his own, but Jeongguk countered with a firm tilt of his head, dominating the rhythm, drawing a frustrated whine from Jimin's throat that vibrated between them.

Jeongguk's hands clamped down on Jimin's hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh there with a possessiveness that Jimin knew was only going to dig them further down into this hole of temptation. The alpha's palms burned through the thin fabric of his shirt, hot and firm, guiding them backward in slow steps. Jimin felt the counter bump against his calves, the rough edge of the scarred wood scraping his skin, but he barely registered it over the roar of blood in his ears and the slick sounds of their mouths battling.

Without breaking the kiss—lips fused in that desperate, hungry lock, teeth nipping sharply enough to draw a gasp from Jimin—Jeongguk's arms flexed, muscles bunching under Jimin's clutching fingers. In one fluid motion, the alpha hoisted him up, lifting him effortlessly onto the countertop as if Jimin weighed nothing. The sudden elevation made Jimin's stomach flip, his thighs instinctively parting wide to accommodate Jeongguk's frame slotting between them. He hooked his legs around the alpha's waist, ankles crossing at the small of Jeongguk's back, pulling him closer until their bodies aligned in a press of hardness and heat.

Jimin's self-control cracked wider with every press of Jeongguk's lips, the kiss spiraling from hungry to outright feral. His fingers clawed at the alpha's shoulders, nails scraping over the fabric of his shirt as he yanked him closer, bodies grinding in a frantic bid for more contact. He told himself this was it—the final indulgence, a selfish plunge into the heat he'd denied for so long. No holding back—he needed to soak in every sensation, every press of muscle and slide of skin, before the world crashed back in with its demands and regrets.

Jeongguk's mouth slanted harder against his, tongue thrusting deep in wet, demanding strokes that left Jimin gasping into the heat. The alpha's hands roamed up his sides, thumbs brushing the edges of his ribs before sliding under his shirt to palm the bare skin of his back. 

“Can't get enough of you,” Jeongguk mumbled against his lips, voice rough and broken between the clash of teeth. “Fuck, Jimin, you're all I think about. Every damn second.” The words vibrated through Jimin's chest, fueling the desperation as he bucked his hips, chasing the hard ridge of Jeongguk's hard cock that’d started to press against him.

A gasp tore from Jimin's throat as Jeongguk's mouth trailed away, lips dragging along his jaw in wet, open-mouthed kisses that left his skin tingling. His head fell back instinctively, exposing the vulnerable line of his neck, pulse hammering under the alpha's assault. Jeongguk latched on there, sucking hard enough to mark, teeth grazing the tender flesh. Pleasure shot straight to Jimin's core, making his thighs clench around Jeongguk's waist. 

“Off—take—take it off,” Jimin stammered, his voice a wrecked plea as his hands fumbled at the hem of Jeongguk's shirt, yanking with desperate tugs. The fabric bunched under his fingers, too much barrier between them.

Jeongguk didn't hesitate. He straightened just enough to cross his arms, gripping the opposite ends of the hem and hauling the shirt up and over his head in one swift pull. The motion flexed his biceps, scars catching the dim light as the cloth hit the floor. Before Jimin could catch his breath, Jeongguk dove back in, mouth sealing over his neck again, sucking with renewed fervor that pulled a whine from deep in Jimin's chest.

Jimin's palms flattened against Jeongguk's bare torso immediately, sliding over the heated planes of muscle—pecs firm under his touch, abs contracting with each breath. The alpha's skin was fever-hot, slick with a light sheen of sweat, and Jimin explored greedily, fingers tracing the ridges and valleys as if mapping territory he knew he'd lose. Then they found the scars—jagged lines and faded pulls marring the alpha's flesh like badges of battles fought and won. 

They were becoming Jimin's obsession, these marks of survival. It might border on twisted, finding beauty in something born of pain, but the raw proof of Jeongguk's endurance ignited a fierce hunger in him. It made him ache to map every inch, to press his lips to each one and claim the strength they represented.

His hand drifted lower, fingertips skimming the side of Jeongguk's torso until they landed on that long, brutal scar—the one he'd first felt during their frantic coupling in the barn, bodies slick and urgent against the hay. It felt like a story etched in flesh, vicious and unyielding, and Jimin had meant to ask about it someday, to unravel the memory behind the damage. But the question evaporated as Jeongguk's tongue swept over his scent gland, lapping in firm, deliberate circles that sent ecstasy crashing through him. Jimin arched off the counter, spine bowing as a tidal wave of bliss drowned his senses. 

“O-oh,” he breathed, lips parting in a perfect circle, eyes squeezing shut against the overload. His body trembled, every nerve alight.

“N-need you to smell like me, hyung,” Jeongguk growled against the gland, voice thick with possession as he licked again, harder this time. 

“You have to smell like me, not Taehyung.” His teeth scraped lightly, not breaking skin but marking intent, the alpha's scent flooding Jimin's lungs entirely—musk and pine sharpened by arousal.

Weak. Jimin was so fucking weak, and it was all Jeongguk's doing—this alpha who dismantled his walls with a touch, who coaxed out the surrender Jimin had fought so hard to deny. He let Jeongguk's mouth work that intimate spot, the one that broadcasted vulnerability to any alpha nearby, and he didn't push back. Didn't fight. The fight was over; he'd lost, and the defeat tasted like the sweetest sin.

Jeongguk's fingers hooked into the hem of Jimin's shirt, tugging upward with insistent pulls that bunched the fabric against his ribs. The alpha's mouth hovered near his ear, breath hot and ragged, promising to strip him bare right there on the counter. Jimin's skin prickled in anticipation, his body arching forward as if begging for the exposure, the air of the greenhouse to kiss his flushed chest.

But the creak of the door swinging open shattered the haze, yanking them apart like a bucket of ice water. Jimin's head snapped toward the sound, heart slamming against his ribs as he scrambled to push Jeongguk away, to create some semblance of distance before whoever it was saw them like this—tangled, half-undressed, reeking of desperation.

Jeongguk's hands clamped down on his hips instead, fingers digging into the soft flesh there with bruising force, pinning him firmly to the counter's edge. No escape, no retreat. Jimin's pulse thundered in his ears, a mix of panic and lingering heat flooding his veins.

Yoongi's head poked through the doorway first, his sharp gaze sweeping the dim space lined with seedlings and hanging herbs. Those dark eyes zeroed in on Jimin, then flicked to Jeongguk's bare torso. Yoongi's eyebrows arched just a fraction, a silent acknowledgment of the scene before he stepped fully inside, boots crunching on the floor as he headed their way.

"Jimin—" Yoongi started, voice steady but edged with something unreadable.

A deep, rumbling growl tore from Jeongguk's throat, cutting him off mid-syllable. The alpha surged forward, pressing his body flush against Jimin's front, crowding him until Yoongi's form was blocked from view. Jeongguk's chest heaved against Jimin's, the heat of his skin seeping through the thin barrier of Jimin's shirt, possessive and unyielding. "Get the fuck out," Jeongguk rasped, the words low and venomous, laced with territorial venom that vibrated through Jimin's bones.

Jimin's chest tightened, a dangerous warmth blooming there at the raw display—possessive, fierce, like Jeongguk would fight the world to keep him. But it was a lie they both clung to. He wasn't Jeongguk's to claim, and the alpha wasn't his to hold. Swallowing hard, Jimin nudged Jeongguk's side with his forearm, firm but gentle, creating just enough gap to peer past the wall of muscle. 

The position they'd frozen in screamed intimacy: Jimin perched on the counter, legs parted with Jeongguk slotted between them, shirt rucked up to expose a strip of his pale stomach. Yoongi's gaze lingered there for a beat too long, and Jimin wanted the ground to swallow him whole. But it was too late for hiding. Whatever Taehyung knew—and Taehyung knew everything—Yoongi did too. They shared secrets like breaths, alphas bound by love and loyalty. This was likely old news to him.

Yoongi's nose twitched, wrinkling as the mingled scents hit him: Jimin's sweetened orange blossom twisted with Jeongguk's sharper pine smoke, thick and heady in the confined air. Jimin winced, heat flooding his face, knowing exactly how damning it smelled—like surrender, like a sin had just been committed.

"What—what is it?" Jimin managed, his voice coming out in pants, chest heaving as he fought to steady himself from the kiss that had left him dizzy and his lips tingling.

"Jimin, Kyungho and Mira are back from scouting," Yoongi said, brushing off Jeongguk like he was background noise. He closed the distance without flinching, bending to snatch Jeongguk's discarded shirt from the floor. With a casual flick of his wrist, he slapped the fabric against Jeongguk's chest—hard enough to sting, a deliberate challenge.

"They need to talk with us."

Jeongguk snarled again, deeper this time, hackles rising as he snatched the shirt but made no move to put it on. Yoongi met it with his own growl, lower and more controlled, lips curling back to bare teeth in a warning that echoed off the walls. The air thickened with alpha aggression, scents sharpening into something territorial and biting.

"Grow the fuck up, Jeongguk," Yoongi snapped, eyes narrowing to slits. "Posturing like a pup won't get you shit around here."

Jeongguk shifted, muscles coiling as he lunged forward to size the other man up. His shoulders rolled back as he invaded Yoongi's space, fists clenching at his sides like he was seconds from swinging. But Jimin shot out a hand, fingers curling into the belt loops of Jeongguk's pants and yanking him back with surprising force. A growl slipped from Jimin's own throat—soft but fierce, instincts flaring to protect the peace. 

"Let it go, Jeongguk," he hissed, voice laced with exasperation and command. "And put your shirt back on."

He slid off the counter, legs unsteady for a moment before he planted himself between the two alphas, a living barrier. Jeongguk huffed, breath hot against the back of Jimin's neck, but he relented, shaking out the shirt and tugging it over his head with jerky motions. The fabric settled over his scars, hiding them from view, and Jimin felt a pang of stupid regret at the loss.

This was idiotic. Getting caught in the middle of a heated kiss was bad enough, but this juvenile pissing contest? It was the kind of macho bullshit Jimin had no patience for, the exact reason he fought so hard against whatever this was pulling him under. He smoothed his hands over his shirt, trying to iron out the evidence of their frenzy and his own racing thoughts.

His gaze darted to the analog clock on the wall, its hands frozen at 9:47pm. Brows furrowing, a chill unrelated to the night air prickled his skin. Kyungho and Mira were late—hours late. Scouts didn't drag their feet without reason. "Why are they only getting back now?" Jimin asked, forcing his voice steady as he straightened his collar.

"Not sure," Yoongi replied, already moving toward the hooks by the door. He grabbed Jimin's jacket and tossed it over. "But they said it's important, and that we need to meet in the living room. All of us." His eyes slid to Jeongguk, who lingered too close behind Jimin, a hovering shadow. Yoongi scoffed, the sound dry and dismissive. "You too, pup. Bring your ass."

He shoved the door open and stepped out into the night, the hinges creaking shut behind him with a finality that left the greenhouse feeling too small, too awkward. Jimin turned to face Jeongguk, his neck flushing hot under the alpha's intense stare. The taste of their kiss still lingered on his tongue, a reminder of how close they'd come to crossing another line. 

"Don't you ever growl at him again, Jeongguk," he said, voice low and firm.

"I didn't mean to—" Jeongguk started, eyes widening with genuine regret, hands half-raised like he wanted to reach out.

"This is exactly what I mean when I say we can't do this shit," Jimin cut in, the words tumbling out sharper than intended. "You can't act like a fucking knothead, picking fights over nothing."

"I'm sorry, okay? It was a reflex—but it won't happen again, I swear." Jeongguk's voice softened, pleading, his dark eyes searching Jimin's face for forgiveness.

Jimin exhaled sharply and spun toward the door, shoulders tight as he moved to follow Yoongi. But before he could take more than two steps, a warm hand wrapped around his wrist, tugging him back with gentle insistence. 

"What—" 

The protest died as Jeongguk hauled him close, crashing their lips together in a sudden, searing kiss that stole Jimin's breath. It was brief but insistent, Jeongguk's lips demanding and unapologetic, tongue flicking against Jimin's in a tease of promise. 

The alpha pulled back just enough to murmur against his mouth, "We're not done, hyung," before pressing one more chaste kiss to the corner of Jimin's mouth—soft, almost tender.

Then he released him, stepping aside to haul the door open, cool night air rushing in like a slap. Jimin stood frozen, stunned into silence, lips buzzing and mind reeling from the alpha's sheer audacity. How did he do that—flip from apology to claim in a heartbeat? Shaking off the daze, Jimin stepped out into the cool night air without a word, the greenhouse door clicking shut behind them like a punctuation on the unfinished chaos.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jimin pushed through the farmhouse door, the cool night air clinging to his skin. Jeongguk followed close behind, his presence a steady heat at Jimin's back. The living room enveloped them in hushed tension, broken only by the steady pop and hiss of the fireplace. Flames danced across worn wooden beams and threadbare rugs, casting flickering shadows over the seven figures gathered in a loose semicircle. No one spoke as they entered; eyes flicked their way, assessing, but the silence kept like a held breath.

Seokjin, Hoseok, and Namjoon occupied the sagging couch on the left, their postures rigid—Seokjin with arms folded tight, Hoseok fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve, Namjoon scribbling notes in a battered journal. Across from them, Taehyung slouched beside Yoongi on the opposite couch, Kyungho wedged next to them, his jacket still dusted with frost. Jimin nodded once, a quick acknowledgment, and dropped onto the armrest next to Taehyung. The alpha's hand landed on his thigh in a light pat—familiar, a silent check-in that eased the knot in Jimin's chest just a fraction. Taehyung's gaze shifted back to the center of the room without a word, but the touch lingered, warm through denim.

Jeongguk didn't join them on the furniture. He planted himself in the doorway, shoulder against the frame, arms crossed over his chest like a barrier. Jimin felt the weight of it, that deliberate distance, and wondered if it was for show or if the alpha was still simmering from Yoongi's earlier jab. Either way, it prickled at him—the memory of their lips crashing together moments ago, the bold promise hanging unfinished between them.

Mira stood in the room's heart, her long dark hair tangled from the wind, face etched with exhaustion. She raked a hand through it, exhaling sharply. "We've got a problem."

Jimin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the fire's warmth licking at his shins. For weeks, their scouts had ventured north as the weather thawed just enough—probing frozen streams for fish runs, mapping derelict roads clogged with rusted vehicles, scanning for shifts in the howler packs' eerie migrations. He'd gone out with Hoseok and Taehyung on the early runs, the cold biting through layers as they picked through snowdrifts. It was grueling work, essential to their survival. And as much as he didn’t enjoy it, Jimin made sure to remind the pack that if the infected were clustering nearer to the valley this soon, the spring time would turn their world into a slaughterhouse.

The outings were meant to be efficient: it should take three hours rumbling around in the battered truck, or six hours on horseback. A quick supply sweep or map correction if time allowed, but no risks. Mira and Kyungho were pros—silent, dependable, packing light with zero room for complacency. So their late return, faces drawn and eyes haunted, set Jimin's nerves on edge. Something had gone wrong out there.

Taehyung dipped his head in grim acknowledgment. “They found signs of survivors—on the city outskirts. Tents, charred logs, maybe a group of folks holed up.”

Shit. Jimin's stomach dropped, the word echoing in his mind. Survivors could mean allies scraping by, bartering what little they had. Or predators, hollow-eyed and ruthless, willing to burn everything for a scrap of security. He nodded slowly, letting the implications sink in, the fire's glow reflecting in his vision like distant warning flares.

Jeongguk shifted against the doorframe, his voice cutting through the quiet. "I don't get it. What's so bad about finding survivors? Shouldn't we take them in?"

Seokjin's response came quick, his expression softening, but firm. "In all honesty, Jeongguk, you were a lucky exception. We don't have the space or resources to take in strangers in the dead of winter. We're barely holding on as it is."

Hoseok bobbed his head in agreement, fingers stilling on his sleeve.

“But we’re ramping up the crops, hyung,” Jeongguk pressed, frustration edging his tone. "We can’t write them off as threats without proof—”

"There were bullet casings everywhere near their camp," Kyungho cut in, voice low and gravelly from the cold ride back. "And not the scavenged revolvers from old precincts. These are high-caliber. The good stuff."

Goddammit. Jimin dragged a hand down his face, palm rasping against his chin as he stared into the flames. The fire blurred slightly as his mind raced. Military gear in civilian hands? That shifted everything from potential aid to imminent danger.

"What kind of 'good stuff' exactly?" he asked.

"Military rifles," Kyungho said. "Same caliber as ours."

Seokjin pinched the bridge of his nose, confusion etching deeper lines. “How the hell did civilians crack a military armory? These bases are fortresses—or they were.”

Taehyung sighed, rubbing the underside of his jaw. "No, it’s doable, but it’d be one hell of an ugly mission to accomplish. They'd need insider knowledge of the layout or the guts to clear out nests of howlers crammed in there like sardines. It's a meat grinder."

Jeongguk uncrossed his arms, leaning in. "So, what are we doing about it?"

“They’re still dug in,” Kyungho replied, leaning ahead, elbows on knees. “Mira and I clocked their fire by the old police station, just shy of the city proper.”

Namjoon adjusted his glasses, his steady gaze landing on Jimin with quiet expectation. "Jimin, what's your read? Should we scout it out?"

"Check it out? At night?" Seokjin shot back, shaking his head. "They’re packing heat—this could blow up in our faces a dozen ways—”

"Damn right we're checking it out," Jimin snapped, cutting him off. "We’ve got no clue where they’ll be by morning. They could be harmless and just passing by, or they could end up banging on our front door. Night recon's our shot to size them up without a full clash."

The words lingered in the dim room, heavy as the chill seeping through the cracks in the walls, and Jimin felt the weight of every gaze settling on him. He knew the city like the veins in his own hand, at least the parts that hadn't crumbled into howler-infested ruins. The surface streets, the shadowed alleys twisting through skeletal buildings, the forgotten underpasses where echoes died quickly. He, Taehyung, and Hoseok had navigated it all under cover of darkness more times than he could count, their steps silent on debris-strewn paths, breaths measured against the wind's low howl. The veil of night granted them the upper hand: it blurred outlines, deadened footfalls on brittle leaves, and every contour of the ground was muscle memory from endless patrols. If things turned ugly, they could drop a target before the echo faded. Shoot first, sort the bodies later.

The thought lodged in Jimin's throat, forcing a hard swallow. They'd crossed paths with wanderers before—haggard families hauling carts of scraps, eyes wide with exhaustion rather than malice. A few rough types, too, hollow-cheeked drifters who'd sized them up, hands twitching toward hidden knives, only to melt back into the gloom at the glint of their barrels. Six years of this fragile truce, pieced together from wary standoffs and the occasional traded tin of beans. Beyond his old military days, the only blood on his hands from true kills, was the fevered end of Nabi’s murderer, and Choi Minji's mercy shot—quick, necessary cuts to spare worse suffering. A knot twisted in his gut at the idea of adding more, but the alternative soured it worse: armed strangers prowling too close to their haven twisted it sharper. He couldn't stomach that shadow creeping over the pack, not when they'd clawed this peace from the world's jaws.

Namjoon's voice pulled him back, soft but probing through the haze. "Are you sure?"

Jimin met his eyes, the firelight carving lines in the alpha’s face. "One hundred percent. Taehyung, Hoseok, and I will go." He shifted to rise, the couch arm creaking under him. "Mira, show me on the map where you spotted them."

Before Jimin could fully stand, Jeongguk was there—blocking his path in two strides, a broad frame filling the space like a wall of coiled tension. Jeongguk's jaw was set, eyes locked on his with solid determination.

"I'm coming too."

Heat surged in Jimin's veins, protests quickly rising out of him. "Like hell you are—"

"Jimin, he's going with you." Namjoon's voice overrode him, his stare unblinking, the weight of command in it. "I'm sure he can help in many ways."

It halted Jimin mid-breath, but it was the glance they exchanged that sealed it—the subtle tilt of Namjoon's head, the flicker of knowledge in his eyes. Jeongguk wasn't just muscle or another trigger finger; he was something more primal. The alpha could twist into half-form under pressure, muscles rippling into lethal grace, or go full if the fight demanded it—claws extended, senses sharpening to track heartbeats through walls, strength to snap bones like twigs. In a scrap, he'd be their edge, a storm of fangs and fury amid the gunfire. 

Jimin drew a slow breath, the rationale piercing his resistance even as unease simmered. Backup like that could mean the difference between a smooth recon mission, and dragging bodies home. But having Jeongguk at his side, after the greenhouse's reckless tangle, felt like throwing a match into a powder keg.

Hoseok leaned forward from the couch, chin dipping in agreement, his easy demeanor sharpened to purpose. The room stirred then, murmurs rising as Mira unrolled a frayed map on the low table, her finger tracing the city's jagged outline toward the outpost glow.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The night wrapped around them like a shroud, the darkness not just descending but seeping into every crevice, compressing the world until it felt suffocatingly intimate. The moon offers what little it can, a thin wash of silver stretched across the open ground between trees, but it does little to soften the edges of anything. Shadows pooled in the underbrush, thick and stagnant, swallowing sounds before they could fade. Every sound—every shift of leather, every breath—seems to carry just a little too far.

Cheol moves beneath Jimin with a restless tension that never quite settles, muscles shifting in small, uneven waves as his ears swiveled toward phantom noises rustling in the gloom. Jimin pressed his knees firmly against the stallion's sides, a subtle command to steady, while his fingers trailed along the worn reins in a rhythmic glide—more to anchor his own nerves than to direct the horse. It worked enough, because it kept Cheol plodding forward, hooves sinking softly into the earth. But the underlying tremor lingered, a warning etched into every step.

From behind, Bora let out a soft, uneasy snort, her gait faltering into shorter strides as Taehyung bent low to whisper reassurances into her tangled mane. Hoseok adjusts with him, the two of them moving together easily, but even that practiced balance doesn’t disguise the way Bora’s head lifts and lowers in quick, uncertain motions. The horses sense something, and in a place like this, that instinct is rarely wrong.

Jimin raised his flashlight just a fraction, tilting the narrow beam to skim the ground ahead so it cuts low across the ground instead of outward, revealing just enough of the terrain to keep them from riding blind. The barren trees loomed skeletal and sentinel-like, their limbs stripped bare by winter's bite. It’s enough to navigate. Not enough to feel secure.

"Still got eyes on it?" Hoseok asks quietly from behind them, his voice low enough that it barely carries past the two horses.

Jimin narrows his eyes, focusing beyond the reach of the light. For a moment, there’s nothing but the familiar shapes of night, the dark folding into itself between the trees. Then, a fragile ribbon of smoke twisting skyward came into view, so faint it danced on the edge of visibility. Below it, a muted orange pulse throbbing against the distant treeline like a heartbeat in the dark.

"Yeah," Jimin replied, lowering the beam until it vanished into the dirt. "Still there."

Behind him, Jeongguk's body pressed close, his chest brushing Jimin's back as he leaned in, his knee grazing Jimin's in a fleeting press of warmth amid the cold. His gaze bored ahead, attention fixed in a way that feels less like looking and more like listening. Jimin doesn’t interrupt it. He’s learned to recognize that focus for what it is—the alpha's senses straining against the veil of night, picking up threads of scent or sound that elude the rest of them.

"Group situation?" Taehyung ventured after the silence stretched.

“If it’s been burning that long, it has to be,” Hoseok replies, though there’s a note of uncertainty there. “Could be a small camp. People passing through.”

“Maybe,” Jimin says, though his gaze never leaves the faint glow ahead. “But they’re not moving like people who expect trouble.”

Taehyung leads Bora to walk beside Cheol, turning his head toward Jimin. “Meaning?”

"Mira said they didn’t seem to have a perimeter set up," Jimin glances over at the alpha. “No perimeter, then likely…”

“No people keeping guard. They must think they’re actually alone,” Taehyung finished.

“Exactly.”

Hoseok hummed thoughtfully. "So what, amateurs?"

Jimin considers it for a moment, watching the way the smoke drifts and settles. “Still not likely,” he says finally. “Too consistent. Fire’s been maintained even in this shifty weather. Plus with Kyungho and Mira saying that they’ve got military weaponry…”

“So you think it might be ex-military? Maybe someone we know?” Taehyung asks.

Jimin dipped his head in a single nod. “Has to be. But I mean, you saw the massacre back at base. I doubt it’s anyone we know—I hope it isn’t someone we know. I don’t want to have to tell them we can’t bring them back with us.”

The reaction behind him is subtle, but impossible to miss.

Jeongguk doesn’t speak, but something in him tightens, a tension that presses briefly against Jimin’s back where they share the saddle before settling into something more contained. Jimin registers it without turning, filing it away for later, because whatever that reaction means, this isn’t the place to pick it apart. For now, the fire ahead demanded their focus, its glow a beacon drawing them deeper into the unknown.

“Either way,” Jimin continued, voice steady despite the knot tightening in his chest, “we treat it like it is.”

No one argued. They rode the remaining distance in silence, the glow growing stronger with each careful step until the trees began to thin, opening gradually into a shallow clearing. Jimin slowed Cheol with a subtle pull on the reins, lifting his hand to signal the others as the shape of the camp came into view. Both horses came to a halt, breaths puffing out in visible clouds that dissipated quickly into the chill.

From this distance, the fire was clearly visible now, though it burned low, embers glowing beneath occasional flickers of flame that rose and fell without catching. Smoke drifted unevenly into the night, thinning as it rose, carrying a faint, acrid tang that reached Jimin on the breeze—wood smoke mixed with something sharper, like metal or old oil.

What was missing was everything else.

No voices. No movement. No silhouettes shifting in the firelight. Just the fire, sitting there alone, as if the night itself had swallowed whatever had fed it.

Jimin studied the clearing carefully, taking in the rough outlines of bedrolls and scattered supplies, the way objects sat where they shouldn’t—untouched packs slumped against rocks, a lone boot tipped on its side, undisturbed in a way that felt unnatural rather than calm. His pulse ticked up, a quiet drum in his ears, as he scanned for the telltale glint of eyes or the rustle of fabric. Nothing. The emptiness gnawed at him, stirring memories of the outpost: the sudden silence after the blasts, the way life could vanish in an instant.

“Alright,” he said quietly, swinging one leg over Cheol's back to maneuver both legs to one side, preparing to slide down. But before he could even shift his weight fully, Jeongguk hopped off first in a fluid drop, boots hitting the ground with barely a sound. In the next breath, strong hands gripped Jimin's waist, lifting him clean off the horse and setting him down gently, the alpha's body heat pressing close for that split second.

Jimin's glare snapped to Jeongguk's face, sharp and silent—they were supposed to be quiet, every noise a potential giveaway in the still night. He ignored the raised eyebrows from Hoseok and the muffled grin Taehyung tried to hide behind his hand as they dismounted their own horse. 

“We’re not taking them any closer,” Jimin murmured, taking the reins from Cheol, who stepped forward immediately once the weight was gone, head lifting as he exhaled sharply through his nose, nostrils flaring. Jimin steadied him with a brief pat along his neck, fingers lingering on the warm, damp coat.

“There,” Hoseok murmured, nodding toward a darkened structure partially hidden by the trees behind them.

Jimin followed his gaze, picking out the shape of a small building that blended almost seamlessly into the surrounding darkness. It looked old, worn down by time, one side leaning slightly where the structure had begun to give, roof sagging under the weight of overgrown vines and missing shingles.

“We’ll use it,” Jimin said, decision settling firm in his mind. Better to have cover for the horses than risk them bolting into the open.

They moved carefully, leading Cheol and Bora rather than riding, circling wide so they didn’t approach the clearing directly. The building loomed closer as they went, resolving into a small outbuilding with a partially open entrance and walls that had seen better years—boards splintered, gaps filled with moss, the faint creak of wind through cracks already whispering warnings.

Jimin signaled for them to stop just short of it, raising a fist to halt the line.

“Check it first.”

Hoseok and Taehyung nodded in unison, rifles raised as they approached from the side, pausing just outside the entrance to listen. Their silhouettes melted into the shadows, breaths controlled and even. The seconds that followed stretched thin, every sound amplified in the stillness—the distant pop of an ember from the fire, the soft shift of leaves overhead, Cheol's impatient stamp. Jimin's grip tightened on the reins, eyes flicking between the building and the clearing, alert for any sign that they've been spotted.

The moment the two men entered inside, Jimin turned to Jeongguk. He reached up silently to unstrap the rifle from the alpha’s back. Jeongguk didn't resist, holding still as Jimin pulled the weapon free, his fingers moving with practiced efficiency over the cold metal. He ejected the magazine, checked the rounds—full, gleaming in the faint light—then racked the slide to inspect the chamber. He cycles the bolt, listening for the smooth snick of metal, no jams or grit catching. Satisfied, he slung it back over Jeongguk's shoulder, then dipped a hand to the alpha's hip, drawing the handgun from its holster. 

The grip felt familiar in his palm, weight balanced as he thumbed the safety. It was their standard issue K5, but lacked a silencer like Jimin’s. He could only hope Jeongguk wouldn’t need to use his tonight. Jimin popped the clip to confirm it was loaded, and cleared the barrel with a quick glance. No jams, no faults. He stepped in closer, their bodies nearly brushing in the dimness, and slipped the handgun back into Jeongguk's pocket, the motion deliberate and intimate despite the circumstances.

“Remember your place,” Jimin whispered then, voice harsh and pitched for Jeongguk's ears alone. “I'm not a helpless omega, and I don't need you doting on me in the middle of a mission.”

Jeongguk rolled his eyes, but he nodded, raising his hands in mock surrender, palms out. “Loud and clear, boss,” he murmured back, sarcasm threading the words like a challenge, though his gaze held steady in the dim light.

Hoseok's voice came quietly from within: “Clear.”

Relief flickered brief, but Jimin stepped in next, sweeping the interior with a quick, practiced glance. The space was empty—dust motes dancing in the faint moonlight filtering through gaps, old wood splintered underfoot, the faint scent of decay clinging to the air like a forgotten memory. Cobwebs draped from the rafters, and a few rusted tools lay abandoned in the corner, but nothing living, nothing that suggested recent use. No traps, no signs of ambush. Just neglect.

“Bring them in,” he said, voice low as he emerged.

Cheol hesitated at the threshold, hooves shifting as he resisted for half a second, eyes rolling white toward the shadows inside. Jimin kept steady pressure on the reins, guiding him through with quiet persistence, murmuring a soft click of his tongue until the stallion relented, broad shoulders brushing the doorframe as he entered. Bora followed once Cheol did, pressing close enough that their sides brushed as they settled into the cramped space, the air growing warmer with their shared body heat.

Taehyung ran a hand along Bora’s neck, murmuring something soft under his breath—words too quiet for Jimin to catch, but the mare's ears twitched forward, tension easing from her frame. Hoseok secured the reins to what remained of a support beam, looping them with efficient knots. Jimin checked them once, then again, ensuring they were firm without being restrictive, his fingers testing the give.

“They’ll be fine,” Hoseok said quietly, glancing toward the entrance.

Jimin nodded, the motion sharp. “Lights off from here.”

Flashlights clicked out one by one, the darkness deepening around them as they stepped back outside. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust again, pupils dilating to pull in the scant light, until the faint glow of the fire became the only reliable point of reference ahead—a beacon pulling them forward even as it set his nerves on edge.

They fell into formation without needing to speak, spacing out just enough to cover more ground while staying close enough to move together if something went wrong. Jimin led, senses straining into the night, the cool air brushing his skin like a warning. Jeongguk just behind his shoulder, his steps measured and silent, the faint heat of him a constant awareness at Jimin's back—reminder of that earlier lift, the alpha's hands firm and unasked for. Taehyung and Hoseok fanned slightly to either side, their breaths syncing with the group's rhythm.

They moved slowly, each step deliberate, careful not to disturb the ground more than necessary. Jimin's boots pressed into the leaf litter with controlled weight, avoiding dry twigs that could snap like gunfire in the quiet. The underbrush clawed at his pants, thorns snagging fabric, but he pushed through, eyes locked on the clearing's edge.

The air shifted as they entered the clearing, the faint scent of smoke giving way to something heavier, something metallic and sour that lingered just beneath it. It clawed at the back of Jimin's throat, familiar in the worst way, stirring the old instincts that had kept him alive this long. Up close, the camp resolved into clearer detail, and the wrongness of it became impossible to ignore. The scent of sour rot grew stronger, twisting in his gut, and Jimin began to suspect that a howler or howlers were nearby.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” he whispered, the words barely threading the air.

“Yeah. I smell howlers,” Hoseok responded quietly, his voice a low rumble that matched the tension coiling in Jimin's shoulders.

Everyone kept their guns raised, barrels steady as they fanned out slightly, covering the open space without bunching too close. The fire's warmth licked at Jimin's face now, embers crackling softly, but it did nothing to chase away the chill settling deeper into his bones.

Up close, the camp felt like a moment that had been interrupted and left to rot where it fell. Bedrolls sat unevenly around the fire, some half-rolled with the edges still tucked as if someone had planned to finish the job, others kicked loose and trampled into the dirt. A pot lay on its side near the embers, whatever had been cooking inside burned down to a dark crust that flaked under the faint breeze, and a few packs had been left open, straps hanging limp, supplies still inside as though no one ever came back to close them. The metallic tang sharpened, mingling with the rot, and Jimin's pulse quickened, his grip tightening on his rifle.

He crouched by the nearest bedroll, brushing his fingers over the fabric. It felt stiff with cold, untouched for long enough that it had lost any trace of warmth, the threads rough and damp from the night's dew. When he straightened, his eyes moved across the clearing again, slower this time, tracing the space where bodies should be. There were not any.

The absence sat heavy in his chest, settling in before he had time to name it—a void that echoed the outpost's silence, the way lives could unravel without a trace.

“Tracks,” Hoseok murmured from a few steps ahead, his voice pulling Jimin forward.

Jimin joined him, gaze dropping to the ground where the dirt had been churned up by overlapping boot prints. Some ran shallow and quick, like hurried escapes, others sank deeper, uneven, as if someone had lost their footing or been forced down in a struggle. The marks tangled into each other before fading out where the ground hardened, the trail dissolving before it could point anywhere useful.

“Too many,” Hoseok said under his breath, crouching to trace one with his finger. “Can’t follow it clean.”

Jimin gave a small nod, already pulling his attention away. Whatever happened here did not leave them a path to follow, and standing still would not make one appear. He scanned the perimeter again, the shadows pressing in thicker now, the fire's glow barely reaching the edges.

A faint scrape cut through the quiet. Metal dragging softly against dirt.

It came again, followed by a low, uneven breath that did not belong in a place like this—ragged, almost wheezing, carrying that sour edge on the wind.

Jimin stilled, lifting his head as his gaze shifted toward the far edge of the clearing where the firelight thinned into shadow. His heart thudded harder, every sense sharpening to the sound, the scent, the unnatural hush.

“There,” Jeongguk said quietly, his voice a taut wire beside Jimin.

Jimin followed his line of sight, eyes narrowing as the dark began to take shape. Something moved within it, low to the ground, its outline wrong in a way that settled uneasily under his skin. A chain stretched from a stake in the earth, pulled taut, disappearing into the shadow where the shape shifted again, just enough to catch a faint glint of light off something metallic.

He stepped forward, flicking his flashlight on for a brief second, the beam cutting sharp through the gloom. The image stuck, burned into his vision even as he clicked it off.

A howler, gaunt and tethered, its skin drawn tight over protruding bones, movements uneven as the chain dragged softly with each shift of its weight. Eyes hollow and milky, it jerked against the restraint, jaws parting in a raspy, breathy howl that barely rose above a whisper—deliberate damage, Jimin presumed, from the deep slice carving into its throat, likely severing the vocal cords enough to muffle its usual guttural cries. The wound gaped slightly with each strained pull, dark and crusted, a calculated cruelty to keep it from alerting others too soon. Jagged teeth flashed in the dim light, but the sound it made was pathetic, almost pleading in its weakness.

Someone had put it there. The realization hit Jimin like a punch, his breath catching. Not wild, but perhaps one being used like a guard dog—or worse, a trap.

Beside him, Jeongguk went still in a way that felt immediate and absolute, the air around him thickening with restrained energy. Jimin noticed the change without looking—the way his breathing sharpened, the way the space behind him seemed to tighten all at once, like a bowstring drawn back.

“Jeongguk,” he said quietly, keeping his voice level despite the unease crawling up his spine.

There was no answer at first, just the heavy silence from Jeongguk's direction that spoke volumes. Jimin turned just enough to catch him in his peripheral vision, and that's when he saw where Jeongguk's attention had locked: the silver chain looped around the howler's neck, and from it dangled something that caught the faintest trace of firelight as the creature shifted. Dog tags, swinging gently with each ragged pull against the restraint, their soft, hollow clink carrying through the clearing like a distant echo of loss. 

Jeongguk's face had drained of color, his eyes fixed on them with a recognition that made Jimin’s stomach churn. Without a word, the alpha stepped forward, his movements measured but inevitable, drawn toward the chained horror as if pulled by an invisible thread.

Hoseok's warning sliced the heavy silence. "Hey—"

But Jimin was already in motion, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. He stepped squarely into Jeongguk's path, fingers closing around the alpha's wrist with a firmness that surprised even him. The skin there burned hot under his palm, pulse racing like a trapped animal.

"Eyes on me," Jimin commanded, tone hushed and firm. "Focus here."

Jeongguk's eyes dragged upward gradually, pupils swallowing the faint firelight until they gleamed like polished obsidian. His chest heaved with uneven pulls of breath, each one carrying the sharp edge of something unraveling inside him.

"Those tags—they're mine," he rasped, the words gravelly and strained. "I gave them to—"

His fingers flexed beneath Jimin's hold, muscles coiling tight, and Jimin felt the tremor ripple through before it showed—the subtle push of bone and skin straining against restraint. Claws pricked forward, elongating into lethal points that drew a few beads of crimson from his flesh.

"These—these motherfuckers are keeping him chained—they're keeping my Yugyeom chained like a fucking pet—"

The name forced a visceral twist in Jimin’s gut. Yugyeom. Not a stranger, but a piece of Jeongguk's shattered history, reduced to this wretched shell. The howler’s raspy wheezes rung in Jimin's ears now, each one a pathetic echo of the man it had been. A deep gash marred its throat, the edges ragged and healed wrong, silencing its screams to mere breaths.

Bile rose in his throat at the pure malice behind it—perpetrators who toyed with suffering rather than granting oblivion. Whoever had done this—chained it here like bait or a warning—had stripped away even that final dignity. A cold dread settled in Jimin’s veins. This screamed of predators with intent, ones they couldn't afford to linger near. They had to move, had to vanish before the perpetrators circled back.

"Jeongguk, listen," Jimin urged, his voice a hushed thread in the night. He reached for the alpha's other arm. "We need to go—now."

Jeongguk jerked away, shaking his head with a ferocity that whipped his hair across his forehead. "No. No, I need to free him—"

Jimin lunged again, his hand clamping down on Jeongguk's bicep just as the alpha took a step forward. Jeongguk whipped his head around, with a gaze flooded in anguish that pierced straight through. He'd seen Jeongguk angry, frustrated, even broken in quiet moments, but this—this was a fracture straight through the soul, the kind of hurt Jimin recognized all too well from his own losses. It mirrored the hollow ache he'd carried after the base fell, after comrades turned to monsters in the night, after he lost the people he held closest.

Slowly, Jimin released his hold, his fingers lingering just a second longer before falling away. He slipped a hand into his back pocket, hesitating only for a moment before drawing out his K5. Holding Jeongguk's gaze, he extended the pistol, barrel pointed downwards.

"I'm sorry," Jimin said quietly, the words heavy on his tongue. "Truly. But you’re going to have to make it quick. Give him the peace he deserves, then we leave. Immediately."

Jeongguk stared at the weapon, then at Jimin, a single tear carving a glistening path down his cheek in the dim light. He took the gun with trembling hands, thumb flicking the safety off in a fluid motion that spoke of too many grim necessities. The click of the slide echoed softly as he chambered a round, and he stepped forward, boots sinking into the soft earth.

"Yugyeom, I—I'm so sorry," Jeongguk breathed, the apology fracturing in the wind. “Please…I hope you can forgive me.”

He raised the suppressor-tipped barrel, sighting it steady at the howler's temple. The howler—Yugyeom—jerked weakly against the chain, milky eyes unseeing. But somehow it seemed aware of its end, a low rasp escaping the ruined throat. Jeongguk faltered, his shoulders trembling, and Jimin closed the distance, placing a steady hand on the alpha's shoulder. He’d never been the best at comforting others, so he could only hope his touch offered a silent promise of solidarity in the face of this horror.

Tears spilled freely now, tracking down Jeongguk's face as he squeezed the trigger. The shot whispered out, muffled and precise, the bullet finding its mark with lethal accuracy. Yugyeom's head snapped back once, then slumped forward, body going limp in the chains, the raspy breaths silenced forever.

Jimin's hand stayed firm, absorbing the subtle shudder that ran through Jeongguk's frame. Relief twisted bitter in his chest—quick, clean, merciful in a world that offered none.

"I'm sorry, Jeongguk," Hoseok said from their periphery, his voice soft and edged with sympathy as he moved closer. "About your friend."

Jeongguk shook his head, a mute denial, and knelt by the fallen form. His fingers worked carefully at the chain around the neck, unhooking the dog tags with a gentleness that belied the violence moments before. He wiped the blood-smeared metal on his sleeve, holding them up to catch the light. 

A shaky chuckle bubbled up from his throat, wry and pained, as he tilted his head to the starless sky. "The bastard lied to me and said he lost his tags. I gave him my spare one day so he could pass inspections, and he never gave them back.”

Jeongguk held up the chain in his fist and shook them, before stuffing them hurriedly into his pocket with a sniffle. “He'd been wearing mine and his on one chain this whole fucking time."

His voice cracked again on the final syllable, knees buckling slightly. Jeongguk stumbled, and Jimin was there in an instant, arm wrapping around his to steady him.

"Breathe, Jeongguk. In and out," Jimin whispered, his grip tightening just enough to tether the alpha to the present. "Stay with me."

The air between them thrummed with that fragile brink—rage and grief teetering on the edge of something irreversible. Jimin held on, counting the slowing beats of Jeongguk's heart through the contact, until the storm in his eyes receded, banked but not extinguished.

He eased his hold gradually, scanning Jeongguk's face for signs of panic. But as the alpha began to gather himself, Jimin's gaze locked on the fire pit. The flames leaped with a ferocity that screamed recent interference. Someone had stacked those logs not long ago—within the last half hour, tops. The realization iced through him, sharpening every nerve. Whoever did this lurked nearby, close enough to strike if they chose.

He went utterly still, his breath caught in his throat as he tuned into the night's oppressive silence, urging it to yield some clue. The others mirrored his tension, their movements halted, the air between them humming with restrained vigilance.

A subtle shift disrupted the quiet from behind—a rustle that sounded much like the careful step of a predator circling its meal. Jimin turned before he fully registered that he was moving, the motion instinctive. His body shifted to square himself toward the source, his rifle rising fluidly to his shoulder as his senses locked onto the darkness. His heart pounded a frantic rhythm, muscles primed for the decisive squeeze of the trigger. 

"Well, I'll be damned..."

The voice slithered from the darkness, low and laced with wry amusement, sending a shiver racing up Jimin's spine before he could even process it. Unhurried footsteps accompanied the words, and figures coalesced at the edge of the firelight—silhouettes moving with a fluid, controlled poise that screamed discipline, far from the ragged desperation of lost scavengers. 

Familiarity slammed into Jimin first. That voice, that posture—he recognized it, even before the flickering glow fully illuminated the face emerging from the night.

"And here I thought I was chasing ghosts," the man drawled, a smirk curling his lips as the flames licked across his features, etching sharp lines and a scar Jimin remembered all too well.

Hoseok inhaled sharply beside Jimin, a sound swallowed quickly, while Taehyung's stance shifted, rifle steady but breath hitching in silent question. The man tilted his head, his eyes catching the light with a gleam that let Jimin know that he too, remembered Jimin with pristine clarity. But there was something else in his eyes—satisfaction maybe, or the thrill of a cornered prey. Jimin couldn’t tell.

"Long time no see."

The words hung in the silence, simple on the surface but laced with an undercurrent that prickled Jimin's skin—like a hand extended in greeting, but with nails just sharp enough to draw blood. His pulse thrummed with confusion and a creeping wariness. His finger stayed steady near the trigger, but he didn’t apply any more pressure. The fire's crackle suddenly felt too loud in the fragile quiet, as the shadows seemed to close in tighter around them all. Then, the man spoke again, his tone shifting into something softer.

"Park Daewi."

Chapter Text

Chapter 11 : Wolves at the Gate

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

“Park Daewi.”

The man finally stepped fully into view, his entire body illuminated by the firelight. For a second, Jimin doesn’t move.

The details crashed together all at once, too fast for him to parse them one by one. The broad span of his shoulders, the familiar plant of his feet, the way his hands rested loose at his sides yet seemed ready. Even without his uniform, even battered and hardened by years of survival, the outline of him remained the same in every way that counted.

“Soryeong-nim.”

The title slipped from Jimin’s lips, drawn from a place beyond conscious thought, and the instant it did, a heavy weight plummeted in his chest, sharp as a blow. He had buried this man. 

Not in any literal sense. There had been no body to retrieve, no plot of earth to carve a marker into. But he’d considered Joonkyung in the way you file someone away as already gone, already accounted for in the tally of everyone that didn’t make it out of the massacre. The base had crumbled, and infected hordes had poured through faster than command had dared acknowledge. Radios had gone silent, channel by channel, until only static hissed back to Jimin’s calls, confirming that whoever lingered inside was gone. Jimin had truly convinced himself Kwon Joonkyung was dead. Forced the belief down like a bitter pill.

The memory came back without warning, vivid and immediate. Smoke choked the corridors, a distant crash reverberated through the compound’s core, gunfire cracked too near and too erratic to be controlled. The perimeter had already been compromised by then, lines collapsing faster than they could be reinforced, and the realization had settled in with a kind of cold clarity that left no room for hesitation. They needed to leave. There was no use in staying in the compound, when all of Jimin’s team and fellow soldiers were either dead or infected. He had fought to save them, but panic spread like the infection itself, scattering everyone into chaos and death. They could no longer be his priority—he had to push back to the city, track down Choi Minji.

“Soryeong-nim, we need to move,” Jimin had rasped, voice scraped raw from bellowing commands that came too late. “It’s not holding. We won’t be able to contain it.”

Joonkyung hadn’t raised his voice. That’s what Jimin remembers most clearly now—the steadiness of it, the way he’d stood in the middle of it all as though the situation hadn’t already shifted past recovery.

“This is the safest position we have,” he’d replied, gaze fixed somewhere beyond Jimin’s shoulder, already calculating, already deciding. “If we abandon it, we lose everything.”

“We’ve already lost it,” Jimin had pushed back, sharper this time, urgency bleeding through his words. “The outer line’s gone, and the south side’s breached. If we stay—”

“Then we hold the line, Park Daewi. You know this.”

The words had come clean and absolute, slicing off Jimin’s protests. For a split second—fleeting, barely there—Jimin had weighed outright defiance. Taking charge. Hauling the captain out by force if necessary. But that wasn’t how these things worked. Not then, and not with him.

“Taehyung. Hoseok,” Jimin had ordered instead, the decision settling into place with a weight that left no room for doubt. “I’m sorry, Soryeong-nim, but we’re pulling back.”

“Park Daewi, you may leave if you’d like. Go into the city and meet your death, I won’t stop you. But I will stay right here.”

Joonkyung hadn’t restrained him. Hadn’t demanded obedience. Just fixed him with that steady gaze, resolve carved deep, aimed at a path Jimin couldn’t share. Jimin had slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle, motioned Hoseok and Taehyung to ready themselves for the sprint. Then Joonkyung’s voice cut through again.

“You’re smarter than this, Jimin. I know you are. I just hope you know that you’re making the wrong call,” Joonkyung had said, his voice carrying that steady, almost casual edge even as the world tore itself apart around them.

Jimin had locked eyes with him for a moment longer, a vise tightening in his chest while the roar of collapsing structures and gunfire rattled through the air, dust choking the dim light filtering through the barricades.

“If I am, then I’ll live with it,” Jimin shot back. Then he pivoted on his heel, signaling the retreat.

“Or die with it,” Joonkyung’s final words had followed him into the fray.

What lingered sharpest in Jimin’s memory wasn’t the sprint through the gauntlet of infected clawing at the fences, but the stone-heavy drop in his stomach as he pulled Hoseok and Taehyung into the shadows of the crumbling streets. He had forsaken his commanding officer right there, abandoned him to the swarm surging over the perimeter. Loyalty to Joonkyung burned fiercely—forged in countless drills, night watches, and close-quarters’ scraps where the man’s blade moved like an extension of his will. But Jimin drew the line at suicide masked as duty. Joonkyung’s precision, his unflinching aim under fire, couldn’t rewrite the math of the siege. The base teetered on collapse, and holding meant total annihilation. 

Jimin had chosen breath over honor’s grave. Hoseok and Taehyung flanked him still, their breaths ragged but synced. He was set on pushing through the labyrinth of toppled buildings, evading the patrols of the infected. And if luck was on his side, he’d reach Choi Minji, and pull her from the crossfire before the infection claimed her too.

Fireglow now licked across Joonkyung’s profile in the clearing, as if the chasm of lost years had sealed without a scar, shattering the armor Jimin had layered over that guilt. His gaze dragged over the man inch by inch, cataloging changes with a precision born of shock.

Joonkyung had thinned out, muscles honed lean from constant motion rather than hunger alone, every contour pulled taut and functional. It was clear that his body had optimized for endurance rather than brute force—shoulders broader in proportion, arms etched with veins that likely came from hauling gear through endless treks. His face had sharpened too, cheekbones jutting under his rough skin, a shadow of stubble grizzling his jaw without dulling the hard edge of his stare.

Hair fell longer than clipper’s reach, yet tamed with discipline. It was held back from his brow, the excess lengths secured against falling into his eyes, preserving that unobstructed view he’d always demanded, even in apocalypse’s disorder.

Uniform scraps pieced together his form—a jacket gutted to the vest, pants reinforced at knees with scavenged leather, belts crisscrossing his torso laden with clips, knives, and a holstered sidearm. Every fold served a function—no slack fabric to snag, no asymmetry to betray haste. His gear showed wear—scratches, patches—but carried the mark of regular care, straps aligned, blades oiled. He moved through survival unchanged at his core, that same quiet command radiating outward.

Joonkyung’s posture had also changed. No longer the ramrod straight march of command, but coiled looser, more lethal—a predator at rest, shoulders down, weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He scanned the clearing without effort, posture accounting for angles, exits, the positions of strangers around the fire. Jimin felt it in his bones—Joonkyung had mapped them all, weighed the threats, and likely prepared countermoves.

Those observations sit with Jimin, twisting uneasily in Jimin's gut as he sharpened his focus. He tightened his fingers around the rifle's grip, the worn polymer biting into his palm—a familiar anchor amid the surreal. His eyes swept over Joonkyung once more, probing for cracks in the facade, struggling to reconcile the man in front of him with the one he had already written off. The difference wasn’t just that he was alive, merely surviving off of whatever he could find in the hell that is their world now. It was the way he radiated self-sufficiency, and the way nothing in him suggested that he’d been alone or reliant on a few other survivors.

"You survived," Jimin murmured, the words slipping out softer than he'd meant, laced with the gravel of disbelief.

Joonkyung's lips quirked, the motion settling into a ghost of that old, restrained half-smile Jimin remembers from before.

“I did,” he replies easily.

Then his gaze locked on fully, giving a slow sweep from Jimin's boots upward, pausing at shoulders, chest, throat, before claiming his face. It dragged, assessing, heavier than the humid night air. Jimin planted his feet, rifle leveled low but ready, spine locked against the old reflex to square up under scrutiny. Back then, that look had meant appraisal for promotion, a nod toward potential. Now it prickled like a threat, every second stretching his nerves taut.

Joonkyung's eyes snagged on the pale streaks threading Jimin's dark hair. A subtle twitch lifted one corner of his mouth higher.

“You’ve changed a few things,” he noted, tone light and almost teasing, as his stare flicked back to the blond streaks again. “Didn’t take you for someone who’d bother with that.”

“Why are you here, Soryeong-nim?” Jimin asks, disregarding Joonkyung’s comment. Small talk felt like a luxury he couldn't afford, not with his pulse hammering warnings. Perhaps in another world, this would be a warm reunion. But the world had curdled, and trust for even an old friend felt like a blade's edge. His eyes flickered to the men that remained in the shadows, before falling back on Joonkyung.

“Well, that’s no way to greet your superior, is it? Can we at least catch up a bit, reminisce a little about the good times, hm?” Joonkyung pressed, amusement threading his words.

Jimin doesn’t react. He doesn’t lower his rifle, nor does he even attempt to entertain the topic. He doesn’t want to give the alpha anything to work with. Instead, he keeps his attention where it needs to be, holding his silence like a barrier. Joonkyung let it stretch, eyes dipping to the weapon, then rising with faint curiosity. He shrugged inwardly after a few seconds passed.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve held up well,” he conceded, the phrasing carrying a measured approval edged with something uneasy. His smile ghosted back, controlled and fleeting. "Held together tighter than most."

Jimin exhaled quietly through his nose, the sound barely there, and shifted his weight just enough to ease the pressure building along his spine without breaking eye contact.

“We managed,” he replied, keeping his voice even.

Joonkyung hummed softly, as if the answer was expected, as if it confirmed something he had already decided. His gaze doesn’t leave Jimin’s face, staying there with that same measured focus that feels like it’s pressing for something more than what’s being said aloud. He canted his head slightly as his attention shifts past Jimin.

"Still got them trailing you?" he murmured, nodding toward the firelight silhouettes. His eyes fixed on Hoseok.

“Jung Jungsa.” He said it easily, like he was going through a roster call.

Then, in the same effortless tone, he looked over to Taehyung. “Kim Jungwi.”

"You two pulled through," he added, gaze shifting back and forth between them. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

Taehyung stayed mute, tension radiating like heat haze. Hoseok dipped his chin in curt acknowledgment, no more. Joonkyung watched it all for a moment, then pivoted back to Jimin, intensity refocusing.

“You always did have a way of keeping people with you,” he said. “I knew I’d made the right choice to promote you as captain.”

Jimin's unease coiled tighter with every word, the casual cadence of Joonkyung's voice grating against the raw edges of the night. This charade of normalcy Joonkyung was pulling rang hollow, and nothing aligned—the effortless poise, the impeccable timing, the aura of unbroken command as if the apocalypse had spared him its worst. 

It’d been six years, edging toward seven. Jimin knew that without having to count it out. And even if time hadn't carved itself cleanly into Joonkyung’s face, it had to be there in other ways. Survival demanded adaptation, erosion of their previous selves into whatever was needed to make it to the next day. Jimin just doesn’t know what Joonkyung has changed into, and from what he’s seen so far, he isn’t sure he wants to find out.

His eyes flicked to the slumped howler once more, the chain biting deep into mottled flesh and  glinting under the firelight like a mocking trophy. Yugyeom.

Attaching the name to the creature feels wrong in his head—even heavier now that Jimin knows his story, and just how much the alpha meant to Jeongguk. Whatever code Joonkyung once upheld—rigid lines of duty and sacrifice—had warped. Chaining the infected like a leashed warning stripped away any illusion of the principled soldier Jimin had saluted.

Jimin yanked his focus back to him, jaw locking as he made his decision. He’s not staying long enough to figure Joonkyung out.

“Kwon Soryeong-nim—”

“Let’s drop the formalities, shall we?” Joonkyung interrupted smoothly, gliding a step closer, palms clasping loosely at his waist. “Seems a bit archaic in this day and age.”

Jimin doesn’t move, but he doesn’t answer that comment either. The lack of a weapon in Joonkyung’s hands didn’t mean anything—not when five men linger just beyond the firelight with rifles that haven’t dipped once since they stepped into view. He tracked them without turning his head, noting the spacing, the angles, the way they’ve positioned themselves just far enough back to avoid looking aggressive while still holding the advantage. There could be more he hadn’t seen yet, breaths held in the dark gloom.

"Kwon Soryeong-nim," Jimin restated, steel threading his tone, denying the familiarity. "Why are you here?"

Joonkyung's mouth turned downward in a pondering frown, his tongue pressing briefly against the inside of his cheek, like he’s weighing the question. He dipped his chin in acknowledgment, eyes lifting back to Jimin.

“A few of my men spotted your people a few months back,” he said, tone still measured, still deceptively lax. “Moving through our part of the city.”

Jimin schooled his face, but alertness spiked. Fuck. They’d always been careful with moving around during runs, how could this have happened? Had they been too sloppy as of recently?

“Three survivors, from what I was told,” Joonkyung continued. “An omega and two alphas. Hard to miss when you’re traveling not-so-subtly in a truck.”

His gaze moved between Jimin and the others, as though confirming something he already knew.

“I figured I’d scoop them up, yeah? Give them a place to stay. Something more stable than wandering around out here.”

Jimin doesn’t respond, and Joonkyung doesn’t seem to expect him to.

“But then I got another report,” he added, the faintest edge of interest slipping into his tone now. “Same three, different day. Only this time, they weren’t alone. More people with them. Well-armed. Organized.”

His eyes settled back on Jimin.

"Military-grade firearms," he emphasized, one finger stabbing the air. “Now that really caught my attention.”

Jimin holds his gaze, keeping his expression neutral even as pressure banded his ribs.

“So I decided to take a look myself,” Joonkyung continued, as though it was the most natural conclusion in the world. “Had a feeling about who I might find.”

The faint curve of his mouth returns, just enough to suggest satisfaction.

“Seems I was right.”

His gaze drifted past Jimin after that, slow and assessing as he looked over the clearing behind him, taking in the absence as much as the presence.

“Only four of you tonight,” he noted, more to himself than to them. 

Jimin didn’t turn around to follow Joonkyung’s line of sight, and he didn’t need to. He can feel the weight of that attention shifting, searching for what isn’t visible.

“Strange,” Joonkyung murmured. “Doesn’t quite match what I was told.”

The remark hung light, unforced, yet it carried barbs. The implication of his words sat there easily, carried in the way his gaze returned to Jimin with a sharper edge this time.

“There was a fair amount of supplies moving through that day,” he pressed on, piecing it aloud like a puzzle only he grasped. "Far more than three could haul or use."

That stare bored in, expectant.

“So, how many are there?”

Behind Jimin, Jeongguk's breath hitched. Jimin caught it sharp as a blade's edge, the shift rippling through his own vigilance without demanding a glance back. Jeongguk teetered on the brink; that earlier flash of amber in his eyes burned fresh in memory, control fraying thread by thread. Whatever Jeongguk is holding in check is getting harder to keep contained, and the direction this is going isn’t helping.

Jimin offered nothing. There was no way in hell he was giving up such sensitive information. So he opted to steer clear enough to pull the conversation somewhere else before Joonkyung could press further.

“Why do you have a howler chained up?” he asks instead. Jimin kept his tone level, but his gaze flicked briefly toward the edge of the clearing where the chain had caught the light earlier, where the tags had swung against something that shouldn’t have been wearing them.

Joonkyung’s attention lingered on him for a moment after the question. Then he let out a quiet breath, giving a small shake of his head. A glint of wry humor ghosted his face before he finally  tracked Jimin's line of sight to the slumped form.

“Oh, that one?” he said lightly, tilting his head in the direction of the howler. “Just a little pet project. Harmless curiosity.” His tone jumps an octave higher, playful and casual as if he were chatting about the weather. 

“It’s about time we learn more about them,” he added, glancing back at Jimin, “and fear them a little less, don’t you think?”

The words twisted sour within Jimin, but Joonkyung doesn’t give them time to settle before he clicks his tongue softly, disappointment creasing his brow. His eyes slid back to the corpse.

“Too bad you killed it,” he huffed. “I was rather fond of that one.”

A low sound, rough and restrained, caught in Jeongguk’s throat. When it broke free, it came out as a growl that cut clean through the space between them. Jimin's fingers clamped his rifle harder as Jeongguk surged, body coiling forward with unleashed fury, no pretense left.

"It had a name, you sick son of a bitch," Jeongguk snarled, voice gravel-rough, fangs bared in a savage flash. "Yugyeom. You knew his name."

He lunged, boots scraping dirt as he tried to close the distance fast. Jimin snagged his shoulder mid-stride, muscles straining against the pull, while Taehyung latched onto his arm from the other side. They dug in, hauling back as Jeongguk thrashed, veins bulging, eyes flaring gold.

"Jeongguk—" Jimin barked, low and iron-clad, the command slicing through haze even as strain burned his grip.

The metallic scrape of rifles rising sliced through Jimin's command, five barrels snapping up in perfect sync as Joonkyung's men edged fully into the firelight. No more lurking in the fringes—their boots crunched gravel, safeties flicked off with crisp snaps that echoed like warnings. The night thickened, barrels trained steady on Jimin's group, muzzles black holes promising lead.

Jeongguk froze mid-lunge. The fury didn't drain from him, but his body locked rigid between Jimin and Taehyung’s hold as the reality of the situation settled in fast. Joonkyung observed  it all without moving, his expression a blank slate until realization sharpened his stare on Jeongguk, curiosity uncoiling like a snake.

“Why, hello, Jeongguk,” he drawled, his small smile breaking out into a grin, casual as bumping into an old acquaintance at a bar that no longer existed. "You're meant to be like your buddy there." He gestures lightly toward the howler, the motion almost absent.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d imagined you,” he continued, his head tilting slightly as he studied him. “Guilt does strange things to the mind, no?”

His eyes moved to where Jimin’s hand is still locked around Jeongguk’s shoulder, taking in the restraint, the proximity, the way he’s being held in place.

“But it seems you’re very much alive,” he says, his tone smoothing out again, almost pleasant. There was a pause, just long enough to let the next words settle harder.

“Not at all like Yugyeom.”

Jimin's thoughts exploded in a rush. Joonkyung knew Jeongguk—intimately, by the casual barbs and shared history dripping from his words. But how? What twisted path had tangled them together in this wasteland? And why the silence from Jeongguk all this time, no whisper of this ghost from his past? Questions piled like debris in his skull, demanding answers amid the rifle standoff, but Jimin clamped them down, grip tightening on Jeongguk's shoulder as the howler's stench clawed the air.

“Which is impressive,” Joonkyung tacked on, tone dipping reflectively, “all things considered.”

He started forward then, unhurried, as if the space between them belonged to him to close, and Jimin reacted in reflex. The rifle comes up a fraction higher, muzzle aligned dead center on Joonkyung's chest, safety disengaging with a click that shattered whatever Joonkyung had been about to say next.

Joonkyung stopped in his tracks. For a second, no one moved. Then his lips twitched upward, both hands lifting slowly, palms open in a gesture that looked like surrender—if the unsettling glint in his eyes had gone unnoticed.

“Alright,” he says lightly, indulgent as if he were humoring a skittish dog. “We’ll keep our distance.” His hands lowered then, folding behind his back with an ease that undercut the gesture entirely. When he speaks next his attention is already back on Jeongguk.

"Tell you what, Jeongguk," he coaxed, voice dipping soft, oily. “You seem to be a lot smarter than you were seven months ago.”

Jeongguk doesn’t answer. Jimin felt the quake in his frame, cords of muscle thrumming under his palm, a live wire one wrong word from sparking. Joonkyung pressed on, unruffled by the silence.

“I’m willing to forgive you,” he offered, humor flickering faintly through the words. “Let bygones be bygones, and all of that jazz—how kind of me, right?” He shifted his weight slightly, hands still clasped behind him, posture loose but deliberate.

“You can come back. Bring all of your friends with you. I can vouch for them, because I know these gentlemen. I can make sure they’re… taken care of.”

His gaze drifted past them again, not searching so much as accounting, before it settled on the shape of Yugyeom at the edge of the clearing. For a moment, the focus lingered there.

“Poor guy,” he sighed offhand, before looking back at Jeongguk with that same faint, controlled smile. “I didn’t think you’d actually take him with you.”

There’s a pause, just long enough for the next words to land with intent.

“But he was never the type to think ahead, was he?”

This is done. Whatever this was, whatever Joonkyung had become, whatever history sits between him and Jeongguk, none of it mattered right now. Not enough to justify standing here any longer than they already had. Joonkyung knew Jeongguk. That fact alone poisoned the air thicker than smoke.

Jimin shoved deeper questions aside, rifle muzzle unwavering on the man's chest. His voice cut clean through the standoff, level and laced with finality. "I think you should leave, Soryeong-nim." The title left Jimin’s mouth feeling more like a ghost of old ranks dragged into the dirt.

Joonkyung's eyes narrowed, but his posture stayed loose, unruffled. "Jimin, I don't think you're in position to dictate terms." No bark, just steel wrapped in silk. His men held formation, fingers ghosting triggers without a twitch.

“With all due respect,” Jimin replied, his tone just as steady, “I think it’s best we both avoid any unnecessary conflict, and just go about our separate ways.”

“Conflict?” Joonkyung echoed, the word curling with faint mirth. He swept a hand toward the abandoned packs strewn across the ground, embers painting his knuckles orange. "All I’ve done is graciously offer you sanctuary. A base. Supplies beyond your scraps."

“We’re just fine.”

Joonkyung's stare bored in, dissecting Jimin's face. Jimin knew that look, knew that the man was searching, calculating their desperation, tracing the invisible threads of loyalty that kept them binded. He’d done it plenty of times between Jimin and Taehyung during basic training, always opting to pin them against each other in challenges under the guise of ‘team character building’. He’d never been successful in breaking them apart, which Jimin knew irked the alpha more than anything. 

"Where do you hole up, Jimin? Some crumbling shack? It can’t be better than what I’ve built. I’ve got walls more sound than anything. Guards. Clean water. Anything you need—I’ve got it.”

Jimin let the silence answer again. Jimin pivoted instead, boot nudging an abandoned pack. His fingers closed on the dented water bottle half-buried in gravel, cap twisting free with a slow grind that scraped louder than intended. Steam rose faint from the liquid as he glanced at the dying fire, flames gnawing last twigs.

“I’m putting this fire out,” he says, glancing briefly toward the embers. “Then we’re going our separate ways.”

Fire popped, spitting sparks into the void between them. Rifles stayed locked, breaths measured shallow.

“Still vigilant as ever,” Joonkyung says after the pause, approval lacing his tone like barbed wire. “Even around your own comrades. I knew I taught you well.”

Jimin's jaw clenched, but he held the stare, unblinking.

Joonkyung dipped his chin in a private nod, decision sealed. He wheeled then, stepping away without waiting for a response, melting into shadow without so much as a backward glance. "Take the gear," he tossed over his shoulder, casual as alms. "Call it mercy—for old time’s sake."

When he didn’t receive a response, he stopped in his tracks. He turned slowly, his expression wiped neutral and unreadable in the low light. “We’ll cross paths again, Jimin.”

“I’d prefer we don’t.”

A ghost of a smile cracked Joonkyung's lips. "Believe me—you will, whether you want to or not."

Then nothing. He flicked a hand, loose command rippling through his men. They peeled away in sync—rifles dipping, forms dissolving into the dark with a predatory silence. The clearing exhaled, shadows swallowing bootprints until only echoes remained.

Jimin didn’t wait long before he moved. His pulse hammered as he stepped forward and dumped the water over the fire, hisses erupting violently and steam billowing thick, embers winking out in furious protest. Darkness crashed in, absolute and clawing, chill wind slicing through Jimin’s sweat-damp clothes. The shift was immediate, the clearing falling impossibly quiet in a way that feels heavier now that they’re alone again.

For a second, no one moves. Jeongguk's breaths rasped raggedly behind Jimin, chest heaving like bellows, fists white-knuckled. Taehyung's hold lingered on him, murmuring low.

Jeongguk jerked, but the fight ebbed under Taehyung’s palm on his back, steady circles grinding down the rage. Jimin let them sort it out, eyes already sweeping the perimeter—the crooked buildings blurring into void, abandoned packs and bedrolls hulking shapes, Yugyeom’s chains glinting faint moonlight.

Hoseok's voice broke the heavy quiet first, barely above a whisper as his gaze flicked to the scattered packs hulking near the quenched fire pit. "Should we grab the supplies?"

Jimin shook his head, eyes locked on their surroundings, refusing to glance back. The weight of those cans and bottles pressed heavier than metal—strings attached, favors owed to a ghost risen from the grave. "No."

Hoseok paused, boot shifting gravel. "Jimin—"

“You know we’ll be in debt to him then,” Jimin cut in, tone low and ironclad, slicing off further protest. "We take nothing."

That’s all it took to shut it down. Hoseok exhaled through his nose, shoulders easing as he nodded once, sharp.

"Can't head back home tonight," Taehyung murmured, edging closer, rifle slung low but ready. His frame cast a long shadow in the faint moonlight filtering through buildings. 

Jimin dipped his chin in agreement, already pivoting outward again, sweeping the perimeter with practiced arcs—every shadow a potential rifle barrel, every rustle a footstep. Joonkyung's parting words echoed in his skull like ricocheting bullets. You will, whether you want to or not.  

“No,” he mutters. “There’s no chance in hell we’ll be going home tonight.”

Taehyung nods, tension still rigid in his shoulders. “We need to go deeper.”

“Yeah.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the slowing rhythm of Jeongguk’s breaths behind them. Hoseok’s hand had settled firmly on his nape.

“Figured he was gone,” Taehyung said then, his voice dropping further, laced with the same hollow shock that churned Jimin’s gut. “Soryeong-nim, I mean.”

“I did too, Tae.” The admission hung flat, stripped bare—no room to unpack its weight amid the night’s teeth. Jimin shoved it down, narrowing his focus to the path ahead. “I thought it just as much as you did.”

"This…fuck—this complicates everything," Taehyung added.

Jimin expelled a sharp breath. “Yeah. No shit.”

They didn’t waste any more time. “Time to go,” Jimin said, turning to face them fully for the first time since Joonkyung had vanished into the dark. His gaze swept over each face—Hoseok’s tight jaw, Taehyung’s coiled readiness, Jeongguk’s raw stare locked on the chained howler’s corpse.

Jeongguk's head snapped up, jaw locked. "I want to bury him. Yugyeom. He deserves that much."

Jimin's chest tightened. He understood it—the raw ache of leaving someone behind. Even when they’d arrived too late at the café and found Minji cold on the blood‑stained floor, he, Taehyung, and Hoseok had lifted her gently, laid her in the bed upstairs like she might just wake to the dawn. Nabi had gotten a shallow grave dug right at the treeline's edge, bordering their old perimeter, a marker of hurried respect amid chaos. But here, now, with Joonkyung’s rifles fresh in his memory and his eyes everywhere, lingering meant a possible death for them as well.

"We can't," Jimin said, reaching for Jeongguk's arm, tugging gently. 

The alpha didn’t budge; his boots were planted like rebar in concrete, his eyes burning into the howler’s ruined form. Grief twisted his features into something raw and jagged. Jimin tugged harder, but it was like pulling on stone.

“Get your shit together,” Jimin murmured, soft yet firm, close enough for only Jeongguk to hear. “We need to get out of sight now. As fast as we can, before they circle back.”

Jeongguk’s jaw worked, fists clenching at his sides as his breath puffed in the chill air, fog ghosting from his lips.

“Listen,” Jimin pressed, his grip tightening just enough to ground him. “If his body is still here in the morning, and there’s no sign of Joonkyung or his crew—we’ll bring him back to the farm. Howler or not, we’ll make it work, okay? Bury him properly by Nabi. Put him to rest like he deserves.”

Jeongguk held his stare a beat longer, then his shoulders sagged a fraction. He nodded slowly, his eyes flicking up to meet Jimin’s—gratitude swallowed in grief.

Jimin clapped his shoulder once, firmly. No more words were needed. He raised a fist—signal clear as daylight—and they flowed into motion, melting into single file without a sound. Jimin took point, angling them away from the clearing’s mouth, plunging toward the city’s jagged skeleton. Ruined towers clawed the sky, their husks swallowing light, streets narrowing to throat-tight chutes littered with debris.

They ghosted through, boots soft on cracked asphalt, Jimin weaving them through back alleys and gutted storefronts. Much like their service days, double-backs came instinctively—left into a collapsed archway, right through a chain-link snarl, circle wide to shatter any tail. Wind moaned low through hollowed windows, carrying faint rot from infected nests, but no howls rose close.

Still, the prickle refused to fade. It crawled up Jimin's spine, a hunter's itch honed by years of dealing with ambushes. Joonkyung's men moved like smoke—discipline too crisp for amateurs. Even if they weren’t ex-military, it was clear that Joonkyung had trained them to behave as such. 

Jimin throttled their pace, ears straining past his own pulse to check for any irregular sounds. They pressed on, blocks blurring into a maze of concrete bones. Jeongguk brought up the rear, steps measured now, fury banked but smoldering. Hoseok flanked mid, Taehyung shadow-close to Jimin.

Then it hit. Jimin slowed, palm slicing the air—halt. They froze mid-stride, statues in the gloom, breaths synced shallow.

Jimin listened, head tilting just enough to catch anything out of place. For a moment, there was nothing, just the distant creak of something shifting in the wind, the faint echo of their own movement settling back into silence.

Crack.

A sharp crack splits the air, and the sound that follows is immediate and unmistakable—the high, slicing whizz of a bullet cutting through the space between them so close Jimin feels it more than hears it, the air snapping as it passes within inches of Jeongguk’s head before tearing past him into the dark.

Jimin moves before the echo dies. “Move—now!”

He didn’t wait for the echo of the shot to fade before he was already in motion, the command cutting through the noise as he pivoted and took off, the others breaking with him in the same instant. Boots hit pavement hard, breath pulling tight in Jimin’s chest as he drove them forward, scanning, listening, forcing himself to read the direction of the gunfire through the chaos of it.

Another shot cracked somewhere behind them, then another, the sound bouncing off the buildings and distorting just enough to make it harder to place. Jimin veered left, cutting them between two narrow structures, hand lifting briefly to signal before dropping again as he ducked low behind a rusted-out barrier, eyes snapping toward a flicker of movement in the distance. There—on a rooftop perch, there were two shadows crouching, muzzles flashing ever so slightly in the moonlight. He doesn’t hesitate.

Jimin snapped the rifle up to his shoulder, holding it steady despite the pace of his breathing. He exhaled a half-breath, then squeezed the trigger, firing three times in quick succession. One figure jerked, toppling over the ledge like a ragdoll, and landing with a meaty thud. The second lurched, clutching their gut just long enough for Jimin to adjust and fire cleanly through their head. The body immediately crumpled, vanishing into the alley’s murkiness.

“Keep moving!” he snarled, vaulting over a toppled dumpster.

They don’t slow. Taehyung broke slightly off to the side, peeling right into parallel shadows. Jimin hears the sharp crack of the alpha’s shot a second later, followed by the dull thud of another body hitting the ground. It doesn’t buy them much time or space. The rest are still out there, still firing, still closing in.

A shot cracked too close, the supersonic snap whipping past Jimin's ear like a razor through silk. He jerked instinctively, but it was Hoseok who flinched beside him—breath hitching sharp, body stumbling a half-step.

Jimin's focus snapped over, hand shooting out to clamp Hoseok's arm, fingers digging into fabric and muscle as he yanked him forward. Their legs churned pavement, stride unbroken despite the surge of ice in his veins.

“You hit?” Jimin barks.

"Grazed," Hoseok rasped back, voice clamped tight but holding. Grit edged every syllable, but there was no waver. “I’m fine.”

Jimin didn’t take his word for it. He quickly glances once, catching the dark smear blooming through sleeve, blood slick but shallow, a furrow that wept red without gushing. Not arterial or  the spray that dropped men cold. Relief flickered, buried fast under the roar in his skull.

"Stick close," he growled, shoving them all harder into the sprint, boots pounding fractured concrete.

They cut right this time, then left again, doubling back through a narrow stretch of alley choked with overturned bins and rusted rebar fangs. Debris clawed at shins, but Jimin spotted the breach ahead: a gutted building, front facade caved in like a punched jaw, doorway a jagged maw passable if they ducked low and angled right.

“In there,” he hissed.

They funneled single-file—Taehyung first, Jeongguk hauling rear with rifle chewed tight in his teeth—bodies compressing through the squeeze. Jimin lingered a beat at the threshold, spine prickling, sweeping the alley mouth with his muzzle. No immediate shadows detached, no glint of iron. Clear enough. He dove after, shoulders scraping plaster as the dark gulped him whole.

The inside felt like plunging into ink—air thick, stagnant, laced with mold and old rot. Dust motes swirled in faint slivers of moonlight stabbing through cracked walls. No time to breathe it in. Jimin swept corners ruthlessly, rifle barrel probing shadows, boots silent on grit-slick tile. Empty doorframes yawned black, the stairwell had collapsed to rubble knee-high. Nothing stirred. No infected rasp, no enemy bootscrape.

"Clear," he muttered, voice swallowed quickly.

They pressed deeper on autopilot, threading past toppled shelves and buckled beams until street noise muffled to a dull throb. Only then did they stop where they were—backs wedged against cool walls, chests heaving silent, breaths rationed. No one spoke. No one moved. For the first time since the initial shot was fired, they go completely still.

Jimin's mind reeled, a split-second freeze seizing him amid the hush. Adrenaline thrummed wild through his veins, shock spiking hot and sharp. He racked his brain, chasing the thread of how it unraveled to this—bullets cracking after a ghost from his past. He'd been dead right to stay on guard, to eye Joonkyung as the stranger he'd morphed into over the lost years. It was more than clear that their trust shattered before the rifles rose—perhaps it shattered the day Jimin left him at the base. But why would he do this? Why would he shoot at Jimin? The question clawed at him, no answers surfacing in the chaos of his pulse.

It didn’t take long before he was snapped back.

First whisper hit softly outside, accompanied with the sound of boots grinding loose gravel and the faint drag of gear against brick. Jimin's skin crawled, the air compressing like a vice. He sank lower behind the improvised barricade—a shattered counter half-buried in debris—profile flattened to nothing, every instinct telling him not to give away so much as a shadow.

“Stay down,” he breathed, barely more than a whisper, though they mirrored him already, statues carved from tension.

Footsteps dragged to a halt just beyond the shell of their building. Then Joonkyung's voice sliced through, crisp and clear enough that it might as well be inside with them.

“You’ve killed three of my men, Park Jimin.”

It doesn’t sound like anger, the kind of bellowed rage Jimin would’ve expected from the alpha. If anything, it carried that even measure, thoughtful almost, like appraising a pawn's gambit. It sits worse than any louder reaction would have. Jimin doesn’t move, doesn’t glance toward the window even as the urge pulls at him. He held stone-still, gaze pinned to the scuffed floor ahead, refusing the itch to peek. Jimin listened instead, mapping the timbre of Joonkyung’s voice, the potential positioning the alpha might have.

“I was trying to help you,” Joonkyung went on, the words easy and conversational in a way that makes Jimin’s jaw tighten. “But god, a stubborn soldier, you always were—and still are.”

More footsteps drifted closer. One set peeled away from the others, the sound shifting direction just enough to suggest that someone was circling the building. Jimin tracked it automatically, mapping the movement in his head, adjusting their position without needing to speak. He shifted a fraction, his elbow nudging Taehyung's in a silent bid to readjust their positioning, expanding the width of their coverage without a sound.

“But it didn’t take long to break you in,” Joonkyung adds after a moment, his tone dipping slightly, a fresh edge honing through the silk of his words. “Shall I try again?”

Taehyung twitches, the movement small but tense, his hand tightening on his rifle as his attention darted toward the window. Jimin catches it immediately, meeting his gaze in the dark and giving a slight shake of his head. Not yet. Not like this. Taehyung froze then, his exhale controlled as he released it through his nose. Outside, steps halted, then resumed in a deliberate plod, boots owning the ground.

“You can hide for however long you want,” Joonkyung projected, voice carrying just enough to reach every corner of the space they’ve tucked themselves into. “I will find you, Jimin.”

A beat passes, just long enough for it to settle.

“There’s already been bloodshed,” he continued, his voice seeping through the cracked walls like smoke. “Which means this doesn’t end here. We’ll see each other again—I’ll make sure of that.”

Jimin’s teeth ground together, anger surging hot and jagged in his chest. The way Joonkyung spun it, pinning the deaths outside like it was inevitable, like those men’s deaths were Jimin’s fault and not the result of his own orders—it echoed the old rhetoric Jimin remembered from him, but sharpened now into something merciless, unapologetic. 

“Jeon Jeongguk.”

The name sliced the dark, and Jimin felt the instant ripple beside him. Jeongguk’s breath hitched tight, a guttural scrape trapped in his throat before he forced it down, muscles locking rigid.

“You know exactly how this’ll go,” Joonkyung pressed, tone dropping lower, more pointed, laced with something more ominous that Jimin couldn’t quite place. “If you don’t want to die a second time, convince your friends to make the smart choice.”

A faint pause.

“I’ll even spare your life.”

Silence clamped down, broken only by the faint scuff of boots as Joonkyung’s men shifted, pulling back in measured retreat. Footsteps softened, receding into the night’s hum. Then, just as they thinned to echoes, Joonkyung spoke again.

“In a week,” he tossed out almost casually, like he’s setting a meeting instead of issuing a threat. “Same place. Dusk.”

Another step, another shift further away.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Park Jimin,” he tacked on, the last of his voice carrying just enough to linger. “If you want your people to stay alive. You of all people know that I don’t act without reason.”

The sounds faded fully after that, swallowed by the city’s distant groan, leaving only the building’s hush and the ragged sync of their breaths. Jimin held his position, his body coiled low behind the splintered counter. He strained for discrepancies—any lingering scrape, any held breath that didn’t belong. Seconds stretched to minutes, the air thickening with dust and tension. When nothing came, he vented a slow breath through his nose, shoulders refusing to unclench even as the immediate threat lifted.

He lingered even longer, ears attuned to the structure’s subtle creaks as it resettled. His eyes adjust slowly to the dark. What had once been an office was now sprawled in ruin around them—desks flipped on their sides with their legs splayed like broken limbs, chairs toppled in heaps, and monitors shattered, screens spiderwebbed and spilling wires across grit-coated floors. Papers laid scattered in thin, brittle sheets, some curled in on themselves, others pressed flat beneath bootprints that aren’t recent enough to matter. The scent clung stale and trapped, a mix of faded ink, decay, and sealed-off time, as if the last time the building had seen any life was on Day Zero. 

Jimin let his gaze move over it all without really focusing, his attention still caught somewhere outside, replaying the last few minutes whether he wanted it to or not. Joonkyung’s pulse, alive and commanding. Joonkyung with a unit, disciplined and armed. Joonkyung who’d most likely been following their trail long before tonight, or even the week prior. The way he spoke. The way he looked at Jeongguk.

That detail burrowed the deepest in his mind.

It gnawed at him. Joonkyung had regarded Jeongguk like a missing piece of a puzzle slotting  back into place—expected, perhaps even long anticipated. But Jimin hadn’t known any of the history that would warrant such a reaction. The realization pressed harder the longer he sat with it, weaving its way through everything else—the men they’d just killed, the promise Joonkyung left behind, the fact that whatever this is wouldn’t end here. It was already in motion before tonight. Jimin just hadn’t seen it.

“Jimin—”

“How do you know him?”

The question came out before Jeongguk could finish his sentence, Jimin’s voice barely scraping above a whisper. He kept his eyes forward for a second longer, then turned his head just enough to lock eyes with the alpha. The motion was slow, shaky—the knot still cinching his ribs from earlier pulling tight with every breath. A brief pause hung between them. Jimin watched Jeongguk’s throat work, watched him swallow like the words were stones lodged there.

“​I…”​ The stutter yanked Jimin’s full attention onto him. Hesitation laced the single word, raw and unguarded. Jeongguk’s gaze stayed locked on some invisible point in the grit-strewn floor.

Jimin’s stare sharpened, pinning him in place. “​…You what?”​

Jeongguk’s hands trembled at his sides, barely visible in the dim light, but Jimin caught it—the fine tremor that ran through his knuckles. He didn’t answer right away. His gaze stayed fixed on that middle distance, something only he could see. A memory he’d been carrying alone for too long.

“​I was scavenging with Yugyeom,”​ he began, voice rough, scraping past a throat gone dry. “​We were pushing east, past the old market district, hoping for canned goods or meds. We didn’t think anyone else was out there.”​ He paused, and Jimin felt the weight of the coming words before Jeongguk spoke again.

He blew a breath through his nose, shoulders rising faintly with the memory. “But, we got cornered. Howlers came in from both exits, more than we could handle. We were already backing up, already running out of space. Thought that was the end for us right there.”

Jimin watched him closely, the faint tremor in Jeongguk's hands betraying the calm tone.

“That’s when Joonkyung’s men showed up,” Jeongguk continued. “They cut through the herd like it was nothing, faster than I’ve ever seen. Before we could even process it, they had us by the arms and were dragging us back to their camp.”

Hoseok shifted against the far wall, his voice cutting in softly. “They just… took you? No questions?”

Jeongguk nodded once, eyes still down. “At first, it didn’t seem so bad. Better than dying alone out there. Joonkyung laid out the rules clearly—pull your weight with work, and you’d get food, water, and a place to crash. They had stockpiles, actual walls, rotating guards—it felt stable, like a real setup.”

Jimin heard the faint regret threading through it, the temptation that had pulled them in and made them believe it all.

“But it didn’t take long for things to start looking different,” Jeongguk said, his tone flattening. “Everyone worked because they had no choice. Every bite of food, every sip of water, every night on a bunk—it all got tallied up into debt that you owed him. And so you worked for your food—breaking concrete, hauling debris, digging trenches. Every day you didn’t meet quota, you went hungry.”

His fingers curl slightly against his knee.

“He said you could leave whenever you wanted. Just as long as you paid what you owed.” A faint, humorless breath slips out of him. “No one ever could. They’d already stripped you bare. People stayed trapped, or they tried to run and just… disappeared.”

Taehyung leaned forward from his spot by the door, brow furrowed. “Disappeared…Jesus Christ. They hunt them down?”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk replied, fingers moving to press briefly into his thigh before stilling. “By then, we were in too deep. Three weeks, maybe four—I don’t remember. We kept our heads down, did the jobs they gave us, avoided drawing eyes while we figured out an escape that wouldn’t result in us disappearing like the rest who’d tried before us.”

His gaze lifted slightly, lost in the recollection.

“But uh…Yugyeom was the one who noticed the omegas first. They weren’t just another means of labor—I mean, yes, they handled everything—cooking, cleaning, whatever the guards demanded. But at night,” he trailed off for a second, then forced it out anyway. “At night, they’d take them too. The younger ones, mostly. Led them into separate rooms while everyone pretended not to hear.”

A chill settled deep in Jimin's spine, twisting into something sour and angry as his stomach churned at the implications. The words painted a picture he didn’t want—smaller bodies dragged through shadows, the muffled sounds that never quite got smothered.

“I asked around about it,” Jeongguk went on, quieter now. “But no one would answer, let alone meet my fucking eyes. Most of them just looked away. One of the betas finally told me to drop it. Said that was how things worked there. Keep the guards loyal, and reward them for it. Joonkyung picked out who they could have, and called it his way of maintaining order.”

A wave of nausea crested in his throat, bitter and hot. His grip on the rifle tightened until the metal bit into his palms, and for a second, he wasn’t seeing the ruined room around him. He was seeing Joonkyung’s face, calm and untouchable, the same cold expression from the flames. The same man who’d called that systematic cruelty “​maintaining order”.​

A sharp, black rage flared in his chest—so sudden it almost pulled him upright. He wanted to go back and find Joonkyung. Drag him out of whatever hole he’d slithered into and put a bullet through his skull, right between those dead eyes. The image crystallized with vicious clarity: the crack of the shot, the body crumpling, the blood pooling in the rubble. Jimin’s finger twitched against the trigger guard. But he didn’t move. He forced the fantasy down, locked it behind his ribs where it could fester later. 

“I tried to stop it once,” Jeongguk added, his jaw tightening. “Saw a guard dragging one of the young ones down the hall—they couldn’t have been more than seventeen. He was…dragging him by the hair, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t just look the other way.  So I stepped in. I hit him and did everything I could to get the alpha off of him, to let go of the boy. Thought that would be the end of it.” He let out a hollow laugh, and Jimin felt the sound scrape through him.

“I was fucking stupid, for thinking that just because the guards didn’t hit back right away, that I was off the hook—or that the poor omegas were free,” Jeongguk said bitterly. “The guards waited till morning, then hauled me out in front of the whole camp. No explanation—just used their fists and boots to beat the shit out of me until I couldn’t stand.”

Hoseok muttered a curse under his breath, but Jeongguk pressed on.

“Joonkyung stood there the whole time, watching without a word. Didn’t even bother to call it off after I was coughing blood. The fucker let the guards go until they had their fill.”

Jimin's jaw tightened. He could picture it—Jeongguk on the ground, boots connecting with ribs, Joonkyung's cold eyes tracking every blow like he was appraising livestock. The image should have filled him with nothing but sympathy. It did, partially—a thread of it, tangled and reluctant. But the anger was louder.

“Yugyeom tried to pull them off of me,” Jeongguk finished, voice thinning. “But they turned on him worse, and made a fucking show of it for everyone. Ensured no one else would ever interfere again.”

Jeongguk didn't notice the strain. He was too deep in the confession now, words tumbling out like poison finally being lanced. "They dragged me to the infirmary after. Stitched me up so I could work the next day. Joonkyung came by that night. Told me if I couldn't keep my hands to myself, he'd make sure I didn't have hands at all." Another bitter laugh. "Then he smiled. Like it was funny."

Jimin's vision went red at the edges. Not at the threat—though that fanned the flames. At the casual way Joonkyung had wielded his cruelty. The smile. The certainty that there would be no consequences. And at Jeongguk, who'd carried this story inside him for weeks, letting it fester in the dark, while Jimin planned routes and rationed supplies and trusted him.

“After that, we tried to speed up our plans to leave,” Jeongguk said, his tone evening out as he pushed forward. "Kept it between just a few of us at first. Tried recruiting others quietly, but fear had them practically rooted to the damn place. Most wouldn't budge. One did, though—an alpha who seemed ready to risk it."

Jimin felt the story coil tighter in his gut, the details etching sharper lines of dread.

"He sold us out," Jeongguk continued flatly, the betrayal landing without flourish. "They were waiting for us the night we decided to make our move." His hand ghosted along his ribcage once, a fleeting trace over old scars hidden beneath fabric.

Hoseok broke the quiet from his corner, voice edged with disbelief. “So what, he signed your death warrant for a fucking pat on the back or something?”

Jeongguk dipped his head in confirmation. "Of course. All for some shitty promotion to guard postion—probably so he could join in on those disgusting ‘rewards’.” Jeongguk looked sick, but he swallowed slowly and continued. 

“And Joonkyung didn't waste time on punishment this round. He got a show the first time, but this round, he wanted a spectacle. They stripped us down, sliced cuts across our backs and torsos to draw blood, then dragged us beyond the walls. Ragers were already out there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Joonkyung had something to do with the large number of them."

The image clawed into Jimin's mind—naked skin in the cold night, the stench of rot and fury waiting.

“They handed us machetes,” Jeongguk muttered. “Told us to fight.” He shook his head then, a sniffle escaping him as he redirected his gaze down to the floor.

“Yugyeom told me to run. Kept pushing me back, telling me to go. I tried to pull him with me, but we were bleeding, and the scent of our blood made them swarm us too fast. Didn’t even get the chance to run.”

Jimin's chest tightened, the raw finality of it pressing in.

"I hacked through every one in reach," Jeongguk said, his gaze distant, locked on some invisible horizon. "Lost count after a while. There was so much fucking blood everywhere—mine and theirs, but by the time the last one dropped..."

It was clear that Jeongguk was struggling to speak, his hands bawling into fists as he grit the last words out. “It was already too late for Yugyeom.”

Jimin doesn’t need more information than that to piece together the grim picture.

“He told me to go,” Jeongguk added. “That was the last thing he said.”

Jeongguk paused, letting the echo fade before picking up again. “So I ran. Didn’t stop, and I don’t know for how long. I just kept going until I couldn’t anymore. Found a building, collapsed inside. Didn’t care what was in there. I thought I was going to die anyway.”

Jimin leaned fractionally against the desk's edge, the wood cool under his palm, anchoring him amid the unraveling tale.

"I was so busy trying to fight them off of Yugyeom, that I hadn’t realized I’d been bit," Jeongguk confessed, eyes lifting to hold Jimin's at last. "Deep one, right through the meat of my shoulder. I knew the drill—fever, rage, the turn. So I stripped off my shirt, tied myself down with scavenged rope so I wouldn't slaughter whatever crossed my path."

Jimin’s expression flickered—a crack in the ice. The image of Jeongguk, alone and bleeding, binding himself to a wall to protect others from a fate he didn’t choose—it stirred something in Jimin. Both that clawing pity and sympathy, but still, his anger was stronger. He’d tied himself down, he’d been alone in what he thought were his last moments. But when they’d found Jeongguk, he kept all of it locked away. He let Jimin learn to trust him, all while keeping this secret like a second skin.

"The days blurred," he murmured. "And I really thought I was turning. Had the sweats, the pain like fire under the skin. But the change never came. No convulsions, no hunger for flesh. Just... scars closing on their own, much faster than normal."

Jimin couldn’t really wrap his head around it. But in the same, confusing regard, it was all starting to make sense. Jeongguk had experienced all the symptoms leading up to him turning, but never actually went through the stages. It explained why Jeongguk hadn’t been so panicked about the bite when they’d discovered it.

“I just… healed.”

Jeongguk’s voice quieted after that, the last of it settling into the space between them as the weight of everything he’s said hangs there, heavy and unmoving. For a moment, it seemed like he’d finished, like that was all there was. But he stayed where he was, shoulders drawn tight, gaze still fixed somewhere low as if there’s one more thing he hasn’t quite forced out yet.

“When I got out of there,” he says finally, slower now, “I didn’t have anything. I found clothes, whatever I could salvage, and just… kept moving.”

His lips compressed briefly, a flicker of vulnerability cracking through.

“I thought about stopping, about just laying down for good and letting the world take me,” he admitted, the words stripped down in a way that sounded different from everything before. “There wasn’t really a reason to keep going. Not after that.”

Jimin remained silent. He couldn’t even muster up words to interrupt the alpha, his mind flooded with everything and nothing at once.

“But if I did…” Jeongguk exhaled, the breath uneven as it left him. “Then what happened to Yugyeom wouldn’t mean anything.” He lifted his head slightly then, not fully, but enough that Jimin could see his face in what little moonlight filtered through the room.

“So I kept going,” he finished. “And a few weeks later… I ran into you.”

Jeongguk's posture shifted then, tension coiling before easing just enough that he finally looked at Jimin properly. There’s no distance in it this time, no deflection—just the aftermath of everything he’s been holding onto.

"I kept it buried from you. The bite, Joonkyung's camp, all of it—because I didn’t want you looking at me like I was one of them.”

The confession stripped him bare, voice gravel-rough with the effort.

“I didn’t want you thinking I was… tainted, or dangerous, or someone who would let people suffer just to save himself.”

There was nothing guarded left in his voice now, nothing held back—just something worn thin and exposed in a way Jimin hadn’t seen before.

“I was scared you’d hate me.”

For a second, Jimin doesn’t hear anything at all.

Jeongguk stood right there in front of him, mouth still forming words, but they dissolved into white noise, drowned out by the cascade crashing through Jimin’s skull. It hit in a brutal rush—Joonkyung materializing from the flames like a specter risen whole, that rusted chain biting into Yugyeom’s already mutilated throat. Jeongguk’s body locking rigid the instant their eyes locked, and Joonkyung’s voice wrapping around him like a leash already fitted, pulling him back into place.

And Jimin hadn’t known about any of it.

It folds into something heavier the longer it sits—every conversation, every doubt he’d pushed aside, every moment Jeongguk had stood in front of him and insisted he could be trusted. Jimin had questioned him from the beginning, held him at a distance when it would have been easier not to, and still, somehow, Jeongguk had found a way in. He had worked for it, proven himself over and over again until there hadn’t been much left to argue against, until Jimin had started to feel like the problem was his own inability to let go of his doubts. Like he’d been in the wrong the whole time.

He’d been the fool. He let Jeongguk into the pack. Let him move through their space like he belonged there, like he was safe to keep. He’d listened to others around him and loosened up, ignored his own judgment, leaned on him in ways he hadn’t allowed himself to do in a long time. He’d opened himself up, no—more than that.

He’d let Jeongguk see and touch parts of him no one else had touched in years. He whispered about his losses, his mother, in the hollows after dusk. He let Jeongguk’s thumb trace the tension from his jaw, and convinced himself that Jeongguk had meant every word he muttered while holding him. Like a fucking idiot, he let himself believe, even briefly, that maybe he didn’t have to carry everything alone. That maybe Jeongguk meant it when he said he wanted to share the weight of protecting the pack. That sharing the load didn’t weaken him, that Jeongguk’s low promises to stand firm weren’t hollow echoes.

And all of it had been built on something Jeongguk never told him. Something big enough to put all of them in danger. Something that had been sitting there the entire time while Jimin second-guessed himself for not trusting him sooner. The thought punched hard enough to knock the air out of his chest.

It was too late. He’d already spilled blood for him now.

There were three men dead in the street, a conflict already set in motion with someone Jimin knows well enough to understand exactly how far this could go. And behind all of that—his people back at the farmhouse. Asleep, most of them likely were, unaware of how quickly the situation had shifted, of what’s already moving toward them whether they’re ready or not.

Jimin’s pulse hammered against his ribs, breaths snagging short and ragged, fury igniting alongside a rawer sting he shoved down. The stale reek of dust and sweat thickened the air, pressing in as his vision tunneled.

“Jimin, baby—”

The endearment pierced cleanly through his thoughts, intimate and poisoned in their dim confines. It detonated something primal within Jimin—a raw anger that he hadn’t felt in so long—not since he killed Nabi’s murderer. He surged upright before thought caught up, the debris behind him scraping back unnoticed. Jeongguk rose with him, palms lifting in reflex, stepping in to bridge the gap between them.

Jimin doesn’t give him the chance. No words, no prelude—just the whipcord snap of his arm, fist chambered tight then driving forward. His knuckles smashed into Jeongguk’s jaw with a meaty crack that reverberated off cracked walls, jerking his head sideways, teeth clacking shut on unfinished pleas.

Hoseok exploded from his perch by the barricade first. “Shit—Jimin, what the hell?”

The impact jolted up Jimin’s arm, pain blooming hot in his hand, but satisfaction flared brighter. Jeongguk reeled back from the punch, boots skidding on grit-slick concrete, balance fracturing just long enough for Jimin to surge forward. He rammed his shoulder into Jeongguk's chest, palms slamming flat to drive him down. Jeongguk hit the floor with a solid crack of spine against stone, air whooshing from his lungs in a pained grunt. Jimin dropped onto his hips before dust settled, knees pinning the alpha’s thighs, weight locking him in place.

There was no room for retreat for Jeongguk. Jimin's fingers knotted in the frayed collar of Jeongguk's shirt, yanking him up inches off the ground—muscles straining, veins bulging in his forearms—then crashing him back. The jolt rattled through Jimin's bones, teeth jarring, but he hauled him again, shirt fabric tearing faintly at the seams.

"You fucking idiot," Jimin growled, voice ragged, quivering from the core out. His grip was  vise-tight as he dragged Jeongguk forward once more, foreheads nearly colliding, before shoving hard. "Stupid, goddamn idiot—you kept all of this from me—"

One of his hands slipped from Jeongguk’s collar just long enough to come down hard against his chest, not a clean punch—more a forceful strike that lands with the full weight of everything sitting in him. Then again, he dropped open-handed strikes in a pounding rhythm like a drum of fury, each thud compressing the ribs beneath his body. Sweat beaded on Jimin's brow, dripping hot onto Jeongguk's collarbone.

“You made me think I was wrong,” he pressed on, his gasps coming faster now, each word leaving his chest burning as they clawed free. “For not trusting you. For keeping you at a distance—”

Another hit, his palm slamming down over his sternum before his fingers curl back into his collar, dragging him up again, close enough that there’s no space left between them.

“I let you in,” Jimin rasped, and there’s nothing controlled about him anymore. “Into my pack. Into my space. I—”

He choked it off. No need to voice the vulnerability cracked open in stolen nights, bodies tangled under threadbare blankets, breaths syncing in the dark. Jeongguk's eyes darkened, recognition flickering—he knew the depth of Jimin’s words.

Jimin shoved him back down again, harder this time, the movement fueled by fury that had nowhere else to go. Jeongguk's head bounced once, his dark hair fanning over debris.

“I just killed for you,” Jimin hissed, quieter, lethal. Fingers dug in, knuckles whitening in the fabric of his shirt. “Three men we’ve just killed, Jeongguk. Do you fucking understand how bad that is? And now Joonkyung knows enough about us to come back—probably already knows where we stay.”

Palm flattened over Jeongguk's heart this time, pressing steady, feeling the frantic thump mirror his own chaos—as if force alone could pin the world still, halt the storm brewing.

“He’s coming for them,” Jimin said, his voice cracking on terror he couldn't bury. “Our pack—for all of them. We could’ve had this handled months ago if you’d said something—anything.”

Jeongguk lay passive beneath him, no buck or twist to throw him off or away. His hands rose slowly instead, cupping Jimin's wrists—not shoving, just cradling, thumbs stroking pulse points in silent plea. Acceptance poured from him, fueling Jimin's blaze higher, twisting rage with something molten and unnamed.

"Jimin—"

"Shut the fuck up," Jimin barked, slicing the syllable like a blade. His grip in the alpha’s shirt spasmed, rattling Jeongguk's frame, shoulders heaving with the effort. Another heave, weaker now, momentum bleeding into exhaustion, limbs leaden.

“I trusted you,” Jimin said through grit teeth, the words coming out lower now, rough in a different way. “But you’ve been a fucking liar this whole time—” He broke off again, the rest of his words collapsing under its own weight. “And for what? Because you were scared? So lying made it somehow better?”

Taehyung struck then, the alpha’s iron arms banding Jimin's torso from behind and hauling him backward. Hoseok darted in low, wedging his own fingers between Jimin's and Jeongguk's shirt, attempting to peel them loose with steady pulls.

“That’s enough, Jimin,” Taehyung murmured, his breath warm against Jimin's ear, his hold on him firm but not crushing.

Jimin bucked once, feral instinct firing—muscles locked, straining to lunge, fingertips clawing air inches from Jeongguk's throat. “You could’ve at least had the decency to tell me after you begged me to stay in your room—after you fucked me and held me all night, you fucking piece of shit.”

Hoseok's grip overpowered Jimin’s, prying the final threads of Jeongguk’s shirt free. Dragged clear, Jimin panted, chest sawing, vision blurring at edges with unshed heat. Jeongguk pushed up on elbows, chest mottled red from strikes, gaze locked upward—bruised jaw swelling, lips parted on shallow draws, but eyes steady, pleading without words.

The fury drained from Jimin's limbs like sand through clenched fists, hollowing his core and leaving dizziness in its wake. His next inhale snagged midway, ragged edges scraping lungs that refused to expand fully, exhaling in a hiss that bordered on a wheeze.

“Jimin,” Hoseok murmured, voice softening as his fingers loosened from restraint to support, encircling Jimin's wrists with gentle pressure to halt the tremors.

Everything sounded muffled to Jimin’s ears, distant, as if filtered through thick glass—Hoseok's words warping, Jeongguk's shallow breaths echoing faintly from across the scarred floor.

His chest felt tight—too tight, like there isn’t enough space for the air he’s trying to pull in, and the more he focuses on it, the worse it gets. His vision blurs again at the edges, the room tilting just slightly as everything that had been driving him a second ago turns inward, folding back on itself.

His people back at the farmhouse. They’re unaware. They’re exposed.

His hands shook where they hung at his sides, fingers twitching uselessly, gasps fragmenting into staccato bursts that fueled dizziness rather than relief. And this time there’s no boiling anger left to burn it off, to cauterize the rapidly building dread within Jimin’s mind. Only a feeling of leaden inevitability pressed down, amplifying with every second that passes.

Taehyung pivoted him away from Jeongguk's prone form, broad frame blocking the sightline. “Eyes on me,” he commanded, tone even, unhurried amid the chaos that had just unfolded. “Jimin, look at me.”

It takes a second, but Jimin’s stare dragged upwards, unfocused at first before it latches onto Taehyung’s face.

“In through the nose,” Taehyung coached, demonstrating slowly. “Hold. Out the mouth. C’mon, Jimin, match me.”

Jimin mimicked the alpha, nostrils flaring on the intake, chest stuttering less violently this round, though the band around his lungs persisted, mocking each effort. Jeongguk remained sprawled a few feet away, one elbow propping his torso and his free hand splayed over his mottled ribs. His gaze remained fixed on Jimin without intrusion—he made no advance, no more pleas, just remained quiet in a way that amplified the knot in Jimin's gut.

Taehyung didn’t wait for the situation to get worse. He shifted his grip, clasping Jimin's elbow to steer him away from the others, moving quickly but quietly through the splintered doorframe and into the next room. The space was darker, more enclosed, the remains of another office left to rot. The air was even more stagnant with dust and mildew, and there were a plethora of toppled filing cabinets spilling yellowed papers, shadows pooling thick in the corners. Taehyung’s eyes swept the room once, fast and practiced, checking angles, doorways, anything that might move.

Once satisfied, the alpha pulled Jimin behind one of the desks, angling them into the corner where the walls closed in tighter, where they were less exposed if anyone came through. The movement was gentle, but there was still a sense of urgency under it, like Taehyung didn’t want to let him stand for any longer than he had to.

He let himself be moved, let Taehyung guide him down, back pressing against the wall as the last of the tension that had been holding him upright gave way. Everything in his head was still moving too fast, his thoughts colliding and slipping out of reach before he could hold onto any one of them long enough to make sense of it. Images continued to flash in his mind—Joonkyung's men circling their farmhouse, rifles glinting under moonlight, screams shattering the night.

Can’t think. Can’t protect. Useless. Failure.

Taehyung crouched down in front of him, close enough that there was no space for anything else to pull at his attention. One hand came up to cradle the back of Jimin’s head, digits threading into sweat-damp hair, likely attempting to immobilize Jimin’s bobbing skull as he began muttering to himself the same thought. Can’t think. Can’t protect. Useless. Failure. Jimin feels Taehyung’s other hand settle firmly against his shoulder, anchoring him there.

“It’s my fault, Tae. I—I was such a fucking idiot—”

“Hey,” Taehyung breathed, his volume hushed enough that it barely carried past them. “None of that, okay? I don’t want to hear any of that shit. Stay with me.” He tapped his own chest demonstratively, then unzipped his jacket, pressing Jimin's palm flat over the steady thrum beneath his shirt. “Slow down, and copy my rhythm.”

Jimin's eyelids fluttered, gaze skittering before snapping back, breaths hitching on sobs that never formed—only dry, frantic heaves. Adrenaline surged unchecked, veins thrumming, skin prickling electric under the fabric of his clothes.

Taehyung stayed there with him, his thumb circling lightly against the base of Jimin’s skull, a small, grounding pressure that didn't demand anything from him except to stay as well. Jimin let the alpha pull him closer, his forehead dropping forward until it pressed somewhere against him. The contact felt like it was the only thing keeping him from drifting too far into the noise still crowding his head. He didn’t speak. There weren’t words for any of his thoughts yet, not ones that come out cleanly. So he didn’t try.

Jimin sat there, his breathing uneven and shallow, letting Taehyung hold him in place while everything else settled—slowly, painfully—into something he could eventually face.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jimin woke to the thin gray of morning filtering through shattered windows, the light flat and colorless across the wrecked office. He froze for a split second, letting his eyes adjust, forcing his breaths to settle into something steady before everything from the night before returned all at once—Joonkyung’s oily voice slithering through his skull, gunfire cracking the air, Jeongguk’s face twisting in that split-second betrayal. He shifted hard, peeling away from Taehyung’s side. He realized then that he had been leaning into the alpha all night, close enough that the warmth still lingered between them. 

Carefully, Jimin pulled himself upright. Taehyung stirred at the movement, eyes cracking open, tracking Jimin’s every twitch without a word, granting him the room to claw back control. The anger hadn’t gone anywhere. It coiled tighter now, sunk deep under a numb layer within Jimin’s mind that blunted its razor edge just enough to let him function again. Jimin shoved to his feet, knees locking once before he straightened, rifle already swinging into his grip as his gaze swept outward, shoving yesterday’s fractures behind their new objective.

“Time to go,” he rasped, his voice scratchy and clipped.

At the sound of Jimin’s voice, Hoseok pushed himself up first, Taehyung following. Jeongguk lagged a heartbeat, hauling himself onto his feet without a murmur. Jimin only spared the alpha a brief glance, but Jeongguk kept his stare glued to the grimy floor, dodging any collision with Jimin’s eyes. The silence between them settled in quickly, unspoken but understood, and they carried it with them as they slipped out of the building and back into the city.

Morning hadn’t made anything softer. The streets stretched out in long, empty lines, skeletal hulks of buildings gnawing at the pale light, voids yawning where society had crumbled. Jimin kept them moving, guiding them through narrow cuts between buildings and across broken stretches of pavement, adjusting their path without breaking stride. They doubled back once, then again, following that same safety protocol to make sure they weren’t being followed. They continued weaving through alleys and side corridors, checking their trail in quiet passes that required no words. The stillness held, but Jimin didn’t trust it, and he kept them moving until the sense of it sat more evenly in his chest.

They came across the bodies not long after. Jimin saw them as they rounded the corner, the three men lying crumpled where bullets had dropped them, daylight flaying away the night’s veil. Blood crusted in black pools under twisted limbs, fabric stiffened into grotesque molds, faces slack in eternal surprise. The sight made his gut clench low and viciously. He sucked a slow breath in through his nose, slamming the bile back down.

Joonkyung hadn’t come back for them.

The realization soured like rot in his throat, stacking onto the growing pile of things that no longer lined up with the man Jimin had once known. Whatever structure and humanity Joonkyung claimed to hold onto didn’t extend here, not to the men he’d left behind to bloat and rot in the open without so much as a second glance. Jimin wrenched his stare forward, boots crunching past as Hoseok darted in with surgical speed, stripping two of the bodies of their weapons without comment. When he stepped back into place, they kept moving, no one speaking, no one needing to.

The clearing came into view soon after, the fire pit a charred, cold, ring of ash against the ground. The supplies were still scattered where they had been left, splayed open like gutted prey. Jimin’s gaze passed over them without slowing, settling instead on the shape beyond the edge of the clearing where the chain lay slack against the ground.

In daylight, Yugyeom’s body looked smaller despite being in howler form, diminished in a way that made the space around it feel too open. The chain pooled limp on the ground like shed skin. No tension yanked it taut now—for its former prisoner was now just meat cooling in the open, eyes milky under half-lidded stare. They stopped immediately, boots grinding to a silence, the hush dropping heavily as they absorbed the ruined man.

Jimin’s pulse kicked, gaze boring into the corpse. Retrieve him. Give him a farmhouse grave, like Nabi. Jeongguk moved forward first, shoulders hunched. He reached for an axe that lay near a pile of wood used for the fire pit to sever the links with a metallic snap. After a few powerful strokes, he dragged the body free, movements jerky but careful, hefting the weight over one shoulder without a flinch. Blood seeped fresh from the motion, staining his shirt dark, but his face stayed stone—eyes averted, jaw grinding silent. Jimin let the moment sit for a breath, then nodded once.

"Find something to put him on."

Taehyung moved without hesitation, disappearing briefly into one of the nearby buildings before returning with a bent sheet of metal, while Hoseok cut a length of rope from one of the abandoned packs. Hoseok and Taehyung worked together in silence, taking Yugyeom from Jeongguk and shifting the body with care, the metal scraping softly beneath it as they adjusted the weight. Jeongguk stayed close, steadying where needed, his movements controlled, his focus never lifting from the task.

Jimin was furious at Jeongguk—the lies, the secrets, the deaths that led back to him. But Jimin wasn't cruel. He couldn't leave Jeongguk in this dead city—couldn’t even bear the thought of doing so. And he'd promised—looked Jeongguk in the eye and swore to bring Yugyeom back for burial. Breaking that would plague his conscience for an eternity. So he watched, anger simmering, letting them finish.

“Stay here,” Jimin said, turning away from the sight and locking eyes with Taheyung. “We’ll get the horses.”

Hoseok nodded once in acknowledgment. Jeongguk didn’t respond, his attention still fixed downward, and Jimin didn’t wait for anything more before moving off with Taehyung at his side.

They retraced their path through the city in silence, the route back to where they had left Bora and Cheol familiar enough that it required no discussion. The horses were still there, restless but unharmed, the sound of their impatient stamps and snuffs growing the closer they got to the building. Jimin stepped inside, immediately moving to run a hand along Cheol’s neck, letting himself feel the warmth and steady pulse of the dark horse. Cheol’s ears twitched, his head lifting to sniff Jimin’s palm, likely looking for a treat for his patience. The mustang’s complete unawareness of the chaos that had just unfolded hours prior was almost comedic in a way. Both he and Jimin were living creatures, experiencing two different worlds despite standing in the same place. He sighed, loosening the reins and guiding Cheol free. Taehyung did the same with Bora, their movements quiet. They paused only briefly to check their surroundings before heading back to the clearing, and even then the words came sparingly.

“We’ll need to lock things down when we get back,” Taehyung said, adjusting the reins. “Everyone is going to have to stay on guard, and armed. Pups won’t be allowed outside without strict supervision.”

Jimin nodded, the motion small, automatic. “No one is allowed without a partner. We’ll instill the buddy system like back at the base.”

“And Joonkyung? The meeting?”

Jimin’s jaw tightened slightly. “We’ll deal with him when we have to. Right now, we need to reinforce our security.”

Taehyung studied him for a moment, then stepped a little closer, voice lowering.

“This isn’t on you. We’ll figure it out together, okay?”

Jimin heard him. Sure, they’d all decided to keep Jeongguk in the end, but the words passed through without settling any of his nerves. He swallowed thickly, and gave a short nod anyway before turning back toward the clearing, already moving. 

Jimin was the first line of defense, but also the last line. He was the last person to finally relent and accept Jeongguk. Then he took it a step further and made himself entirely vulnerable to the alpha. And though a part of Jimin knew that Jeongguk hadn’t intended for this to happen, that his goal wasn’t to destroy everything Jimin had worked so hard to maintain, he can’t help but feel so betrayed by the alpha’s stupidity. By his own stupidity. What burned the worst was that, in a way, Jimin’s initial apprehension had been validated—and he hated that so much. 

Hoseok and Jeongguk were ready when they returned to the clearing, the metal sheet secured and the rope looped and waiting. Jimin mounted Cheol without hesitation, settling onto the back of the horse with practiced ease, while Taehyung swung up behind him. On Bora, Hoseok took the front as Jeongguk climbed on behind him, securing the rope at his waist with steady hands, his gaze fixed ahead, never lifting toward Jimin. 

They rode out, the sled scraping behind them—an eerily steady, rough sound over the broken ground. It followed through the narrow streets, past crumbled walls and empty windows. Taehyung and Jeongguk kept watch, rifles steady, barrels tracking every alley mouth and rooftop silhouette. Hoseok gripped Bora's reins tight beside Jimin, matching pace, while Jimin held Cheol's with a firm hand, guiding them through the debris.

Jimin led, eyes scanning ahead, but his mind churned. What would he even say to the pack? The words wouldn't form, wouldn’t string together into anything cohesive. Faces flashed in his head—the others back at the farmhouse, still happily living and naive, trusting him to keep the dangers of the world out. How could he wake them with this? Joonkyung's voice echoed, that smooth promise of a meeting at dusk in a week’s time. This couldn’t exactly be avoided—Joonkyung knew their faces, and in a worst case scenario, he knew where they lived.

Jimin felt like a fraud. This "battle" hadn't even truly begun—just a skirmish, three bodies left cooling, Yugyeom dragging behind them in his hauntingly dead weight. Yet here he was, pretending he had it handled. He didn't want to picture their faces full of fear when he broke the news, eyes wide with the kind of dread that settled deep. Or worse—bloodied in the aftermath, sprawled like Yugyeom, chains mocking what was left.

He couldn't stomach it. Everything in him twisted at the thought. No. He had to do everything in his power to protect them, even if it took everything—every bullet, every sleepless night, every last drop of him.

The city thinned out, giving way to overgrown edges. No signs of followers, but Taehyung's rifle stayed up, Jeongguk's too, their breaths measured. The scrape of the sled matched the horses' steps, a grim rhythm pulling Jimin back to the now. The treeline loomed closer, and  Jimin's grip tightened on the reins. Whatever came next, he'd face it head-on.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The farmhouse emerged through the thinning trees, its weathered silhouette holding firm against the gray dawn light, a stubborn anchor in the unraveling world. For a split second, it looked serene, cocooned from the night's slaughter—the splintered bones of the city, the cold weight trailing behind on the sled. Jimin urged Cheol forward, gaze locked on the gates ahead, palms firm against the leather reins despite the storm raging inside his skull.

They'd slipped away under this same hush, the compound slumbering peacefully, oblivious to the shadows closing in. Now they were returning, dragging the filth of it all back with them.

He didn’t slow until they were close enough for the large gate to come into focus, the familiar creak sounding as it shifted in the breeze. He swung down from Cheol in one motion, boots hitting the ground with a dull thud. Then, he looped Cheol's reins over his arm alongside Bora's dangling lead. Hoseok and Taehyung swung down next, rifles unslung but grips loose, eyes sweeping their surroundings. Jeongguk lingered last before hopping down, the sheet metal groaning as he yanked the makeshift sled forward. Yugyeom's shrouded bulk shifted with each tug. 

“Treeline,” Jimin muttered, pointing in the direction of Nabi's grave. “By Nabi.”

Taehyung dipped his head in quick agreement and moved to support Jeongguk, the pair maneuvering the sheet past roots with a harsh scrape. Hoseok followed right behind, steps muffled on fallen leaves, his rifle slung loose across his back. Jeongguk kept his focus ahead, feet carving shallow tracks, muscles coiling with each heave. Jimin watched them go a second longer, the weight of both horses' leads heavy in his grasp. Cheol and Bora shifted restlessly at his side as he turned and shouldered the gates open alone. They banged shut at his back, muffling the trio's retreat.

The shift inside the compound was immediate. The quiet of early morning broke the second he stepped into the yard, movement picking up as people caught sight of him. Namjoon reached him first, crossing the distance quickly, Seokjin and Yoongi not far behind the alpha. Before Jimin could gather himself, they were on him, hands clamping onto Jimin's shoulders and arms, pulling him into their midst, urgency pulsing from them.

“Jimin, thank fuck you’re okay—why didn’t you come back last night?”

“What happened out there?”

“Where are the others?”

The questions came all at once, an overlapping chaos he couldn’t parse. Jimin stood there for a second, the noise pressing in from every direction, and it took more effort to force his voice through it. It was like they were stuck on the tip of his tongue, the words he needed sitting just out of reach. 

“They’re outside.” He nodded toward the gates, leads twisting as the horses tugged. “By the treeline. Near Nabi.”

He didn't realize the misdelivery of his words until he saw how Seokjin’s expression faltered, how Yoongi went still, and how Namjoon’s grip tightened just slightly as the meaning twisted in the space between them.

“They’re alive,” Jimin added quickly, before the silence could stretch any further. “They’re okay.”

Relief flickered across their faces then, postures loosening by degrees, though suspicion lingered in furrowed brows and sidelong glances.

“There’s a reason we didn’t come back last night,” he went on. “It’s…it’s a lot to talk about.”

Before he could say more, others began to gather, drawn in by the commotion. Voices rose again, questions piling on top of each other, each one pressing for an answer Jimin couldn’t seem to form. The sound blurred together, too many people speaking at once, too many directions to follow, and for a moment he couldn’t separate any of it enough to respond.

Get it together. You're the one they look to.

He should have been able to handle this—he thought that he’d always be able to. But his mind kept slipping, circling back to the fact that he’d have to admit yet another failure. Just like Choi Minji, just like Kang Nabi, he’d failed to protect his people once more. Namjoon intervened like a dam breaking a flood, his voice tone and authoritative.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he said, his voice cutting cleanly through all of the noise. “Everyone, back to your work.”

There was hesitation, curiosity lingering in the air, but his tone held. One by one, people stepped back, dispersing across the yard until the noise settled into something manageable again. 

“Byungho,” Namjoon called over his shoulder. The alpha then peeled from the barn doors, wiping oil from hands, jogging up. “Can you help me take the horses back to the barn? Feed them and whatnot.” 

Byungho took the reins from Jimin's numb fingers carefully, looking between Namjoon and Jimin. “Is everything alright? Jimin, are you okay?” He asked, eyebrows furrowing in concern. 

Jimin could only swallow and deliver a curt nod, not sure his voice would mask anything well. The alpha then glanced around him, eyes flitting toward Yoongi and Seokjin for what Jimin presumes to be some kind of hint as to what is going on. When they offered nothing, he turned back to Jimin.

Namjoon patted his shoulder then, drawing his attention back. “We’ll discuss everything later. Just take them into the barn, yeah?” Byungho nodded slowly, casting one last look at Jimin before leading Cheol and Bora away.

Namjoon pivoted without another word, striding over to the tool shed. Jimin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, the tightness in his chest easing just slightly. He followed Namjoon, the uneven path biting through his soles. Fatigue burned in his thighs from the endless running and riding, but he shoved it aside, eyes on the shed's yawning mouth. Namjoon pulled the door wide, the hinges crying out in protest, and reached for two of the worn shovels leaning against the wall. He handed one over without a word, just a steady look that said he wasn’t going to rush him—but he wasn’t going to let it go, either.

"Let's go." 

The trees thickened as they moved past the gates and closer toward the treeline, shadows shifting with the wind overhead. Up ahead, Taehyung and Hoseok had already set the sheet metal down beside Nabi’s grave. The mound was small, the stone marker worn from weather and time. Its edges had been softened by the seasons passing, often without ceremony. Thin green shoots pushed through the soil—stubborn even in this weather, but alive in a way that didn’t feel comforting so much as indifferent.

Jimin couldn’t remember the last time he’d come out here on purpose, since Jeongguk arrived. There had always been something else—repairs, runs, patrols, decisions that couldn’t wait. Things that felt more urgent in the moment, easier to justify. And somehow that had turned into weeks of walking past this place without stopping, without even looking properly.

He should have been the one tending it, clearing the weeds, resetting the marker when it shifted, making sure the ground didn’t sink unevenly after the rain. Instead, he’d let it sit—let her sit.

The guilt churned in his stomach. Nabi wasn’t just another grave on the edge of their land. She was here because of him—because of a call he’d made, a risk he’d taken. One of many, he could argue. Jimin forced himself to move again, stepping past it before the gravity of it all could root him in place.

Jeongguk was crouched near Yugyeom’s body, hands working carefully at the bindings. His face gave nothing away—closed off, unreadable. The body itself looked almost peaceful at a glance, but the marks around his neck told a different story, the chain having left its claim behind. Dust and dried grime still clung to him, remnants of everything they’d dragged him out of. Jimin slowed, then stopped a few steps away.

“This is Yugyeom,” he said, voice dropping to a near-whisper, roughened by the night's grit still coating his throat. “Jeongguk’s friend.”

He let the words sit for a moment before continuing. “We found him chained up. He’d already turned by then.”

Heavy silence filled the space between them, the state of Yugyeom’s body already spelling out the cruelty he’d endured. Jimin was partially grateful that no one asked any detailed questions about Yugyeom’s state—he wasn’t sure he nor Jeongguk had the strength to unravel Joonkyung’s strikingly clear and cruel intent for torture. Yugyeom had tragically turned into a howler, but the wounds he sported—there was no mistaking that there was more to the story. The chains, the mutilation, the intention behind it—it didn’t leave room for interpretation.

“Jeongguk helped him finally find peace,” Jimin added, his gaze flicking briefly toward the body before settling forward again. “I told him we’d bring him back and bury him here with Nabi.”

Yoongi stepped forward first, his gaze fixed on the body, his expression hardening as he took it in. Seokjin followed more slowly, his breath catching just slightly as the full weight of what they were looking at settled in.

“May his soul rest in peace,” he said quietly.

They began to dig without further discussion. Namjoon drove his shovel into the ground without ceremony, the blade stabbing through the dirt with a little resistance. Jimin followed his lead, falling into the rhythm almost immediately—push, lift, toss—again and again. The repetition dulled the noise in his head, gave his body something simple to focus on while the weight of everything else sat just out of reach. Dirt piled up beside them in uneven mounds, each shovelful landing heavier than the last.

Seokjin and Yoongi joined them quietly, carrying a tarp and a water tin. They moved without needing direction, stepping in to shape the edges of the grave, packing down the sides where the soil threatened to cave. Jimin caught the tightness in Seokjin’s expression, the way Yoongi’s jaw flexed as he worked. They could feel it—something off, something waiting to be said. They always could.

Jeongguk straightened slowly from his crouched position, putting space between himself and his friend. His gaze lifted and met Jimin’s across the pit. There was something there. Regret, maybe, or something harder, more set in place.

Jimin broke the stare first, driving his shovel back into the ground harder than before, the impact rattling up his arms. When the hole was ready, they moved together. Hoseok and Taehyung took the upper half, Namjoon and Jimin the legs, lifting Yugyeom carefully and lowering him onto the tarp before placing it back onto the metal beside the grave. The chain was set beside him, metal clinking softly against itself as they arranged it.

Jeongguk walked forward then. He stood there at the edge with his head lowered, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. For a moment, he just stood quietly, like he was trying to figure out where to start and couldn’t quite get there.

“He… was there,” he said finally. “Whenever things got bad—didn’t matter how bad—he stayed. Even when I told him not to, even when it would’ve been smarter for him to walk away, he just… didn’t.”

Jimin watched Jeongguk's shoulders tense under his shirt, the words pulling at something raw inside him. ‘He stayed’, Jimin thought, meant far more than the simple statement Jeongguk gave. Knowing that the alpha shared a similar dysfunctional family history, knowing that Jeongguk also felt alone like he did, meant that Yugyeom staying by his side held much more weight than anyone else would ever realize. 

Jeongguk let out a breath that caught halfway, his gaze fixed on the ground like he still didn’t trust himself to look anywhere else.

“When I couldn’t keep going, he dragged me through life. When I thought I was done trying to do anything for myself, he didn’t let me quit. He just kept showing up for me, over and over again, like it wasn’t even a choice for him.”

His jaw tightened slightly before he continued.

“I told him I’d do the same. I said I wouldn’t leave him behind, that whatever happened, I’d be there when it mattered.” The words slowed, heavier now. “I just… didn’t think it would be like this. Didn’t think this would be the moment that counted.”

The silence pressed in for a moment, but he didn’t stop. “I didn’t think I’d have to be the one to end his life,” he said, quietly, the edge in his voice giving way at the last syllable.

Immense guilt flooded Jimin then, thick and suffocating, pooling in his stomach like lead. He didn't believe in any higher power—there couldn’t be any gods pulling strings in this ruined world—but damn if it didn't feel like the universe had twisted into some vengeful karmic misfortune just to spite him. Just the night before, in the dim light of the greenhouse, he'd snapped at Jeongguk, voice laced with exhaustion and pain. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be responsible for the death of people you love.’ They were words thrown like jagged stones in the heat of the moment, after the constant back and forth between them on that endless night. 

Now here they stood at the bleakest wake imaginable, Yugyeom deserving so much better than a hasty hole in the cold, damp earth. Hell, Nabi and Minji deserved better too, their graves too pitiful. It felt like this was his fault, like those careless words had carried a curse, summoning this horror straight from the shadows. His pulse hammered in his ears, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. What kind of leader was he, if his actions and words doomed the people around him?

Jeongguk swallowed, then forced the last of it out.

“I won’t forget him. Not what he did for me. Not what he gave up.” A brief pause followed, his hand flexing once at his side before stilling again. “We weren’t blood, but that didn’t matter. He was my brother.”

The words hung in the air, heavy with everything left unsaid. Jimin felt the lump in his throat grow larger. He thought of his own losses, the promises he couldn't keep, the curse he'd unwittingly spoken. It was clear to him now, that Yugyeom and Jeongguk had been brothers forged in the fire of this world—stronger than blood, maybe, but just as quick to break. Jeongguk stepped back then, eyes still down, and the group shifted, ready to move.

They lowered Yugyeom into the ground together, the metal sheet scraping softly as they shifted it free from under the tarp and set it aside. The dirt followed in slow, careful layers, each pass of the shovel closing the distance between what had been and what remained. Jimin watched it happen without stepping in again, his focus fixed on the movement, on the way the earth settled into place, until there was nothing left to see. When it was done, the ground lay smoothed over beside Nabi’s, the two graves side by side at the edge of the trees.

They all stood there a little longer, no one saying anything. The quiet felt like it was growing thicker with every second that passed, Jimin's guilt a silent undercurrent beneath it all.

Eventually, they turned back toward the farmhouse. Hoseok and Seokjin led the way, shovels slung over their shoulders, Yoongi falling in step beside them with his usual quiet focus. Taehyung and Jeongguk trailed close behind, rifle at the ready. Jimin followed at a slower pace, his legs beginning to feel like heavy sacks with each inch forward. His gaze stayed fixed ahead on the distant outline of the gates, but his thoughts churned relentlessly. They circled the same points again and again, like a broken record—Joonkyung, Jeongguk, the promise he had made, the people waiting inside those walls they’d built. None of it resolved into clarity—it just looped, haunting and  laced with that lingering guilt from Yugyeom's grave.

Namjoon didn’t break away with the others. He hung back deliberately, his longer strides adjusting until he matched Jimin's rhythm, the space between them shrinking to nothing. Jimin sensed it immediately—the subtle shift in the air, the weight of expectation radiating off of the alpha. He knew what was coming next. Namjoon had since learned with great effort to wait for the right moment to start his barrage of questions, but he never let them go unanswered for too long.

Taehyung slowed a few steps ahead of them and glanced back, his gaze flicking briefly over Jimin before he gave a small, knowing nod. He raised two fingers, pointing directly at Seokjin and Yoongi—a silent promise that he'd break the news to them. Jimin nodded faintly, gratitude flooding in against the ache. Taehyung always knew the exact beat to intervene, his best friend reading him like an open book. But the warmth trickled away fast, twisting the knife harder as it dragged his mind back to Jeongguk. The alpha had just lost his person like that—for the second time. No one should endure that void repeating. 

Taehyung turned then, closing the gap to the others with a low murmur too distant to parse, drawing Seokjin and Yoongi aside as the group pressed toward the house, their voices fading into the yard's distant hum.

They stopped just inside the perimeter, the bars of the gate creaking shut behind them. Namjoon faced him then, his expression steady but probing, taking in the dirt-streaked clothes clinging to Jimin's skin, the faint tremor in his hands he hadn't quite shaken, the unyielding clench of his jaw. There were no words at first—just that unflinching regard. Then Namjoon closed the distance and drew him into an embrace, one broad hand pressing solid between Jimin's shoulder blades, the pressure intentional, pulling him back to the here and now.

Jimin stiffened on reflex, muscles locked against the vulnerability, caught somewhere between instinct and resistance. But the contact wore through the resistance; he let his eyes drift shut for a breath, inhaling the faint, familiar undertones of hay and Namjoon's fresh linen scent on his jacket—the comfort of farmhouse air, not the acrid burn of gunfire or the metallic tang of blood. It anchored him, if only for a fleeting second.

“Care to explain,” Namjoon murmured close to his ear, voice a low rumble without judgment, “why Hoseok’s sporting a fresh bullet graze and why you dragged a body home?”

There was no possible way to evade the question with that tone—soft, but laced with a directness that demanded truth. Namjoon eased back, his hand sliding to grip Jimin's arm, thumb pressing a steady rhythm against the tension there.

Jimin dipped his chin in a single nod, drawing air deep into his lungs to level his voice. He started from the beginning, words coming out even and precise, honed by years of having to deliver briefings. He walked Namjoon through the recon mission, through the empty camp and the howler chained at the edge of the clearing, through the moment a voice cut through the dark and the man who stepped into the firelight as if he had never left it.

“Kwon Joonkyung,” he said, the name tasting bitter on his tongue. “He was my former superior. We thought he’d died years ago—I mean, when Taehyung, Hoseok, and I left him on base, we were certain that he’d be gone by morning.”

Namjoon's brow furrowed, but he stayed quiet.

Jimin explained the encounter as clearly as he could—the men in the shadows, the tension threaded through every word Jimin exchanged with Joonkyung, the way they had been surrounded before they fully realized it. The conversation that went nowhere, and the change in energy that came too quickly to avoid. Then the gunfire.

Jimin kept it clean, the way he always did, laying out what happened without embellishment, though the echoes of it still rang somewhere behind his ears. The chase through the city followed, the sound of shots cutting too close, the narrow turns, the building they had taken refuge in when there had been nowhere left to run.

Namjoon's eyes widened fractionally, color draining from his face as the pieces locked in. “Holy shit, Jimin—are you saying I almost lost all of you out there?” His voice cracked on the edge, hand clenching harder on Jimin's arm, a clear uneasiness bleeding through.

“It was a close call, but you know that we can handle ourselves.” Jimin raked a hand through his hair. “We stayed hidden through the night,” he finished. “Made sure they weren’t still on us. That’s why we took so long getting back.”

“And now? Are you absolutely sure he doesn’t know where we are?” Namjoon asked

Jimin let out a slow shaky breath. For the first time in a while, he couldn’t quite mask his own uncertainty. He wanted to look Namjoon in the eye and tell him that he knew for a fact that Joonkyung wasn’t a direct threat. That there wasn’t a possibility that he’d slipped up, and revealed them all to the alpha. But Jimin knew it was no use.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, the confession burning as he forced it out of him. “I want to say I’m certain, but Kwon Joonkyung has changed. He was always a smart man, but it feels like—I don’t know, like he’s sharper…and dangerous. So, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know what kind of base he’s built out there, or how much he already knows about us.”

Namjoon nodded, processing it all with that steady focus of his, the alpha’s mind surely already mapping out the threats. He fired off questions then—how many men had Jimin counted, the exact kind of weapons they’d had, how they’d positioned themselves out in the streets. Jimin answered each one as directly as he could. It felt easier to stay there, in the practicality of things, in the factors that could be counted and understood. It didn’t last for long, because Jimin had to drop the bomb whether he wanted to or not.

“There’s something else,” Jimin said quietly.

Namjoon didn’t move, silently urging him to continue.

“Jeongguk was with them,” Jimin went on. “Before we found him, he’d stayed with Joonkyung’s group for a while.”

“What do you mean?” Namjoon’s brows furrowed, his expression steeling.

Jimin pressed on, laying it all out and keeping his voice even, but the details didn’t soften no matter how carefully he delivered them.

“And Yugyeom,” he added, clearing his throat. “The friend he was with, that was him—which you know now, but yeah. The howler. Joonkyung kept him chained up, said he was a ‘pet project’.”

“Jesus fucking christ, Jimin. This man sounds…”

“Fucking insane,” Jimin finished. “And I can’t wrap my head around how he could’ve turned out like this. Or why Jeongguk waited until we’d nearly been shot and fucking killed to say something,” He grit out, fist clenching. “And when he finished telling us, I…” He exhaled, looking off into the distance, tongue pressing into the side of his cheek. “I lost control.”

He flexed his hand without thinking, the bruised knuckles protesting with a fresh throb. Namjoon’s eyes tracked the motion, and before Jimin could wave it off, Namjoon snagged his wrist, turning his right hand palm-down in a firm but careful grip. The pain followed a second later, sharp now that the adrenaline had drained out of his system. Jimin hadn’t registered how much the pain had been building until now, hissing through his teeth as Namjoon’s thumb traced the damage lightly, probing the cuts and swells without mercy.

Namjoon clicked his tongue, low and exasperated, shaking his head. “Honestly,” he said after a beat, a thread of dark humor weaving through, “thank fuck it was you who did it. Hoseok may be a good shot, but he would’ve probably hurt himself delivering a blow like that. And I don’t want to hear his complaining when he spoons me or Seokjin-hyung properly tonight.”

Jimin blinked at him, caught off guard. A knot in his chest eased just fractionally, enough for the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth—a ghost of a smile that disappeared as quickly as it came. Namjoon let it slide, his expression softening into something rawer as he met Jimin’s eyes again.

“We’ll deal with all of this shit, but how are you?” he asked.

Jimin frowned slightly, not quite expecting that to be the next question. “I’m fine,” he answered automatically, pulling his hand back.

It was clear that the alpha wasn’t buying it though, because his brows furrowed further, jaw working as he tilted his head slightly. “How are you?” he repeated, slower this time.

Jimin’s exhale came heavier, deflating him. He sagged back against the gate, the rusted metal pressing a chilled bite into his spine through his shirt. He tipped his head upwards, letting it rest on the gate as well as he stared into the empty sky, gray clouds stretched endless above, the wind picking up to rake cold fingers across his face, tugging at his hair, chilling the sweat drying on his neck. His breath fogged out in uneven bursts, visible and fragile against the chill.

“I don’t know,” he murmured finally, the truth slipping free like a held breath. It felt like the closest to honesty than anything else he could muster up.

His mind scrambled anyway, latching onto the actionable, the familiar shape of his usual command. “We need to lock this whole place down,” he said, voice firming as he straightened. “We can double training drills, stagger the watches and make them more frequent, sweep the perimeter twice daily. They have to be drilled for worst-case—I mean, they need to get really fucking comfortable with the idea of killing another human. That’s the only way—”

Namjoon’s hand settled on his arm again, light but halting. “Jimin.”

The single word cut through, pulling him up short. Jimin’s mouth snapped shut, the plans fracturing under Namjoon’s steady regard. No judgment there, just that unflinching presence, seeing through the armor to the frayed edges beneath.

“We will,” Namjoon said quietly. “We’ll talk about everything—new strategies, our weapons, all of it.” His thumb pressed once against the tension in Jimin’s forearm—a reminder, a tether. “But I asked about you, Jimin. I want to know about you right now.”

Jimin’s brows knit, confusion rippling across his features before he could mask it. “I told you how I was—I said I don’t know—”

“How do you feel about you and Jeongguk?” The alpha cut in.

Jimin’s body went rigid, defenses snapping up like rusted barbed wire. “There’s nothing—” The denial came quickly, automatic, but Namjoon cut him off with a subtle shake of his head.

“Call it whatever you want,” he replied. “Love, obsession, whatever the hell it is—it’s there. You two aren’t as subtle as you think.”

Heat crawled up Jimin’s neck, words lodging thick in his throat. He parted his lips, then clamped them shut. Shit. Had they truly been that obvious? Namjoon’s face stayed composed, though Jimin was sure he looked quite the opposite.

“I think…because I’ve known you for many years now…it makes sense to me that you’re hurt,” he continued. “Even when I try to get you to relax sometimes, you’re always trying to find the next threat to subdue. So I get that you feel betrayed. He kept something from you that matters, and it’s something that affects all of us.”

Jimin let out a slow breath as he stepped back again, his shoulders grinding deeper into the gate’s unyielding frame as a fresh gust sliced across the yard, carrying the bite of frost. “I just…” He trailed off, his gaze drifting back to the sky. “I don’t know what to do with it. These…all of these things I’m feeling right now. I’m—to be honest, I’m a little embarrassed that I lost my cool,” he held up his hand, wiggling his swollen fingers slowly. “I know that’s not what should be expected of me.”

Namjoon was quiet for a moment before speaking again.

“I’m not angry that you hit him,” he said. “Though that wasn’t really the smartest action you could’ve taken. I think he withheld something important that you wouldn’t have hesitated to share with us, especially given that this information is crucial for the pack right now.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened slightly at the alpha’s words.

“But you stopped there, and you didn’t leave him out there to die.”

There was no way he could do that. Even as he’d driven his fist into Jeongguk’s face, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He wasn’t even sure where his anger was directed anymore— or if it was fear that drove him to hit Jeongguk like that. Jimin was feeling anything and everything, all at once. But amongst the storm raging in his mind, not once would he dare consider doing that to Jeongguk. Just like with his promise to properly bury Yugyeom, Jimin wasn’t sure his conscience would ever let him live with abandoning Jeongguk…nor would his heart.

“You brought him back,” Namjoon said. “You even kept your promise to bury his friend  Yugyeom.” He held his hand out in the direction of the two graves, a small frown on his lips. “He’s going to have a lot to answer for. If he wants to earn back any kind of trust, it starts with giving us the truth. All of it. To everyone.”

Jimin nodded slowly, the motion reluctant but certain. The truth needed to be told. He just wasn’t sure how much, and when the right time would be. 

“He’s still pack,” Namjoon finished, his voice soft.

Jimin’s stare fell to the frosty gravel, then dragged upward, fixing on the shadowed treeline. He gave another nod, and his head was beginning to pound from the stress.

“Yeah,” the syllable scraped free as Jimin cleared his throat. “He is.”

Hesitation coiled next, the question burning on his tongue. He turns to look at Namjoon, whose gaze had drifted back toward the farmhouse.

“Why…are we doing so much to protect him?”

Namjoon drew a deep breath, eyes flicking distant for a beat before locking back. “Hell if I know.” Honesty edged his tone. “If it were anyone else… perhaps this situation would look a lot different.”

He paused, then a faint, tired smile tugging at his lips. “But I think that’s the part of us we haven’t lost yet,” he said. “The part that still sees people as more than what they’ve done.”

His focus pinned Jimin, unblinking. “We’re nothing but flesh and fault—not those perfect heroes carved in stone monuments. You included, Jimin.”

Jimin held his gaze, the wind howling faintly through the trees beyond the gate. The ache in his hand throbbed in time with his pulse, a dull counterpoint to the storm building inside. 

He nodded once, shallow, forcing air deeper into his lungs. “Yeah. Okay.”

Jimin lingered against the gate a moment longer, the chill wind carving deeper into his bones as Namjoon's words echoed in the hollows of his mind. They didn't erase the raw sting of betrayal or the gnawing dread of Joonkyung's shadow creeping closer, but they blunted the edges enough to breathe.

Namjoon’s fingers curled around Jimin’s elbow, guiding without force, the pressure a quiet insistence that brooked no real argument.

“You need to get that hand seen by Jiwon,” he said, already steering them across the yard toward the farmhouse’s side path. “Before the swelling gets any uglier.”

Jimin exhaled through his nose, something tired slipping into it. The ache had settled deep now that everything else had worn off, a steady throb that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He flexed his fingers once on instinct and immediately regretted it.

“It’s fine,” he muttered, gaze fixed ahead on the infirmary’s weathered door, its hinges scarred from hasty openings. “I’ve honestly had worse.”

The alpha didn’t even look at him, continuing to gently tug him along. “I don’t care.”

They’d covered half the distance when Jimin planted his heels, gravel skittering under his soles. The yard’s bustle blurred at the edges—Hoseok’s low curses as he flexed his bandage, Minseok’s hammer strikes echoing off the barn—but it all felt secondary to the knot twisting in his gut.

“Namjoon-hyung.”

The other man halted instantly, turning to face him fully, expression patient but alert. Jimin didn’t look at him right away. His gaze drifted past the yard instead, catching on the familiar movement of people settling back into their routines—unaware, still untouched by what had followed them home. The normalcy of it sat wrong in his chest.

“When…when are we telling them? Joonkyung knows us. Our faces, and probably this place. A week isn’t shit if he hits first. We need eyes out, traps set up—everything.”

Namjoon’s jaw worked once, weighing it. “I know.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Tonight,” the alpha replied, rubbing a hand over his chin. “We hash the details—you, me, everyone who saw it. Then we face the pack. That way, there won’t be any half-guessing, or panic rippling out ahead of facts.”

Jimin’s brows pulled together slightly. “Tonight?”

Namjoon nodded once, glancing back toward the yard. “If we tell them right now, it’s gonna turn into a bunch of noise. People theorizing about the worst, talking over each other, getting ahead of themselves in a panic.” His attention shifted back, quieter but just as firm. “We figure out exactly what they need to hear. Then we give it to them all at once.”

Namjoon held Jimin’s stare, the logic settling in like a cold weight. He didn’t like it—didn’t like the idea of letting this sit, even for a few hours, while everyone moved around like nothing had changed. But he could already picture it—the questions piling up, whispers turning into shouts and supplies being grabbed in haste. The tension would spread faster than anything he could contain.

A slow breath left him, some of the edge in his shoulders easing as he gave another small, reluctant nod. “…Alright.”

Namjoon’s hand lifted from his elbow to his bicep before delivering a brief squeeze—solid, grounding—before he nodded toward the path. “Go get that fixed now,” he said.

Jimin didn’t argue this time.

They split near the steps of the farmhouse porch without another word, Namjoon turning back toward the others while Jimin veered off toward the infirmary. The further he moved from the yard, the more the noise of everything behind him dulled, until it felt distant—like something happening a few steps out of reach. The throb in his hand filled the space instead. He flexed his fingers again without thinking, then stilled them, jaw tightening as the pain followed immediately.

He was close enough to reach for the door when it creaked open. Jeongguk stepped out into the space, one hand holding an ice pack against his jaw, the wrap beneath it stark white. Up close, there was no missing it—the swelling where Jimin had hit also began to set in, bruising already darkening along the line of his jaw, his lip puffed and split just enough to pull at the skin when he moved. Jimin froze, air thickening between them as they finally made proper eye contact since last night.

Jeongguk’s free hand braced the jamb, body tensing as recognition hit. His mouth parted, voice rough from disuse. “J-Jimin—”

Jimin shook his head before the rest could come out. “No, Jeongguk. Not now.” The words scraped out, laced with exhaustion he couldn’t strip away. “I can’t. I just… I can’t.”

Jeongguk’s gaze dropped. Whatever had been building behind his eyes stilled instead, his grip tightening slightly around the ice pack as he nodded once. There was no argument, just that quiet retreat Jimin both hated and craved. Jimin didn’t wait for the alpha to say anything else. He stepped forward, brushing past him with just enough contact to feel it, and pulled the door closed without looking back. The quiet inside closed in around him, completely cutting off everything else before it could follow.

He was still gripping the handle, the knob rough under his palm, when voices bled through the inner door—the one that led from the small entry alcove to the main room where Jiwon kept her supplies and cot. He’d walked this path a hundred times, knew the creak of the second hinge, the way the floor dipped near the threshold. But he stopped shy of it, just barely, the sound of Taehyung’s soft laugh catching him off guard.

“—perfectly fine, and you know I’d never leave Jimin to do anything like that by himself.”

It was light, almost teasing, but there was a thread of earnestness underneath that made Jimin’s chest pull. He pictured Taehyung’s grin, the way his eyes crinkled when he was trying to smooth over worry with charm.

Then the low rumble of Yoongi’s voice drifted through. It wasn't the sharp, biting tone Yoongi used with the rest of the pack in serious situations. It was something softer, though laced with a frantic, jagged edge of anxiety.

“I understand that, baby, I do,” Yoongi countered, and Jimin could almost hear the way the older man was hovering, perhaps adjusting a bandage or brushing hair out of Taehyung’s eyes. The tenderness in the word ‘baby’ was visceral, a raw display of affection that all of a sudden  felt almost too private to overhear. 

“Then you know that I won’t stop—”

“I said I understand, but you know that I can’t lose you. I can’t. I’m coming next time, no matter what. You aren't going on another mission without me.”

The shift was subtle in the older alpha’s tone—not angry, or the typical demand Jimin would expect from alphas. It was more like the kind of firmness that came from a place so deep it couldn’t be argued with, because it was carved from love that had already survived the end of the world.

Jimin’s throat constricted as he stood frozen in the narrow hallway, one hand still on the outer door, the other limp at his side. Slowly, he let his grip loosen, then closed his eyes as he turned to lean his head back against the wall. The cold from the yard clung to his clothes, but inside, something else was spreading—slow and unfamiliar, like frost creeping over glass.

He heard Yoongi’s footsteps, the soft pad of boots across the worn floor, then the rustle of fabric that must have been him pulling Taehyung closer. A quiet murmur followed, too low to catch the words, but the tone was still unmistakably full of love. There was another soft laugh from Taehyung, then a contented sigh that spoke of a deep, unshakable security.

Jimin’s eyes burned, and a wave of warmth washed over him—a genuine, aching love for the two of them. He wanted that for them. He wanted them to have this sanctuary, this fierce, protective bond that could withstand the collapse of the world outside their gates. He was happy for them.

But underneath that, threading through the hollow of his chest, came a twinge. It was a sharp, unfamiliar sting, a cold needle of longing that pierced through his exhaustion. Jealousy.

The word sat sour on his tongue, even unspoken. Jimin didn’t want to feel it. It felt ugly, ungrateful, after everything Taehyung and Yoongi had done for him—after Taehyung had loyally stood beside him for the last fifteen years, after Yoongi had joined them six years ago, and hasn’t wavered in his dedication to both Taehyung and him. They were his family. He’d die for them, and they for him.

But he was also alone in the hallway, listening to them hold each other, and the contrast sliced deeper than he expected. 

His mind drifted back to Jeongguk. Not as he’d just seen him—bruised, jaw swollen, eyes uncertain—but as he’d been in quieter moments. He thought of the way Jeongguk had looked at him—that wide-eyed, desperation. He remembered the pleas, the way Jeongguk had begged to be the one to protect him, to have his back, to be the shield Jimin didn't think he deserved. ‘Then let me help carry it. Stop acting like you’re alone in this fight.’ Those words, spoken with a conviction that had made Jimin’s pulse stutter before he’d shoved it down. Before the truth had unraveled everything.

‘I can’t lose you.’

Yoongi’s voice echoed in that same space between memory and reality, and Jimin’s jaw tightened. For a fleeting, dangerous moment, Jimin had almost let the walls crumble. He had almost let himself believe that maybe—just maybe—he could lower the walls for once. Let someone in all the way, not just far enough to provide temporary warmth. Let Jeongguk stand beside him, not just behind him. Let there be something that wasn’t just survival, wasn’t just duty, wasn’t just the weight of keeping everyone alive. Now, the memory felt like a taunt. He’d been right.

Feelings—whatever that shape was taking in his chest—would never work out for him. The moment he’d started to reach for it, the ground had opened beneath his feet. Now, all Jimin could see was the betrayal that ran deeper than any enemy’s bullet, because it came from someone he’d slowly started to trust with more than just his pack.

The jealousy curdled, twisting into something else. Grief, maybe. For what could have been, if the world wasn’t rotten to its core. If he’d been someone else—someone who wasn’t burdened with responsibilities, someone who didn’t have blood on his hands and guilt carved into his bones.

But he was still angry. Angry at Jeongguk, for hiding the truth. At himself, for not pushing harder, for letting the comfort of having someone close lull him into complacency. He should have hounded Jeongguk more from the start, should have pulled every secret out of him like splinters before they could fester. He’d been too soft, and without truly realizing it, he’d become too desperate for the warmth of another body near his own. And now he was paying for it.

But there was empathy there too, tangled in the same knot. He knew what Jeongguk had survived now—the horrors that Joonkyung forced him through, the machete in his hand turning as he witnessed his only friend turn into a corpse. He knew the weight that sat on Jeongguk’s shoulders, separate from but parallel to his own. And that knowledge made the anger harder to hold, because how could he hate someone for trying to bury the worst parts of themselves? How could he hate Jeongguk for doing exactly what he did himself every day?

The sadness settled in last, quiet and heavy, dragging his gaze down to the worn floor.

Jimin was selfish. That was the ugliest part. Even now, with Joonkyung out there, with the pack’s safety hanging by a thread, with his hand throbbing and his mind frayed, he was making room for this. For the hollow ache of almost-having. For the sting of watching Taehyung and Yoongi hold each other while he stood outside, alone, listening.

‘You don’t get to feel this,’ he told himself, but the thought rang hollow. The feeling didn’t care about what he deserved.

And maybe that was actually the worst of it—the way the emotions didn't line up, didn't take turns. They hit him all at once, a storm with no eye, no calm center. Love for his friends. Bitter jealousy. Rage at Jeongguk, but also pity for him. Guilt for feeling anything at all. Fear of Joonkyung's next move. Grief for Choi Minji, for Nabi, for Yugyeom—a man he hadn’t even known personally. Yearning for something he'd never let himself name. They swirled together until he couldn't tell which was which, until his chest felt too full and too empty at the same time, until he wanted to scream and collapse and run all in the same breath.

From inside the room, Taehyung’s voice came again, softer now. “I love you too, you know.”

A pause, then Yoongi’s reply, barely a murmur. “I know.”

Jimin’s hand slipped completely from the door handle. He stood there a moment longer, the cold seeping into his injured hand until it numbed the pain into something distant. Jimin took a slow, shuddering breath, trying to push the jealousy back down into the dark, alongside the guilt and the grief. He couldn't afford the luxury of longing. He had to be the leader, had to be the one who didn't break.

He pushed himself off the wall, his knuckles throbbing in rhythm with the heavy beat of his heart, and finally made his way toward the inner door. With a trembling hand, he reached for the door handle, pushing it open. The door swung open, and the warmth of the infirmary hit him first—the faint smell of antiseptic, the low glow of a lamp, the soft rustle of fabric as Taehyung and Yoongi shifted apart.

Yoongi loosened his hold on his mate, his hand sliding from Taehyung's waist to rest on his shoulder, while Taehyung turned his head, his smile already forming as his eyes landed on Jimin.

"There he is," Taehyung said, voice light, as if they hadn't just been wrapped in a moment Jimin had no right to witness. He stepped back, giving Yoongi room, and gestured to the old wooden chair beside the examination cot. "Come sit. Your hand looks like it just got out of a fight with a concrete wall.”

Jimin's lips twitched—almost a smile, but not quite. He crossed the room, the floor echoing under his boots, and lowered himself onto the chair. The wood was hard, the cushion long since worn thin, but it was familiar. He'd sat here a dozen times, waiting for stitches or splints or a lecture about pushing himself too far. Today, the familiarity felt extra heavy.

Taehyung settled onto the edge of the cot, crossing his legs and tilting his head to study Jimin with that particular blend of concern and amusement he wielded like a shield. "That punch looked solid. Tell me you at least feel satisfied with that right hook you landed."

"Tae," Yoongi said, voice low, a warning wrapped in tired affection.

"What? I'm just saying. If he's going to fuck up his knuckles, there should be some payoff."

Jimin let out a short breath. "It felt…a little good…if I’m being honest."

"Good." Taehyung nodded, satisfied. "Then it was worth it."

Jimin would have agreed, would have let the small victory settle in his chest like a balm. But the image of Joonkyung standing in firelight pushed in instead, followed too quickly by Yugyeom’s body wrapped in tarp, by the dull echo of bone under his knuckles, by the way Jeongguk had looked at him in the doorway—jaw bruised, eyes lowered, still trying to speak even though Jimin had been quick to shut him down. The room felt smaller with it.

Yoongi turned to the narrow cabinet beside the cot, the one where Jiwon kept her supplies. But his hand went past the bandages, past the splints, reaching instead for the back corner where a dark bottle stood half-hidden behind a stack of clean rags. Jimin watched the movement, a faint crease forming between his brows.

Jimin blinked. "Is that—"

"Don't ask." Yoongi pulled the bottle out, uncorked it with a soft pop, and the sharp scent of cheap grain alcohol cut through the air. He found a small glass on the windowsill—dusted, clearly unused—wiped it on his sleeve, and poured a modest measure with steady hands. Then, he held it out toward him. Jimin looked at the glass, then up at Yoongi, a question forming in the furrow of his brow.

Yoongi didn't offer any explanation. He just stepped closer, took Jimin's uninjured hand, and pressed the glass into his palm, curling Jimin's fingers around it. The gesture was firm, insistent, but not unkind.

"Drink," Yoongi said.

"I don't—"

"Jimin." Yoongi's voice dropped, quiet enough that Taehyung's teasing faded into background noise. "You've been through a hell of a lot in the last twenty-four hours. Jiwon can spare a few mouthfuls of her stash. She made me hunt for that bottle all through a bar while she kept yelling at me to check the cellar, so she owes me."

"She's going to notice," Jimin said, but his fingers were already tightening around the glass.

"Let her." Yoongi's hand dropped, but his gaze stayed. "Right now, you need this more than she needs that bottle full."

Jimin stared at the pale liquid, watched the way it caught the lamplight, and thought about all the things he couldn't say. The overwhelming mess of emotions rushing through him. The guilt that gnawed at him for feeling it at all. The weight of every decision he'd made in the past few days, every life he'd ended last night, every promise he'd broken.

He raised the glass to his lips. The alcohol burned going down—cheap and harsh and exactly what he needed. It settled in his stomach like a small, hot coal, and for a moment, the edges of his thoughts softened. Behind him, the door opened, and Jiwon stepped through, wiping her hands on a cloth. She took one look at Jimin's hand and her expression shifted into something brisk and clinical.

"Let me see it."

She didn't wait for permission, crossing the room to him. The beta pulled a stool beside the chair, and reached for his hand with a gentleness. Her fingers were cool against his swollen knuckles as she turned his palm up, examined the bruising, probing the edges of the damage with careful pressure.

Jimin let her. He took another slow sip of the alcohol, letting it burn, letting it anchor him to the present. Taehyung was watching him now, quieter, the teasing gone from his expression. Yoongi stood by the cabinet, arms crossed, like a silent guardian at the edge of the room.

And Jimin couldn't meet any of their eyes. He focused on the dull throb in his hand instead, on the way Jiwon’s fingers traced the damage, on the steady pull of breath in and out of his chest. It was easier that way—easier than thinking about the doorway, about what Jeongguk had probably tried to say, about how close he’d let himself get to the alpha before it all broke. He swallowed another mouthful of the alcohol, ignoring the way it continued to burn. For now, that would have to be enough.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12 : A Drink For The Damned

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

By the time they gathered in Jeongguk’s shed, the farm had gone quiet beneath the weight of winter night. Wind moved through the outer fencing in long, dry breaths, carrying the faint creak of strained wire and the distant rustle of bare branches beyond the perimeter. The rest of the compound had already begun folding into darkness, lanterns dimmed low to preserve fuel, patrol shifts rotating in murmured voices outside the walls. 

Inside the shed, however, a fragile warmth lingered—the remnants of a crackling fire that had burned low, the heat trapped by the close quarters and the press of seven bodies. 

Jimin paused at the threshold, his hand resting on the rough wooden frame. The smell hit him first—dust, old wood, and the metallic tang of blood that had long since dried but never fully faded. But beneath that, woven into the very grain of the shed, was something else. Something that made his stomach clench and his pulse quicken despite every rational thought screaming at him to turn around and walk away. Jeongguk.

The shed was saturated with him, and held too many memories—Jeongguk half-delirious with fever while Jimin sat awake through the night changing bandages beneath dim lanternlight. The sharp sting of medicinal alcohol soaking through cloth. Frost melting from boots abandoned by the door. Low conversations exchanged in exhausted whispers while the rest of the farm slept outside. And beneath all of that, buried deeper and far more dangerously, the memory of Jeongguk’s hands sliding beneath his clothes, the rough sound of his breathing against Jimin’s throat, the way Jimin had once melted willingly into the heat of his body right here within these same walls.

The memories arrived whole instead of fragmented, vivid enough to make irritation flare hot beneath his skin. This was not what he needed to be reminded of right now.

The others had already filed in ahead of him, settling into their positions with the practiced ease of people who had cramped themselves into this shed a hundred times before. Taehyung ducked through first with Yoongi close behind him, both carrying traces of frost on their coats. Taehyung shoved his beanie halfway off immediately, running cold-reddened fingers through flattened hair while muttering something under his breath about Seokjin being right that seven grown men absolutely could not fit comfortably inside this shed. Yoongi ignored him entirely and settled against the wall by the window, crossing his arms as his sharp gaze swept once around the room.

Namjoon took the stool near the bed, his long fingers drumming once against his thigh before stilling. Jeongguk sat on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped between his knees, his gaze fixed on a knot in the wood floor. Hoseok and Seokjin sat on the floor near the makeshift fireplace, their shoulders brushing, their faces drawn in identical lines of exhaustion and determination. 

The silence stretched, thick and expectant. Jimin closed the door behind him, the latch clicking into place with a finality that seemed to seal them all inside. He crossed to the far wall, pressing his back against the rough-hewn planks. The ache in his bandaged hand was a dull, rhythmic throb that matched the beating of his heart. The salve Jiwon had slathered over the torn skin was already working—he could feel the cool tingle spreading through his knuckles, numbing the worst of it—but it did nothing for the hollow space in his chest. Jimin let his gaze sweep over the room. Seven people. Seven bodies breathing the same air, carrying the same weight. And at the center of it all, the alpha who had turned their world inside out.

Namjoon broke the silence first, his voice low and measured. “Tell us what you know about the compound. We need to know exactly what we’re getting into.”

Jimin watched the muscles in Jeongguk’s throat work as he swallowed hard. He watched the way his hands clenched between his knees, the way his scent turned acrid with something that might have been shame or fury or both.  Jeongguk exhaled slowly through his nose. For a moment he seemed to search for the right place to begin, gaze fixed somewhere near the floorboards rather than anyone’s face. When he finally spoke, his voice came roughened by exhaustion.

“The compound’s underground. Mostly old subway infrastructure, but some of the tunnels have been expanded.” He rubbed one hand once against the back of his neck before continuing. “Apparently after everything collapsed, they started sealing sections off and reinforcing others.”

Namjoon nodded once for him to keep going. As Jeongguk spoke, the shed slowly quieted around him. He described narrow tunnel approaches designed to bottleneck any kind of movement. The train cars are practically welded into barricades deep below the city streets. The guarded positions hidden along maintenance walkways, and the generator rooms that ran off of diesel, and guarded heavily enough that nobody without clearance could get close. The station platforms had been converted and lined with sleeping quarters and supply storage.

The deeper he got into the explanation, the easier it became for Jimin to picture it all. Cold concrete corridors stretching endlessly underground. Rusted pipes dripping condensation somewhere overhead. Armed guards standing watch beneath flickering industrial lights while civilians moved carefully around them with their heads lowered. The entire place operating beneath the rigid spine of military order twisted into something harsher over the years.

“A direct assault would be like walking straight past hell’s gates,” Jeongguk said quietly. “The tunnels are too narrow. They’ve got elevated firing positions at every approach, multiple fallback routes that connect through service shafts and maintenance passages.” Jeongguk’s voice dropped. “If you don’t know the tunnels, you’re dead before you reach the first checkpoint. You’d never see even half of the guards before they started firing.”

“Makes sense—the darkness alone gives them an advantage,” Yoongi muttered.

Jeongguk nodded immediately. “Yeah.”

Silence settled over the room. Jimin could feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders, could see the calculations running behind everyone’s eyes. They had faced hostile groups before. Fought for supplies, for territory, for the simple right to exist. But this was different. This wasn’t a pack of desperate survivors trying to steal enough food to last another winter that they could scare away with the sight of their guns. This was virtually a military operation on its own.

“Joonkyung practically runs the place like a military state. Everyone gets assigned work, and the food’s rationed depending on contribution. Guards monitor most movements, so once you’re in,” he shakes his head. “Well, you know what happens when you try to escape.” His expression flattened further with each sentence, voice thinning into something colder. No one interrupted him.

“Omegas get it the worst,” he said after a beat. “Them and weaker survivors. Fear is the only thing that keeps the place running. Everyone is too terrified to even look a guard in the eye.”

The image of broken people, stripped of their dignity and reduced to mere tools for Joonkyung’s ambition, made Jimin’s blood run cold. He felt a sudden, desperate need to organize this chaos, to turn this nightmare into something he could strategize against. So he let himself picture it—the tunnels, dark and close. The barricades, looming and impassable. The constant eyes, watching, judging, cataloging. He could feel it in his bones, the way a place like that would suck the air out of your lungs, the way it would strip away everything soft and human until all that was left was survival.

Before he could sit with the feeling too long, he pushed himself off the wall and crossed toward the pile of scrap paper and supplies in the corner. His fingers moved automatically, wetting the edges of the papers with a quick touch of his tongue, pressing them together until they stuck, forming a larger sheet. The papers curled stubbornly at the edges from age.

Jimin then crouched in the center of the shed and pressed the corners down against the floorboards with irritated precision before beginning to sketch rough lines across the surface. He focused on the choke points Jeongguk described, marking the guard stations with harsh pencil strokes and sketching the labyrinthine routes of the service shafts. The thick bandages on his hand made the lines uneven, but the shapes were clear. The compound took form under his fingers, a spiderweb of concrete and steel and desperation. Conversation stalled around him for a moment as everyone peered to see what Jimin was conjuring up.

Then the mattress creaked softly overhead as Jeongguk lowered himself from the bed and down beside him without a word. The alpha crouched down, settling shoulder to shoulder with Jimin, their bodies close enough that Jimin could feel the warmth radiating off him. Close enough that he caught a whisper of that familiar pine smoke scent.

Jimin hated how his body reacted. How his shoulders relaxed, just a fraction. How his scent gland pulsed, an involuntary response he could not control. He caught himself breathing deeper, trying to pull more of that scent into his lungs, and had to physically stop himself. He shouldn’t want this—shouldn’t feel like he almost needs it. But Jeongguk’s scent had weaved its way into everything in Jimin’s life, and had become the background sound of his survival over the past months. The first thing he had smelled when he had woken up countless times in Jeongguk’s shed. The last thing he had breathed before sleep took him. 

Jeongguk's hand moved, pointing at a corner of Jimin's drawing. "The main entrance is here. They have two guards posted at all times, rotating every four hours. The gate is reinforced steel, jury-rigged from a shipping container. They welded it into the tunnel mouth so that there is no way around it."

Jimin adjusted the map, adding the gate and marking the guard positions. His pencil moved, and Jeongguk kept pointing and explaining, their voices overlapping as they filled in the details. Access shaft here. Generator room there. This tunnel connects to the main hub, but it is set up with tripwires connected to alarms.

“This corridor here used to connect to one of the maintenance exits,” Jeongguk said quietly, pointing toward a narrow line Jimin had drawn branching away from the main tunnel network. “Joonkyung sealed part of it off after two workers escaped through there last year.”

Taehyung’s head lifted from where he sat leaning against the wall. “Escaped successfully?”

Jeongguk hesitated.

“No,” he answered after a moment. “One froze before making it above ground. The other got dragged back.”

Silence settled heavily through the shed again. The fire popped softly near the wall. Jimin kept his eyes on the map, though something unpleasant shifted low in his stomach at the image those words built too easily in his head. Someone desperate enough to claw their way through underground maintenance tunnels in winter knowing the cold might kill them faster than staying would.

“What happened to them afterward?” Hoseok asked quietly.

Jeongguk’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly. “Same thing they did to Yugyeom and I. They made an example out of him.”

The conversation drifted back toward logistics quickly, partly because there was nothing useful to do with horror besides move through it and keep talking. Namjoon asked about numbers next.

“It’s hard to say exactly anymore. When I left…” He paused briefly, mentally recalculating. “Maybe around fifty people total? Closer to sixty if they kept bringing survivors in.”

Taehyung let out a low whistle beneath his breath.

“Jesus christ—that many underground?” Seokjin muttered.

“They’ve had years to build that station up,” Jeongguk replied. “And people get desperate during winter. Joonkyung knows how to make the worst conditions sound like safety to desperate ears.”

Jimin finally glanced back up at that. Jeongguk’s gaze remained lowered toward the map spread between them, but tension pulled visibly through the line of his shoulders now, through the slight tightening around his mouth each time he spoke about the compound. There was no defensiveness in him tonight. No attempt to soften what the place had become or excuse the people running it.

“It seems like he’s got exactly what he wants. So why does he need to meet with Jimin?” Seokjin asked, his voice quiet.

That question had been circling all of them since the moment they returned from the city, lingering unspoken beneath every discussion about barricades and tunnels and rifles. Because with the way they were approached, there was no doubt Joonkyung had reached out intentionally. He had wanted contact, which meant he wanted something.

Taehyung scoffed, the sound harsh in the confined space. “I mean, aside from the fact that we’ve killed three of his men? My best guess is that he wants to convince Jimin to join him. He’s always had a weird attitude toward him.”

Jimin’s pencil stilled against the paper.

“Think about it,” Taehyung continued, his voice dropping into something almost bitter as he looked toward Jimin. “He always had a weird fixation on you. Even before everything went to shit.”

Jimin frowned faintly. “You mean because I was one of our only omega recruits.”

Jeongguk’s posture shifted almost imperceptibly beside Jimin at the word omega, though he remained silent.

“At first, yeah,” Taehyung admitted. “That’s what I thought too. But you were one of the best soldiers, if not the best in our unit. He fought to make you captain for a reason.”

Taehyung rubbed his chin absently while gathering the rest of his thoughts together. “But the bottom line is, Joonkyung’s clearly been watching us roam the city. He knows Jimin pulled this group together, kept everyone alive through the worst of it. In his outdated view, Jimin’s practically an anomaly."

“So what—you think he’s after Jimin and our pack?” Hoseok asks, deeper lines etching into his expression as his brows furrowed.

Taehyung sighed and tipped his head back toward the ceiling again. “Hell if I know.” Then, after a beat, he speaks again. “But I’d bet my last bullet that whatever the fuck he wants, it isn’t anything good.”

The uncertainty settled sourly in Jimin’s stomach. He had always trusted his own instincts, his own ability to read people and situations before they turned dangerous. That confidence had kept him alive through military operations, through Day Zero, through the years of surviving a world that devoured careless people quickly. And yet lately, it felt like blind spots kept opening beneath his feet faster than he could recognize them. Joonkyung. Jeongguk. The sharp, destabilizing pull his emotions kept developing around things he normally would’ve handled cleanly. His grip tightened unconsciously around the pencil. 

"If we assume he genuinely intends to negotiate,” Namjoon said slowly, "then we need to decide what that looks like before we walk into it. This meeting might be a recruitment attempt, or a trap. Especially if Taehyung is right and Joonkyung has a particular interest in Jimin, or our omegas in general.”

"Well, tough shit for him," Jimin huffed. "I’m not joining him. That option isn’t on the table."

“Yeah, no shit. He’d have to pry you from my cold, dead hands,” Taehyung cuts in, nearly growling his words.

“But,” Jimin continued, “if bloodshed can be avoided, that’s my goal. I’m going to meet with him and at least try to strike up some kind of peace deal.”

Hoseok shifted, his lips turning downwards in a small frown as he glanced toward Jeongguk. “What about the people already in his camp? You mentioned the abuse earlier—the way they treat everyone...”

Jeongguk nodded grimly, his expression darkening. But before he could speak, Namjoon sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. 

“That’s something we can’t just sit on anymore. Now that we know, it’s our burden. I can’t really think of a way we can pretend it isn’t happening without it forever plaguing our consciences.”

Seokjin leaned forward, his voice measured but laced with doubt. “I’m not so sure we can do anything about it. Jeongguk made it clear—Joonkyung has a huge group, far bigger than ours. Kicking the door down for some rescue mission like we’re the fucking Avengers isn’t possible. It would turn into a bloodbath before we got halfway through those tunnels.”

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room. Taehyung crossed his arms tighter, Yoongi's jaw set hard, and Hoseok stared at the floor. Even Jeongguk dipped his head, the weight of his past knowledge pressing visibly on his shoulders. Jimin felt the collective resignation settle like dust, choking the air. At this point, survival depended on selective cruelty more often than anyone liked admitting. People passed by suffering survivors every day because stopping for all of it would get everyone killed eventually. After a while, everyone learns how to keep moving, how to not remember faces too clearly.

“I’m not saying we ignore it either,” Seokjin spoke again, brows pinched together. “But I genuinely don’t know what we’re supposed to do here.”

Jimin finally set the pencil down beside the map and leaned back slightly, rolling tension from his stiff shoulders. His hand ached steadily beneath the bandages now from pressing too hard against the paper for the past hour.

“This,” he said after a moment, “is exactly why I’m trying diplomacy first.”

Jimin glanced once down at the map before continuing, choosing the words carefully as they formed. “If there’s a way to keep this from turning into open conflict, I’m taking it.” His gaze moved across the room slowly. “And while we do that, we watch him. Learn more about the compound and figure out what we’re actually dealing with before anybody starts making emotional decisions that get people killed.”

Taehyung nodded faintly against the wall, though tension still lingered visibly around his mouth.

“Our first priority is preventing any deaths—at least from our pack. After that…” Jimin exhaled quietly through his nose. “Maybe we figure out if there’s a way to help the people trapped there without marching all of us into a massacre.”

Jeongguk shook his head, worry etching deeper lines into his face. “I don’t think it’ll be that simple,” he said after a long pause. “They’ve been down there for years. Some people…some people stop knowing how to think outside of immediate survival after long enough.”

Before the doubt could fester further, Yoongi uncrossed his arms slowly beside the wall. “We’re starting to drift too far ahead of ourselves,” he said, his tone clipped and pragmatic.

“Our main priority is keeping the pack safe. It’s a tragedy what’s happening there, but we can only do so much. That’s the unfortunate truth of our world right now.”

Everyone nodded solemnly, the agreement hanging heavy. Jimin joined them, but inside, his mind rebelled against the conviction settling in his chest. There has to be a way, he thought. He couldn’t wrap his head around how Joonkyung had become such an awful person—once an ally, now a monster twisting lives into knots of fear and submission.

“Well, let’s get some rest,” Jimin said finally, folding his arms to hide the pained tremble in his bandaged hand. “Tomorrow, we prepare.”

The group began to disperse, filing out of the shed one by one into the cool night air. Taehyung clapped Jimin’s shoulder lightly as he passed. Yoongi lingered just a moment, his gaze sharp but supportive, before slipping away. Hoseok murmured a quiet goodnight, and the others followed. Jimin was the last to go. He stared down at the map, tracing the lines with his eyes one final time—the tunnels, the barricades, the heart of the beast. Then he rolled it up carefully, tucking it under his arm. He would take it to his room, study it until the shapes burned into his mind.

As he turned toward the door, a hand closed around his arm.

“Jimin-hyung.”

Jimin tensed, instinct urging him to shove the alpha away, to put distance between them before the anger could spill over. But exhaustion weighed him down like lead, tangled too many emotions that were crowded together beneath his skin at once—hurt, frustration, lingering fear, the impossible ache of still caring despite himself. So instead of jerking free, he just stopped moving.

Jeongguk clearly hadn’t expected him to yield. The alpha’s grip loosened slightly against his sleeve like he suddenly didn’t know what to do with the fact that Jimin had actually stayed. It took him a moment to find his voice, and when he did, it came out choked. 

“I never meant for any of this to happen.” He swallowed hard before continuing. “I know that probably doesn’t matter much right now, but none of it was malicious. I need you to know that.”

Jimin closed his eyes briefly. God, he was so tired.

“I know,” he said quietly before Jeongguk could continue apologizing. The silence afterward stretched long enough that Jimin could hear the fire settling behind them. 

It was a fact that Jeongguk had hidden dangerous things—things that could put all of them at risk of a certain death, or a fate even worse than that. Jimin was angry about that in so many ways that he hadn’t had the chance to even attempt to unpack. But thinking that this was all a malicious act from the alpha?

No. In the time that Jeongguk has spent here at the farmhouse, Jimin had come to think that the alpha would sooner carve himself open than intentionally endanger the people at this farm. The certainty of that both relieved and frustrated Jimin.

Jeongguk spoke again, his voice softer now. “Do you still trust me?”

Jimin paused, the question slicing through him. He wanted to say no, to lash out that whatever fragile trust they had built had shattered under the weight of secrets. But he held back. Some part of him still trusted Jeongguk—trusted him enough that the thought of abandoning him somewhere out in the city made Jimin feel physically ill. He trusted him enough that despite everything, despite how deeply hurt and confused and angry he still felt, he still wanted Jeongguk here. 

Somewhere along the way—somewhere between fevers and arguments and patrol shifts and those stupid quiet moments Jimin kept trying not to think about—the alpha had rooted himself so deeply into the shape of Jimin’s life that he was beginning to feel insane. His petty feelings regarding the alpha were screwing him over, scrambling his brain until he couldn’t think straight.

Jimin let out a slow breath through his nose and slowly pulled his arm free from Jeongguk’s grip. “My trust in you isn’t…” He stopped briefly, jaw working around the thought. “It’s not the same right now.”

He tightened his grip slightly around the rolled map tucked beneath his arm. “You should’ve told us long before now, and I think you know that.”

Another silence stretched. Then, low enough that it almost blended into the crackle of the fire, Jeongguk said, “I know that, and I regret it more than anything.” 

The sincerity in the alpha’s voice scraped against Jimin in all the wrong places. Because some ugly, irrational part of Jimin wanted to be angry in the most straightforward way. He wanted Jeongguk to argue back or defend himself badly enough that resentment could settle into something easier for him to carry. Instead, the alpha just stood there taking every word like he already believed he deserved worse. His expression held the look of someone bracing for rejection and trying not to show how badly it would hurt when it finally came. 

Jimin let their eyes meet fully for the first time all evening, and his chest tightened immediately. “But I trust you to do what’s right,” he finished quietly. 

There was a tiny shift in Jeongguk’s expression, almost invisible if Jimin hadn’t spent months accidentally learning him too well. It’s clearly relief, moving through the alpha so suddenly and so deeply that it almost hurt Jimin to witness.

So he turned and walked out, refusing to spare Jeongguk a second glance. He knew if he looked back, worse words might tumble out—something raw and personal about the hurt twisting in his chest, about how his stupid, little feelings had been wounded by the alpha who kept begging to keep him safe. 

Behind him, the darkness swallowed the shed whole.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Breaking the news to the rest of the pack the next morning went just about as well as Jimin expected, though part of him knew there had never really been a version of this conversation that could have ended cleanly.

The farmhouse carried tension even before anyone started speaking. It hung low in the air beneath the smell of breakfast and woodsmoke, threaded through the quiet movements of people who already sensed something was wrong from the way Namjoon had asked everyone to gather immediately after chores. Half-finished mugs of tea sat forgotten on tables and windowsills. The pups had been ushered upstairs early under the excuse that the adults needed to discuss supply routes, though Minji still peeked once through the railing before Areum gently coaxed her back down the hallway.

Jimin stood at the front beside Namjoon, the two of them flanking Jeongguk like guards, though the positioning felt backwards. They were supposed to be protecting the pack from threats, not presenting one. The faces turned toward them were a mixture of confusion and dawning dread, the kind of expression that preceded chaos.

Namjoon tried to explain, he really did. His deep voice cut through the murmuring, outlining the basics: Joonkyung, the compound, the danger approaching their doorstep. But the words barely landed before the questions began firing from all corners of the room.

How long have you known? Why didn't you say something? How dangerous are we talking?

The room fractured into overlapping voices quickly, fear moving through people faster the more details emerged. Jimin answered what he could while Namjoon tried keeping the conversation from spiraling completely, but every explanation only seemed to create three more questions behind it. Jimin watched the room unravel, his chest tightening with each panicked voice. He opened his mouth to intervene, but Jeongguk beat him to it.

"Let me tell you."

The alpha's voice was not loud, but it carried. The room fell into a heavy silence, all eyes shifting to the man at the center of the storm. Jeongguk stood with his shoulders squared, his jaw set, and for a moment, Jimin saw the fighter he must have been before the world fell apart. 

He told them everything. The words came haltingly at first, then steadier as Jeongguk found his rhythm. He told them about Joonkyung's rise, about the compound, about the brutality he had witnessed and participated in. He told them about the day he had fled, carrying nothing but guilt and the certainty that he could not be part of that machine any longer. He told them about the weeks of wandering, the fear of being found, the desperate hope that he could outrun his past.

"I should have told you from the start," Jeongguk said, and the admission scraped out of him like glass over gravel. "I was scared. I thought if you knew where I came from, you would cast me out. And by the time I realized I was wrong, too much time had passed. The longer I kept it hidden, the harder it became to say—but I’m saying it now. I’m taking responsibility. Joonkyung is my burden to carry, and I won’t let any of you bear it while I sit back."

Silence followed his confession.

It wasn’t the soft, forgiving kind of silence. It was a heavy, suffocating thing, thick with the weight of fear and disappointment and the slow, grinding realization that the man they had accepted into their pack had been keeping dangerous secrets.

Jimin's heart hammered in his chest as he watched the pack's faces—some shuttered, some openly angry, some caught in a strange twilight between hurt and understanding. He felt his own lingering resentment stir, a bitter taste at the back of his throat. But beneath the hurt, fear coiled in Jimin's gut. The pack didn’t even know about Jeongguk's shifting abilities yet. That secret still sat between them, another layer of deception waiting to be uncovered. If they turned on him now, if they were willing to cast him out now over this, what would happen when that layer of truth finally surfaced?

‘Please,’ Jimin thought, the word repeating like a prayer. ‘Please do not turn on him.’

Byungho was the first to speak.

His voice was rough, but not unkind. "I am upset about this, and I think I have the right to be." He paused, letting the words settle, and then met Jeongguk's gaze directly. "But I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me honestly. Are you willing to fight for us? To put your life on the line to protect this pack?"

Jeongguk did not hesitate.

"Yes." The word came out firm, fierce, carrying the weight of absolute conviction. His dark eyes held steady, and Jimin saw something shift in his expression—a resolve that went beyond guilt or obligation. "I will do everything in my power to keep this pack safe. I know I should have spoken sooner. I know I cost us time we cannot get back. That is my fault, and I’ll carry that. But I swear to you—every breath I have left belongs to protecting the people who gave me a second chance."

Daehyun stepped forward, his arms crossed over his chest. For a moment, his expression remained unreadable, and Jimin felt his breath catch.

"I want to be angry with you," Daehyun said finally. "Part of me is." He exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping just a fraction. "But the truth is, we were bound to run into someone like Joonkyung eventually. The world is full of men like him. And you?" He gestured vaguely at Jeongguk. "You’ve proven yourself several times already. You’ve gone on risky runs with us, bled with us, kept watch when no one asked you to. As long as you are willing to fight if the time comes, I will stand with you."

One by one, heads began to nod. Minseok muttered his agreement, his gaze flicking between Jeongguk and Jimin as if seeking confirmation. Mrs. Han offered a small, reluctant nod from her corner. Even Mr. Park, who still looked deeply unhappy about the entire situation, crossed his arms and grumbled that they needed every capable fighter they had if this turned into open conflict. The tension in the room didn’t disappear, but it shifted, transforming from something sharp and volatile into a quieter, more manageable weight. Jimin exhaled, the breath leaving his body in a rush he had not realized he was holding.

The relief that washed over Jimin was almost disorienting. He remembered the first time Jeongguk had stood before the pack. Jimin had been furious then, resentful of the way the group had opened their arms to a stranger, jealous of the easy acceptance they had given the alpha. He had wanted to keep Jeongguk at arm's length, to protect himself and the others from the vulnerability that came with letting someone new in. Now, many months later, he found himself grateful for that same acceptance.

The feeling caught him off guard, lodging itself somewhere behind his ribs. ‘How things change,’ he thought. ‘How I have changed.’

The meeting shifted gears as Namjoon began outlining the preparations they would need to make—stockpiling supplies, reinforcing their defenses, training those who hadn’t held a weapon in a while. The conversations were practical, clipped, focused on survival. But Jimin could see the fear lingering beneath the surface, the way hands fidgeted and eyes darted toward the windows as if expecting Joonkyung's forces to appear at any moment.

There was no time to unpack that fear. No time to process the betrayal, the anger, the complicated tangle of emotions that swirled beneath the surface. They had a target on their backs, and every moment spent dwelling on feelings was a moment not spent preparing for the fight ahead. There would be time for conversations later. For healing. For figuring out what was left between them when the dust settled. But tonight, all that mattered was that they were still standing. 

The six days that followed were the longest of Jimin's life. Time moved strangely in the shadow of approaching violence. Hours stretched into something viscous and heavy, each minute weighted with the knowledge that the seventh day was coming whether he was ready or not. And at night, when the compound fell silent and the only sounds were the wind and the distant creak of the walls they'd built, time collapsed entirely.

Jimin hadn’t even realized his sleep schedule had slowly begun to improve over the past few weeks. Now, it was very prominent, because sleep had returned to being a battlefield for him. Every time exhaustion finally dragged him under, the nightmares returned waiting for him.

Sometimes it was Nabi again. Sometimes Choi Minji. Sometimes the two of them blurred together beneath blood while Jimin stood frozen in place unable to reach either of them before something even more terrible happened. Lately, though, the dreams had evolved, grown teeth, and they dragged in everyone he loved. The perimeter collapsed inward, followed by screaming and gunfire. He saw Hoseok fall. He saw Yoongi's throat torn open. He saw Namjoon reaching for him with hands that were already dissolving into shadow. Infected pouring through broken fencing while people he loved disappeared one by one into chaos he couldn’t stop.

And somehow, Jeongguk had started appearing in the dreams too.

Jeongguk standing at the gates of Joonkyung's compound, blood running down his face, eyes locked on Jimin's with something that looked terrifyingly like acceptance. He'll never stop. He’s going to take everything. The words echoed through the nightmares, through the waking hours, through the marrow of his bones until Jimin couldn't tell where the dreams ended and reality began.

He woke on the morning of the seventh day with a gasp that froze in his throat, sheets tangled around his legs like roots, skin slick with sweat despite the winter cold that seeped through the farmhouse walls. For a long moment he lay there, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the ceiling as he counted his breaths. One. Two. Three. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal.

Four. Five. Six. The farmhouse remained mostly quiet around him. Wind brushed softly against the outer walls, carrying that dry winter sound it made when temperatures dropped hard overnight, and somewhere farther outside one of the animals made noise before settling again. The gray light of pre-dawn filtered through the windows, pale and thin, and Jimin knew with certainty that he would not be falling asleep again. Not today.

With a tired exhale, he pushed the blankets aside and reached for the clothes folded near the foot of the bed. The room felt freezing without the trapped warmth beneath the covers, enough that the cold immediately bit into his skin while he dressed. He dressed in the dark. Layers against the cold—thermal shirt, sweater, thick coat, gloves that were starting to wear thin at the fingertips. His movements were automatic, muscle memory carrying him through the motions as his mind churned with static and fear and the stubborn, brittle edge of determination that had kept him alive this long.

Downstairs, the farmhouse sat wrapped in that strange stillness that only existed before sunrise.

A few lanterns still burned low near the kitchen, casting weak amber light across empty floorboards, but otherwise the house remained dark. Most people were still asleep. Jimin could hear faint breathing from the living room where Kyungho had apparently passed out near the stove after a late perimeter watch, one arm hanging halfway off the couch beneath a blanket someone had thrown over him hours ago.

The door creaked when he pushed it open as Jimin slipped outside into a bitter cold, sharp enough to sting immediately against his face.

Winter had settled over the compound with a vengeance, frosting every surface with a layer of crystalline white that caught the first hints of dawn and scattered them like shattered glass. Jimin's breath plumed in front of him as he stepped out, boots crunching against the frozen ground, and he paused for a moment to take in the sight of what they'd built. Even in darkness, he could make out the defenses everyone had managed to build in less than a week.

The perimeter wall rose dark against the pale sky, reinforced with timbers and scrap metal scavenged from the surrounding area. And lining that wall—stretching the entire length of their defenses—were the stakes. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. Sharpened branches and wooden posts driven into the frozen earth at vicious angles, pointing outward and upward like the teeth of some great beast. Anyone trying to climb over would find themselves impaled, caught on the spikes before they could even clear the top. Necessary, yes, but still ugly.

Six days. Only six days, and the compound had transformed.

Jimin had overseen the work himself. Had watched his pack—his family—work past exhaustion, past hunger, past the trembling in their hands and the hollows forming under their eyes. People worked from sunrise until well after dark reinforcing fencing, repairing weak sections of wall, reorganizing supplies, counting ammunition, preparing fallback storage in the cellar. Sleep became irregular for nearly everyone. Meals grew shorter and quieter. Conversations drifted constantly toward patrol schedules and escape routes and whether the livestock could be moved quickly enough if the perimeter failed. Fear motivated people quickly once it gained shape.

Jimin exhaled slowly through his nose as he turned away from the wall and made his way toward the armory shed. His boots left dark impressions in the frosty ground, his steps leading toward the only building that showed signs of life. The door to the armory was unlocked, and Jimin pushed it open to find warmth—relative warmth, at least, shielded from the wind—and the familiar smell of gun oil and metal. And Taheyung.

The alpha was already there, perched cross-legged on a crate near the back of the shed, a logbook balanced on his knee and a pen tucked behind his ear. His hair was rumpled beneath the beanie he'd pushed back, dark strands stuck up at odd angles, and his cheeks were flushed pink from the cold morning. He looked up when Jimin entered, and his eyes—dark and tired and endlessly knowing—softened with something that might have been relief.

“Park Daewi-nim,” Taehyung said, his voice quiet in the stillness of the shed. “Can’t sleep either?”

Despite the teasing tone of the title, exhaustion dragged heavily through his voice. Jimin shut the door behind himself, locking the cold back outside before answering with a tired sigh. 

"Look who's talking.”

Taehyung hummed quietly like that confirmed what he already suspected—Jimin couldn’t sleep either.

Jimin crossed the shed and dropped onto the crate beside him before reaching automatically for the ammunition crates, reaching for the inventory lists and boxes of rounds they'd spent hours organizing. "How long have you been here?"

"Hour, maybe." Taehyung's gaze drifted back to his logbook, though Jimin could tell he wasn't really reading it. "Couldn't stop thinking about today."

They settled into a familiar rhythm. Jimin's hands moved through the motions—checking bullets, counting cartridges, ensuring each magazine was properly loaded—while his mind churned in the background. The click and rustle of their work filled the silence, punctuated by the occasional quiet sniffle from Taehyung, and the creak of the shed settling around them. For a long time, neither of them spoke.

Eventually Taehyung's voice broke through the quiet. “Do you think this is actually gonna work?”

Jimin's hands stilled over another ammo crate. He didn't look up, his gaze fixed on the brass casings glinting in the dim light. "Do you want an answer from Park Daewi, or from Jimin?"

A breath of sound—almost a laugh, but too tired to fully form. “I already know what Park Daewi-nim would say.”

Jimin felt the faintest twitch threaten the corner of his mouth.

“The diplomatic answer probably sounds very reassuring,” Taehyung continued while scribbling another note into the logbook. “Strong leadership, inspiring confidence—all that bullshit.” He finally looked over. “I want a response from Jimin. Always Jimin.”

Jimin stared down at the ammo crate he'd been checking before he finally lifted his head to meet Taehyung's eyes.

"The truth?" Jimin's voice came out quieter than he meant. "I don't know. I really don't."

Taehyung leaned back against the wall behind the crates with a slow exhale. “Yeah,” he murmured quietly. “That’s about where I’m at too.”

Jimin set the magazine he’d picked up aside and reached for another one. "The Joonkyung I knew in the military—he was strict. Harsh when he needed to be, but fair. He followed the rules, enforced discipline, never stepped outside the lines." Jimin shook his head slowly. "This version of him... the one with basically a labor camp and soldiers and who knows how many people under his control? I don't recognize him. I can't predict what he'll do, let alone guess what he actually wants from us."

Taehyung made a soft sound, barely audible. If Jimin hadn't been sitting right next to him, he might have missed it entirely. But there was something in that sound—a dismissal, almost—that made Jimin's brow furrow.

"What?"

“Honestly,” Taehyung muttered while staring down at the inventory log, “I probably should’ve seen this shit happening with him years ago. Though it’s kind of impossible to predict a fucking apocalypse unraveling it.”

Jimin glanced over immediately, brows lifting slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The alpha tapped the end of his pen absently against the edge of the notebook a few times before continuing. “Like I said before—he’s just always been weird towards you.”

“Tae,” Jimin muttered, rubbing one hand over his face, “if you seriously think Joonkyung would start all of this over someone like me, I think you’re giving me way too much credit.”

“I don’t think this is all because of you,” Taehyung replied immediately. “I just think you’re underestimating the kind of person he is.”

Jimin frowned faintly. “We weren’t even close.”

“I know.”

“He was our superior officer. That’s it.”

Taehyung gave a small hum beneath his breath, though it didn’t sound particularly convinced. For several seconds he stayed quiet, continuing to tap the end of his pen against the edge of the logbook like he was debating whether the thought in his head was even worth bringing up.

Then he sighed softly. “You know what always bothered me?” the alpha asked. Jimin raised a brow in response.

“The way he paid attention to you.”

Irritation stirred immediately beneath Jimin’s ribs. “Tae—”

“I’m not saying it was romantic,” Taehyung cut in quickly, already sounding annoyed that he apparently needed to clarify. “Or whatever the hell you’re thinking right now.”

Jimin looked away again with a quiet scoff.

Taehyung leaned back against the wall behind the crates and dragged his beanie halfway off before shoving messy hair back from his forehead.

“I just…” He paused briefly. “I grew up around enough alpha bullshit to recognize when something feels off.”

The words settled quietly into the shed.

“At first I thought maybe he was just hard on you because you were an omega,” Taehyung continued. “That wouldn’t exactly be shocking in SDT.” A humorless breath escaped him. “But after a while it stopped feeling like regular military misogyny crap.”

Jimin’s brows knit slightly.

Taehyung shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes it felt like he was watching you too closely.”

Jimin immediately wanted to dismiss the idea. The world had ended. People were starving and freezing and getting ripped apart by the infected every day. Sitting here trying to dissect Joonkyung’s behavior from years ago felt ridiculous compared to the very real danger waiting for them now.

Still, memories kept surfacing anyway. Training evaluations that lasted longer than necessary. Joonkyung singling him out constantly during drills. The strange intensity in some of the man’s conversations that Jimin had always written off as military scrutiny more than anything personal. At the time, it had made sense. Jimin was one of the strongest soldiers in his division. Superior officers paid attention to soldiers who performed well. That was normal—wasn’t it?

Jimin rubbed tiredly at his jaw before muttering, “I think you’re overthinking it.”

“Maybe.” Taehyung didn’t argue the point. “I probably am.”

The easy agreement caught Jimin slightly off guard.

Taehyung stared down at the closed inventory book resting against his knee for a moment before continuing more quietly. “I just remember getting bad feelings sometimes.” He shrugged faintly. “And back then it didn’t feel important enough to say anything.”

Outside, wind scraped against the walls of the shed again while snow shifted faintly across the ground beyond the door. Jimin exhaled slowly through his nose and reached for another magazine mostly to give himself something to do with his hands.

He then shook his head once in visible frustration. “I can’t wrap my head around someone still caring that much about old alpha-omega dynamics after all of this.”

Taehyung’s gaze lifted toward him slowly. “I don’t think people always stop being themselves and suddenly switch up just because the world gets worse,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they’ve always been that way—they just get less subtle about it.”

“Then what is it? You think Soryeong-nim has always been like this?”

For a second Taehyung didn’t answer. He looked away, rubbing one hand absently over the back of his neck.

"My father used to know this alpha back home," Taehyung murmured, his voice carrying a hollow, distant quality. "Everybody thought he was respectable. Calm. Reliable. The kind of man you'd trust with your keys, your wallet, your family." 

A humorless breath escaped him. “Turns out, once his omega son began his cycles, he’d started locking him outside overnight—especially whenever the kid embarrassed him. In the middle of fucking winter, and sometimes for hours, sometimes the whole night. Said he wouldn’t take a weak little omega for a son, and that he should’ve been an alpha. The kid was only fifteen.”

Taehyung shrugged slightly, but the gesture was stiff, forced. Bitterness lingered around the edges of his expression now, settling into the hard line of his jaw and the flatness of his eyes.

"Nobody knew for years because he acted normal enough in public. Friendly. Generous, even. Joined the neighborhood watch, helped organize the block parties, waved hello at everyone." He paused, letting the irony sink in. "That's kind of the problem with people like that. They hide in plain sight, and everyone around them decides it's easier to believe the mask than the truth."

Silence settled between them afterward.

Not tense exactly. More like the heavy stillness that follows when something fragile has been laid bare and neither person knows quite what to do with it. Taehyung's words turned slowly over in the back of Jimin’s mind, catching on rough edges he couldn't quite smooth down. The idea still didn't fully make sense to him.

He could accept Joonkyung becoming ruthless. Cruel, even. The apocalypse had hollowed people out in ugly ways before, stripping away the thin veneer of civilization and leaving something raw and predatory underneath. He'd seen it happen to good men, decent men, men who would have never raised a hand to anyone before the world fell apart.

But the possibility that something deeper had always been wrong with him sat differently somehow. More unsettling.

Because if cruelty had been waiting beneath the surface all along, dormant and patient, then nothing Jimin had known about his former commander had ever been real. Every moment of respect, every lesson learned, every flicker of trust—it had all been built on a foundation of carefully maintained deception.

And if Joonkyung had been capable of hiding that depth of monstrosity from the people who served alongside him for years, then what else was he capable of?

Taehyung noticed the shift in Jimin's expression—the way his jaw tightened and his gaze went distant, fixed on some invisible point on his lap. The alpha gently bumped his shoulder against Jimin's.

"If you keep staring at your lap like that," he said, voice dry but low, "you're gonna burn a hole straight through it."

Jimin huffed quietly through his nose. The sound lacked any real amusement—more of an acknowledgment than a laugh—but Taehyung glanced over again anyway, watching him for another second. The alpha’s expression softened slightly beneath the harsh fluorescent light hanging overhead, some of the earlier tension easing from around his mouth.

"But with all of that said, there's no point tearing yourself apart trying to predict every possible outcome before we even know what Joonkyung wants," Taehyung said, reaching for a handful of ammunition from Jimin’s pile. "What's done is done. All we can do now is respond accordingly."

Jimin gave him a flat look, one eyebrow lifting just slightly. The advice was deeply hypocritical coming from Taehyung of all people—a man who had once spent three days planning how to confront a neighbor who'd looked at Choi Minji wrong, running through seventeen different scenarios before the actual conversation even happened.

Taehyung caught the look immediately. “Oh, don’t start,” he muttered beneath his breath, already rolling his eyes. “I know exactly how hypocritical that sounded coming from me.”

It dragged the faintest ghost of a smile out of Jimin before it disappeared again almost as quickly as it came. But Taehyung noticed it anyway—something in his posture loosened slightly, the tension in his shoulders easing by barely a fraction. A small victory, but Jimin had learned to take those wherever he could find them.

They continued prepping weapons together in silence for a while longer. The work was familiar, almost meditative: sorting rounds, checking chambers, wiping down barrels. The metallic smell of gun oil mixed with the cold air seeping through the shed's gaps, creating a sharp, grounding combination that kept Jimin's thoughts from spiraling too far.

Outside, the farm slowly began waking around them as dawn finally crept fully across the horizon. Jimin could hear boots crunching over frost somewhere near the livestock pens, low voices carrying faintly through the cold morning air while people rotated through chores and patrol shifts. The goats had started bleating impatiently for feed by now, their complaints loud enough that Taehyung eventually muttered something under his breath about them being the most dramatic creatures left alive after the collapse. The world kept moving, no matter how anxious everyone inside it felt.

Jimin found himself thinking about how strange that was. How the sun still rose, the animals still needed tending, the frost still settled on every surface—even when a threat like Joonkyung loomed over everything, ready to shatter whatever fragile peace they'd built. The universe didn't pause for anyone's fear.

He was still turning that thought over when the shed door creaked open, letting in a sharp gust of winter air along with Yoongi, who was carrying three steaming tin mugs between gloved hands. He immediately grimaced, nose wrinkling as the smell of gun oil hit him full in the face.

"Jesus," Yoongi said, setting the mugs down on an upturned crate near the door. "Place smells like ass."

"Then get out," Taehyung shot back, but his hand was already reaching for one of the mugs before Yoongi even finished speaking.

Yoongi ignored him completely. His attention settled instead on Jimin the way it always did whenever the omega started withdrawing too far into himself—a quiet, careful observation that felt less like scrutiny and more like concern wearing a mask of indifference. Yoongi's eyes briefly skimmed over the dark circles beneath Jimin's eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders, the way his wrapped hand flexed unconsciously every few minutes.

Jimin noticed the scrutiny immediately and pretended not to, reaching for one of the remaining mugs with deliberate casualness.

"Eat before you leave," Yoongi said, his tone leaving no room for argument. There was no preamble, no gentle lead-in—just the flat, practical command of someone who'd learned that dancing around Jimin's stubbornness wasted time they didn't have.

"I'm not hungry," Jimin tried, lifting the mug to his lips anyway.

Yoongi gave him a flat look. "Collapsing halfway through a negotiation would be humiliating for everyone involved. Think of the pack's reputation if nothing else."

A quiet snort escaped Taehyung. "Honestly, Jimin passing out in front of Joonkyung might scare the man more than any rifle would. Imagine it—he shows up ready to make demands, and our omega just faints right there in the dirt. He'd never recover from the insult."

Jimin rolled his eyes at both of them, but the familiar rhythm of the conversation settled some of the tension coiled tight beneath his ribs. This was what he needed—not silence and spiraling thoughts, but the grounding presence of people who knew him well enough to drag him back from the edge of his own anxiety.

The conversation gradually circled back toward the plan for the day, despite all three of them already knowing it by heart after nearly a week of repeating it over and over. Still, it felt necessary to say it aloud again, to anchor themselves in the details before the uncertainty of the meeting swallowed everything whole.

Jimin, Taehyung, and Yoongi would approach the meeting point directly—three faces to represent the pack, with Jimin at the center, the one Joonkyung had specifically asked to see. Hoseok and Jeongguk would remain farther back with rifles and radios, hidden in overwatch positions in case things went wrong. Daehyun, Minseok, and Mira would stay behind at the farm to maintain perimeter security, while Namjoon coordinated the rest of the pack and prepared fallback plans if they didn't return before nightfall. Simple and clean. As prepared as they could be for a man whose true nature none of them fully understood.

That uneasy feeling followed Jimin through the rest of the morning, coiling in his stomach like a snake waiting to strike. But he held onto the warmth of the mug in his hands, the solid weight of the weapons at his side, and the knowledge that when he walked into that meeting, he wouldn't be walking in blind.

Not anymore.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The hours leading up to their departure passed in a blur of movement and tension spread thin across the entire farm like static before a storm. Every person seemed to move with a purpose that bordered on frantic, as if staying busy enough might keep the danger at bay.

Jimin spent most of the morning moving through patrol rotations beside Namjoon one final time, their breath fogging white as they checked assignments while pack members continued reinforcing the perimeter walls. Namjoon's voice was steady as he recited coordinates and contingencies, but Jimin caught the way his fingers kept drumming against his thigh whenever they paused between tasks—a nervous habit he'd picked up during the early days after the outbreak, when every shadow could mean death.

The cold dulled everything. Voices sounded more muffled in the winter air while hammering echoed across the compound in uneven bursts as people hauled lumber and tightened wire supports with stiff hands. Frost still gathered pale along the fencing despite constant movement around it, the perimeter taking on a harsher appearance now.

Jiwon forced extra medical supplies into Taehyung's pack despite Taehyung's repeated insistence that they wouldn't need them. She didn't bother arguing—just kept stuffing bandages and antiseptic into every available pocket until the bag bulged obscenely at the seams. Taehyung watched her with a resigned expression that suggested he'd learned long ago that fighting Jiwon on medical preparations was a losing battle. The way she moved, quick and efficient, spoke to too many injuries, too many close calls—a healer's instinct sharpened by necessity.

Closer to the armory shed, Hoseok had apparently reached the point where anxiety transformed into repetition. Hoseok checked his rifle so many times that Yoongi finally threatened to throw the thing into the river if he took it apart one more time. The threat was delivered in Yoongi's flattest, most deadpan tone, but something in his eyes suggested he wasn't entirely joking. Hoseok had the decency to look sheepish for exactly three seconds before reaching for the cleaning kit again anyway. Yoongi turned away with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl, muttering something under his breath about stubborn bastards.

Even the pups lingering near the farmhouse seemed quieter than usual, their typical laughter and shouting replaced by subdued whispers. They clung closer to the adults, picking up on the unease running through the compound like animals sensing an earthquake before the ground begins to shake. Minji and Bomi stayed close enough to Hyejin’s side all morning that the older omega eventually had to redirect them toward kitchen chores just to stop her from shadowing adults around the compound with wide, anxious eyes. Jihoon sat silently on the farmhouse steps for nearly an hour watching people reinforce the fencing before Seokjin finally dragged him away to help feed the chickens.

Jeongguk remained strangely quiet through all of it. Jimin noticed him everywhere despite himself—a persistent awareness that prickled at the back of his neck like an itch he couldn't scratch. Hauling lumber alongside Byungho near the eastern wall, his shoulders straining against the weight as he navigated the frozen ground. Repairing one of the watch platforms with Daehyun, the two of them working in synchronized silence that spoke to days of shared labor. Carrying feed buckets for the livestock without being asked, the chores done so quietly that Jimin only noticed because he happened to turn at the right moment.

But there was something different about the way Jeongguk moved today. His steps were heavier, more deliberate, as if each task required conscious effort rather than automatic muscle memory. He worked harder than anyone else, that hadn't changed—but now there was a carefulness to it, a hesitation before he picked up tools or turned his back to others. The pack no longer avoided him the way they had during those first tense days after the truth came out. But something had still changed. Jimin could feel it lingering beneath conversations now, in the slight hesitation before people approached him and the occasional carefulness in someone’s tone that hadn’t existed before. It wasn’t rejection exactly. Just caution.

Jeongguk seemed to feel it too, accepting it while continuing to work harder than anyone else regardless—moving from task to task without complaint from dawn until dark as if he could earn back their trust through sheer exertion, despite knowing it would never be that simple.

Shortly before departure, Jimin caught him near the front gate helping Byungho tighten one of the wire supports running along the front gate. Sweat clung to Jeongguk's dark hair, slowly crystallizing into frost in the weak morning light. He braced the wire steadily while Byungho secured it into place, muscles straining against the tension. His movements were precise, controlled—every action calculated to avoid drawing unnecessary attention.

He glanced up at the sound of approaching footsteps, and his eyes met Jimin's across the yard.

The silence that followed felt different than it had a week ago. Still strained. Still bruised around the edges, like a healing wound that ached when pressed, but no longer actively bleeding. There was something in Jeongguk's gaze—not quite hope, but maybe the foundation of it. A tentative soil where something could eventually grow, if given enough time and care. His jaw tightened, and for a moment Jimin thought he might speak, might say something to bridge the distance between them.

But Jeongguk said nothing. He simply held Jimin's gaze.

Jimin almost decided that he would say something then. He didn't even know what—maybe to ask if Jeongguk's rifle was cleaned, though he already knew it was—Jeongguk had been meticulous about his weapons since the day Jimin had handed them to him. Maybe to tell Byungho to stay alert while they were gone, though the alpha had been pulling double watches for three days straight without complaint. Maybe nothing important at all. Just words to fill the space between them, to test whether that space had shrunk any since the last time they'd spoken.

The thought barely had time to form before Byungho interrupted, asking Jeongguk for another pair of pliers. Jeongguk looked away first, bending to rummage through the toolbox near his feet, and the moment dissolved before Jimin could decide whether he was relieved by that or not. He turned and walked back toward Yoongi and Taehyung, telling himself it didn't matter.

The trip toward the meeting point felt colder than the weather itself should have allowed. The horses moved across the frosted ground with a rhythm that felt almost like a heartbeat—steady, patient, carrying them forward despite the weight pressing down on every step.

Cheol led the small procession, Jimin's thighs gripping the stallion’s flanks as they walked down the same, familiar paths. The horse's breath plumed in great white clouds, steam rising to join the mist of Jimin's own exhalations until they became indistinguishable. Behind him, Bora carried both Taehyung and Yoongi, the sturdy mare's stride never bothered by the double load. Much farther behind them, Eun followed at a quieter pace beneath Jeongguk and Hoseok’s combined weight, the dark mare tossing her head occasionally as if displeased with her position at the back—or perhaps picking up on the tension radiating from his riders.

The sky overhead remained a dull iron gray despite the late afternoon hour. Wind pushed through the trees hard enough to rattle bare branches while loose, dead leaves skittered across the abandoned roads beneath the horses’ hooves. Nobody spoke much once they got moving. Even Taehyung, usually incapable of staying quiet for long, seemed subdued now that the reality of what they were walking into sat directly in front of them. His eyes moved constantly, scanning treelines and shadows with practiced vigilance, one hand resting loosely on the reins while the other stayed near his weapon belt. Yoongi sat behind him, arms wrapped around Taehyung's waist for stability, his gaze fixed ahead with an unreadable flatness that Jimin had learned to recognize as quiet fear.

The closer they got to the city limits, the more familiar everything became.

Burned storefronts gaped at them like empty eye sockets, their facades blackened and crumbling. Frost-covered vehicles lay stranded in the streets like the carcasses of metal beasts, some with doors hanging open, others with windows shattered inward. The silence here was  heavier, weighted with the memory of their recent violent encounter, as well as the absence of the lives that had once filled these spaces. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat, every sound amplified by the hollow emptiness.

Jimin recognized the route almost immediately once they cut through one of the narrower side roads near the market district. The familiar landmarks pulled at something deep in his chest, a visceral recognition that bypassed conscious thought entirely. They were heading toward the same part of the city where they had first seen the bonfire burning in the distance that night. The same place they found Yugyeom chained up and too far gone beneath the freezing dark before Joonkyung’s men hunted them through the streets afterward.

The memory settled unpleasantly beneath Jimin's ribs, cold and sharp as a shard of glass. He could still smell the smoke from that fire, still hear the frantic rhythm of their footsteps echoing off abandoned buildings as they ran. Could still see the look in Yugyeom's empty eyes when they'd found him—that wild, desperate gleam that spoke to weeks of torment and conditioning, a mind pushed past its breaking point and left shattered in the dirt. The sound of chains rattling against concrete. The metallic tang of blood in the air.

Jimin tightened his grip on the reins and urged Cheol forward, pushing the memory down into the dark place where all the other nightmares lived.

Eventually the buildings began opening up into a wider intersection, the space unfolding before them like a wound that had never properly healed. Abandoned barricades lay scattered across the pavement, their concrete barriers cracked and bullet-ridden. The remains of the old bonfire still stained the street black several yards ahead—charred wood and melted debris frozen into the pavement where Joonkyung's people had camped that week prior, a monument to violence that the cold had preserved in grim detail.

Sitting just beyond it was a small abandoned cafe wedged between two larger buildings, its windows cracked and fogged white with frost, faded lettering barely visible above the entrance. The paint had long since peeled away, leaving only the ghost of a name that might have once welcomed customers with warmth and the smell of fresh coffee. Warm lantern light glowed faintly behind its frost-clouded windows.

Jimin slowed instinctively. The sight looked wrong against the dead stillness surrounding it. Golden light flickered softly through cracked glass while dusk settled heavier across the ruined street, the cafe itself standing like some strange pocket of civilization preserved in the middle of a corpse. The sight sent a prickle of unease down Jimin's spine, but he didn't let it show on his face.

He pulled Cheol to a halt at the edge of the intersection, the horse’s hooves scraping against asphalt. Behind him, Bora stopped in perfect sync. Jeongguk and Hoseok had already peeled off three blocks back, slipping into the ruins to find their perches. Jimin couldn't see them anymore, but he knew they were there, watching through rifle scopes, fingers resting near triggers.

"Here," Yoongi said quietly, sliding down from Bora's back. His boots hit the ground with a soft crunch, and he stood there for a moment, surveying the cafe. "This is where he wanted to meet, by the looks of it."

Taehyung dismounted with ease, his longer legs making the transition look nearly graceful. He landed beside Yoongi, both hands going to adjust the rifle slung across his back. “Slight upgrade from the last time we met.”

Jimin dismounted slowly, his legs protesting after hours in the saddle. He handed Cheol's reins to Yoongi without thinking, and took a step forward, his eyes fixed on the cafe's glowing windows.

"Don't get too close yet," Taehyung warned, his hand brushing Jimin's arm. "We don't know if he's already inside."

As if summoned by the words, the cafe's door swung open.

It groaned on rusted hinges, a sound that cut through the silence. Jimin's hand went to the gun at his belt before his brain caught up, and beside him, Taehyung's rifle was half-raised before he forced it back down.

Joonkyung stepped out first, looking perfectly composed despite the freezing wind cutting through the intersection. He was dressed in a heavy military-style coat that reached his thighs. His boots were clean, impossibly clean given the mud and frost everywhere else, and his gloves were dark leather, clasped loosely in front of him. Behind him, more figures emerged, fanning out in a practiced formation that spoke of military discipline. Four men, their weapons visible but not drawn, their eyes scanning the intersection with cold precision.

More would be hidden—Jimin knew that without needing to see them. The shadows between buildings felt heavier, and the stillness of the ruins seemed to hold its breath.

His eyes lingered on Jimin, tracing his form from head to toe before settling on his face.

"Jimin." Joonkyung's voice was smooth, almost warm, carrying across the open space like a caress. "I'm glad you came. I was starting to think you'd changed your mind."

Jimin didn't return the greeting. He stood his ground, feet planted, hands loose at his sides, and let the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable before he spoke.

"This is the place, then? You wanted to meet here?"

Joonkyung nodded, his smile never wavering. "I prefer privacy for these kinds of negotiations. And your... entourage..." He gestured with a gloved hand toward Taehyung and Yoongi, "they're welcome to wait outside. The cafe is uh, shabby, but it's warm. We can talk without distractions."

Taehyung made a low sound in his throat, barely audible but unmistakably a growl. Yoongi said nothing, but his stillness became something sharper, more hostile.

Jimin studied the cafe for a long moment. The lantern light flickered behind the frost, casting dancing shadows across the cracked windows. He could see tables inside, overturned chairs, a counter littered with dust. It looked empty. It looked peaceful, but it also looked like a cage.

"Tae," Jimin said quietly, not taking his eyes off the building. "Check it."

Taehyung hesitated, his jaw working as if he wanted to argue. But he nodded once and moved, crossing the intersection with long, deliberate strides. His rifle stayed slung across his back, but his hand rested near his sidearm, and every step radiated readiness.

The cafe door groaned softly beneath Taehyung’s hand before warm lantern light spilled briefly across the ground as he disappeared inside. The seconds stretched into minutes. Jimin counted his breaths—in, out, in, out—trying to slow his heart. Yoongi stood so still beside him that he might have been carved from stone, but his eyes tracked every movement, every shadow, every flicker of light. Finally, the door opened again. Taehyung emerged, his expression tight, and gave a single nod.

"It's clear," he called, though his voice carried a reluctance that said he didn't like what he'd found. "No one inside.”

Joonkyung's smile widened, just slightly. "See? I’m not trying to pull a fast one on you. No traps, no ambushes. Just a simple conversation."

Taehyung walked back to Jimin's side, leaning in close enough that his breath ghosted over Jimin's ear. 

"You sure about this?" There was no attempt to soften what he actually meant beneath the question. You really want to walk into a building alone with that fucking psycho?

Jimin glanced once toward Joonkyung standing farther down the intersection before looking back at Taehyung.

“It’s the only way he’ll talk.”

Taehyung shook his head, tongue prodding the side of his cheek. For a second Jimin almost expected him to argue harder, but the alpha only exhaled slowly through his nose before nodding once.

“We’ll be right outside,” he said quietly. “If anything feels wrong—”

“I know.”

Yoongi moved closer then, his gaze flicked once toward the cafe entrance before settling back onto Jimin. “Don’t let him steer the conversation too much,” he said evenly. “But don’t talk too much, either. We can’t risk revealing too much about ourselves.”

Jimin gave the faintest nod—barely a movement, more a shift in his own balance than an actual acknowledgment. He exchanged one final glance with Taehyung and Yoongi, who remained behind with Joonkyung's guards on the far side of the intersection, and then he started forward. He had barely taken three steps toward the cafe entrance before Joonkyung spoke again, his voice carrying cleanly through the cold air.

“Ah, there is one condition that I forgot to mention—my apologies.”

The words halted his movement almost immediately. Wind pushed through the empty street, rattling loose metal somewhere further down the block while Jimin looked at him with impatience already settling visibly across his expression. Joonkyung’s gaze flicked once toward the rifle strapped across Jimin’s back before returning to his face.

“No weapons inside.”

Taehyung scoffed instantly from Bora’s saddle. “No weapons my ass.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened, the muscles along his neck pulling taut as he processed the demand. “You expect me to walk into a building alone with you unarmed?”

“I expect neither of us to insult the purpose of a private conversation.” Joonkyung’s tone remained calm enough to border on polite, his hands resting loosely at his sides in a display of deliberate non-threatening posture. “You came here to negotiate, not assassinate me.”

“That option is still very much on the table, do not misunderstand.” The response slipped out before Jimin could stop it.

Taehyung muttered a tired “Jesus Christ” beneath his breath from behind him, the sound barely audible but unmistakable in its exasperation. Joonkyung only chuckled faintly, as though the answer genuinely amused him rather than offended him.

Then, without breaking eye contact, Joonkyung slowly opened his coat. The shift in atmosphere happened instantly. Taehyung’s grip on his rifle tightened. Yoongi’s hand drifted subtly closer toward his own rifle hanging idly across his front, every muscle in his body coiled and ready. Even the guards positioned behind Joonkyung seemed to tense slightly, their postures shifting almost imperceptibly as the former major unbuttoned the heavy coat fully before pulling it aside another inch in silent demonstration.

No sidearm hung from shoulder holsters or waistbands. No visible knife was strapped beneath the lining of his coat or tucked into his boots—nothing obvious broke the clean lines of his clothes underneath.

“I’m not carrying either,” Joonkyung said evenly, his eyes never leaving Jimin’s face.

Jimin didn’t trust that for a second. His instincts screamed at him that this was some kind of trap, some carefully orchestrated piece of theater designed to lower his guard and make him vulnerable. Men like Joonkyung rarely walked into rooms defenseless, not after clawing their way to power through violence and manipulation. Even if he truly wasn't armed at this moment, there were still guards standing at attention behind him and god knew how many more positioned somewhere nearby with more weapons trained on the intersection already, their fingers hovering over triggers in anticipation of any wrong move.

Still, after several long seconds of weighing the options and finding no alternative path forward, Jimin finally reached for the strap across his shoulder. The familiar pressure of adjustment was a muscle memory—routine ingrained from years of carrying the rifle through ruined cityscapes and dangerous territory.

Taehyung immediately leaned forward. “Jimin.”

“It’s fine.”

“No,” Taehyung snapped, his patience clearly fraying at the edges, “it really fucking isn’t.”

Jimin ignored him as gently as he could under the circumstances—which was not very gently at all—and slid the rifle free from its resting place across his back. The familiar weight left his body slowly, unwillingly, and he realized only afterward how instinctively comforting that weight had become over the years. It was a part of him, an extension of his survival instincts honed through countless close calls and narrow escapes. Letting it go felt like stripping away a layer of skin. He handed the rifle over to Taehyung, who took it with obvious reluctance, his jaw working as he bit back further protests.

His pistol came next. The leather holster creaked softly while he unfastened it from his hip, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet street. He could feel every pair of eyes on him as he passed the weapon toward Yoongi, whose expression had flattened into something cold enough to make the entire street feel sharper around the edges, as if the temperature had dropped another few degrees.

For a moment, Yoongi simply held the weapon without speaking, his fingers wrapping around the grip with a familiarity that spoke of his own experience with firearms. Then his gaze lifted toward Joonkyung, and when he spoke, his voice was calm and measured in a way that somehow made it more terrifying than any shouted threat.

“If he tries anything,” he said evenly, “we won’t miss this time.”

The threat settled cleanly into the silence afterward, landing with the weight of absolute certainty. Joonkyung smiled faintly like he appreciated the professionalism of it.

“I would expect nothing less.”

The cold felt different without the weight of weapons against Jimin’s body. Sharper somehow, more penetrating, as if the winter air could reach deeper into him now that there was nothing to shield him from its bite. He felt exposed in a way that went beyond physical vulnerability—a raw, visceral awareness of how thin the line between safety and danger had suddenly become.

He flexed his wrapped hand once, the dull throb of his knuckles grounding him in the present moment, before finally turning back toward the cafe entrance. Every step across the street felt magnified, each footfall echoing in the empty space between buildings as he moved away from his pack and toward the unknown. He was acutely aware of every pair of eyes following him now—the unwavering vigilance of Yoongi and Taehyung at his back, the careful observation of Joonkyung's guards tracking his movement, and the cool, calculating gaze of the former major himself, waiting just inside the doorway with that faint smile still playing at the corners of his mouth.

The cafe door swung open beneath Joonkyung's hand, and he stepped aside to allow Jimin entry with a gesture that didn’t feel the slightest bit courteous. He stepped inside as the door held with a tired creak that sounded far too loud in the hollowed-out quiet. The sound hung in the still air for a long moment before fading into nothing, absorbed by the layers of dust and decay that have settled over everything like a shroud. Joonkyung entered behind him without urgency, one gloved hand catching the door before it slammed too hard against the frame.

The place has been dead for years, but traces of what it used to be still clung stubbornly to the bones of it. Overturned chairs lie scattered across the cracked tile floor, their legs splayed at awkward angles like the limbs of fallen animals. A cracked menu board hung crookedly behind the counter, its faded lettering advertising pastries no one has baked in half a decade, drinks no one has poured since before the world broke. The air smells stale—dust and old coffee grounds ground into the floorboards, mildew creeping up from the neglected corners, and the faint ghost of sugar that never fully left the walls, clinging to the memory of better days.

Taehyung had cleared it—Jimin knew that. But he checked it again anyway, letting his gaze cut methodically across the space. The back exit, half-hidden behind a fallen shelf, its door slightly ajar. The broken display case, its glass shattered and swept into a glittering pile against the far wall. The dark mouth of the kitchen behind the counter, a shadowed opening that could hide a dozen men if they pressed themselves flat enough. And the tables—arranged casually enough to look accidental, shifted slightly during the chaos of abandonment, but not so random that Jimin missed the geometry of it. The placement gave Joonkyung the clearest line of sight toward the door, an unobstructed view of anyone who entered.

Joonkyung's gaze followed Jimin's second sweep. Jimin caught the way the former major's mouth curved slightly. Then Joonkyung crossed the room like he owned it—because in his mind, he did. The apocalypse had a way of redrawing boundaries, and Joonkyung moved through this space with the easy confidence of a man who had never encountered a locked door he couldn't open.

He settled at one of the tables near the middle of the room, where a bottle of whiskey already sat waiting. The amber liquid caught the lantern light, throwing warm reflections across the scarred wooden surface. Jimin's attention snagged on that detail immediately. Not because whiskey was impossible to find—there were still stashes hidden in abandoned homes and forgotten liquor stores for those willing to risk the search—but because it had clearly been placed there beforehand. Joonkyung had carried this bottle here, set it on this specific table, and placed it with care. The alpha had expected this arrangement, for Jimin to step inside without an ounce of doubt. He had expected privacy long enough to drink, to talk, to let the warmth of the alcohol soften the edges of whatever came next.

The former major picked up the bottle and turned it in his hand, studying the label. The glass clinked softly against his ring as he adjusted his grip, and the sound was intimate in the quiet, the kind of casual noise that belonged in a home, not a deteriorating building where two strangers circled each other.

"There are very few luxuries left in the world," Joonkyung said, his voice carrying easily across the empty space. "Men who still understand the value of negotiation should honor it when they can."

Jimin didn’t respond. He stood there, silently watching as Joonkyung walked behind the counter and found two old clear glass mugs—one with a chipped handle, the other stained dark inside from coffee that had long since dried to a permanent ring. The alpha wiped them with a cloth pulled from his coat pocket, a gesture that struck Jimin as almost fastidious, almost domestic, before he uncorked the bottle and poured a measured amount into each.

The smell of whiskey cut through the stale cafe air, warm and sharp, carrying notes of oak and smoke that seemed almost painfully familiar. For one brief unwanted second, it reminded Jimin of military celebrations after successful operations. Cold nights and loud barracks. Soldiers laughing too hard around alcohol because surviving another month felt close enough to joy back then. The memory soured almost immediately.

Joonkyung carried both mugs back to the table and offered one to Jimin with a mild lift of his brow. The gesture was casual, almost friendly, as if they were officers sharing a drink after a long day instead of enemies circling each other in the corpse of a city. Jimin didn’t take it.

He only stared at the mug, then at Joonkyung, letting the refusal sit between them like a drawn blade. There was absolutely no reason for him to trust anything this man put in front of him. No reason to accept a drink poured from a bottle that could have been opened hours ago, doctored, resealed. No reason to lower his guard in a room where Joonkyung had already demonstrated how thoroughly he had planned this encounter.

Joonkyung held the mug out for a beat longer, waiting. When Jimin made no move to accept, the former major gave a small shrug—dismissive, unbothered—and slid the mug across the table until it stopped near Jimin's side. The glass scraped against the wood, a rough sound that made Jimin’s spine tingle.

"Suit yourself," Joonkyung said, settling into the chair opposite him. He crossed one leg over the other, leaned back, and wrapped his hands around his own mug as if he hadn't a care in the world. "But I promise, Park Jimin, if I truly wanted you dead, I wouldn't waste good whiskey doing it."

Jimin's gaze didn't leave him. "Just bullets, then?"

For the first time since they had stepped inside, Joonkyung paused. It only lasted a breath—barely enough to count as hesitation, a flicker of something behind his eyes that Jimin couldn't quite read, but he caught it anyway. The moment stretched, fragile, before Joonkyung's expression shifted.

He chuckled softly beneath his breath while shaking his head lightly, the sound low and strangely pleased, like Jimin had said something clever instead of something that should have carried the weight of accusation.

"You were never the target for that, Jimin." Joonkyung lifted his mug with a loose turn of his wrist, swirling the whiskey in a slow, lazy circle. "There's a reason those men are dead now."

The words settled strangely in the space between them. Jimin kept his expression still, his shoulders relaxed, his breathing even, even as something cold moved through him—a recognition, a confirmation, a piece of the puzzle sliding into place with a click that only he could hear.

"Yeah," he replied, and his voice came out flat, controlled. "Because their aim was subpar, and I did what I needed to protect my own."

Joonkyung nodded once, a measured, approving gesture. "Which is very fair." He took a sip of his whiskey, letting the liquid settle on his tongue before swallowing. He set the mug down with a soft clink and met Jimin's eyes. "It was a test of your skills, is all. Believe me, I was very pleased to see you're still such a great shot."

The realization settled slowly and sickly beneath his ribs, cold enough that it almost made his skin crawl beneath his coat. Those men hadn't been sent because Joonkyung thought they could win. They hadn't even been sent under the pretense that he cared whether they survived. They had been placed there to draw fire, to measure Jimin's reactions, to see if the years had dulled him or sharpened him into something still worthy of attention.

As a result, three bodies were left cooling in the street, their blood staining the cracked asphalt dark under the morning sun. And Joonkyung spoke of them like spent rounds—casings ejected from a chamber, already forgotten, already useless.

Jimin thought of their faces in that cold light. The slackness of death had erased whatever fear or defiance they had carried in their final moments, leaving only blank expressions frozen mid-expression. He thought of Hoseok crouching beside them in silence, methodically stripping their weapons because supplies were supplies, because the dead no longer needed rifles or ammunition or the faded photographs Jimin had seen tucked into one man's inner pocket before he looked away. He thought of how easily Joonkyung had walked away from them, how he had probably reviewed the results of his "test" over a meal. They were never soldiers to him. They were pieces to whatever game Joonkyung was attempting to play.

And Jimin had moved exactly how Joonkyung wanted him to. Pulled the trigger, stepped into the open, revealed the angle of his instincts and the steadiness of his aim. Every bullet had been a data point. Every kill had been a checkmark in a column Jimin hadn't known was being tallied.

Slowly, he lowered himself into the chair across the table while the wood creaked softly beneath his weight. His wrapped hand pulsed unpleasantly where it rested against his thigh beneath the table, though he kept his expression carefully level while meeting Joonkyung’s gaze across the lantern glow.

“If this is your idea of negotiation,” he said evenly, “you’re wasting both our time.”

Joonkyung’s smile remained faint. “No,” he replied calmly. “That was my idea of confirmation.”

Jimin’s jaw worked before he could school his expression, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. Joonkyung caught that too—of course he did. The alpha seemed to catch everything—every flicker of hesitation, every suppressed reaction, every breath Jimin took that came a fraction too fast. It made Jimin feel like he was sitting across from a man with too many sharpened knives, all of them hidden in plain sight, glinting beneath the surface of casual conversation.

Joonkyung took another slow slip from his mug, the whiskey catching the amber lantern light as he tilted it back. The liquid moved slowly, leaving a residue on the clear glass that caught the glow. He lowered the mug, set it down with a soft clink, and leaned back in his chair.

"You always did have a talent for stripping things down to function," Joonkyung said, and his voice carried a note of something almost fond. "No patience for ceremony. No appetite for indulgence of any kind unless it served a purpose."

“Say what you invited me here to say.”

For a moment Joonkyung simply watched him while the lantern light shifted warmly across the table between them. Outside, wind rattled faintly against the windows, and somewhere deeper inside the building old pipes groaned softly beneath the cold.

Then Joonkyung exhaled quietly through his nose and said, “You know what the biggest mistake people made after Day Zero was?”

Jimin stayed silent, so Joonkyung answered the question himself.

“They kept trying to preserve a world that had already died.”

His voice remained almost conversational despite the weight of the words themselves. He leaned forward slightly, elbows finding the table as he reached over and cupped the mug between his palms.

“They clung to systems that failed them. Democracy. Fairness. Family. Autonomy. Love." He ticked them off like items on a checklist, each word emphasized as he peeled a finger one by one from his grip on the mug. "All sentimental debris from a society that collapsed under its own softness.”

“And your solution was slavery?”

“My solution,” Joonkyung corrected smoothly, “was a means of the most efficient way to  survive.”

Jimin’s expression hardened, but Joonkyung continued before he could interrupt again.

“Most groups died because they tried to keep living as if the world still owed them morality. They shared too much. Trusted too easily. Protected people who contributed nothing, and called it compassion right up until the end.” He tilted the mug slightly in one hand while speaking. “Then winter came, or infection, or more likely—starvation and stronger men. Then suddenly, morality became very expensive.”

Jimin leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes never leaving him. “So you decided people needed collars instead.”

“I decided people need structure.”

“You’re starving them into debt.”

“I’m keeping them alive by giving them something to work for.” The answer came immediately.

"My compound survived because I accepted what others refused to," Joonkyung continued. "Structure has to replace sentiment. Hierarchy has to replace chaos. People need purpose, and when they can't choose that purpose wisely for themselves, someone stronger and smarter has to assign it." He paused, letting the weight of the statement settle. "There's cruelty in hesitation too. In allowing weak leadership to doom people slowly instead of making hard decisions quickly."

Jimin felt something twist unpleasantly beneath his ribs again. “How can you talk about people like this? They’re not puppets for you to use.”

“Survival requires utility, especially of your fellow humans.” Joonkyung’s gaze sharpened. “God—it pains me that you refuse to accept the obvious.”

“And what exactly am I refusing to accept?”

“That leadership requires you to take away your people’s free will.”

The words settled heavily into the room, dense and suffocating. Joonkyung leaned forward further now, lantern light catching along the sharp line of his jaw while his expression remained unnervingly composed.

"Tell me honestly, Jimin. How many people at your farm would survive without you?"

The question hung between them, and Jimin felt the weight of it pressing against his chest, against the truth he carried silently in the hollow space behind his ribs. He thought of Mr. Cho struggling to keep his hands steady during watch. He thought of Hyejin, who still flinched at loud noises. He thought of the pups—the ones who had never known a world without hunger and fear, who looked to him for answers he didn't always have. He thought of Jeongguk, who had come back from Joonkyung's compound with shadows in his eyes that no amount of sunlight could chase away.

Joonkyung's gaze remained fixed steadily on him, waiting for an answer Jimin refused to give.

“How many of them can provide at your level? Fight at your level? Make difficult decisions when necessary?” His voice softened slightly then, though somehow that made it worse. “You carry them because somebody has to.”

“That doesn’t make them mine to control.” Jimin’s fingers tightened once against his knee beneath the table.

“No,” Joonkyung agreed calmly. “It makes them dependent solely on your competence. You enable their weakness, because you aren’t tapping into your full potential as a leader.”

"Trapping people underground," Jimin said instead, his voice low and sharp. "Starving them into debt and calling it ‘structure’." He leaned forward, and the chair's legs scraped against the cracked tile floor. "That doesn't make you a strong leader, Soryeong-nim. All you’ve become is a landlord with a gun."

Silence settled between them afterward, and for several long seconds Joonkyung simply studied him across the table with an expression too neutral for Jimin to decipher. Then, slowly, he smiled again. He leaned farther into his chair with the whiskey resting loosely in one hand, looking far too amused for the kind of conversation they were having. 

“Jeongguk really has gotten into your head, hasn’t he?”

Jimin stilled slightly at the name, though he kept his face blank and his posture unchanged across the table. 

“He definitely did have a flair for dramatics whenever things stopped going his way,” Joonkyung continued. “I imagine he told you some heroic version of his little rebellion. How he saw injustice and simply couldn’t stand for it anymore. How noble he felt intervening.”

Heat flared sharply beneath Jimin’s ribs. Joonkyung kept talking anyway, voice calm and conversational beneath the soft crackle of lantern flame.

“I remember it somewhat differently,” he said. “In my version, Jeongguk was a young alpha with more impulse than discipline, and the only reason he stirred up trouble at all was likely because one of the omegas he’d taken interest in had already been claimed by a guard."

The anger moved through Jimin so intensely that it became difficult to keep still. His hand twitched once beneath the table before he caught himself, fingers tightening hard enough against his knee that pain shot briefly up his wrist.

Liar—that wasn't what happened. That wasn't what Jeongguk did.

There had been nothing petty or territorial about trying to stop someone from being dragged away and used. Nothing dramatic in the look on Jeongguk's face whenever he spoke about the compound afterward, or the quiet fury sitting beneath every word whenever he talked about the omegas trapped there. And there was certainly nothing civilized in the way Joonkyung twisted it now, speaking about people like they were supplies to distribute, bodies to assign, incentives meant to keep guards obedient and loyal.

But before the anger could fully reach his mouth, something colder cut cleanly through it.

Joonkyung was watching too carefully.

Every word since Jimin stepped into the cafe had been measured for reaction. Every silence. Every shift in expression. He wanted to see what caught deeply enough beneath Jimin’s skin to make him react without thinking first, and right now he wanted to know exactly what Jeongguk was to him—not emotionally, but strategically. Leverage.

So Jimin gave him nothing—no correction, no defense, no explanation. He clamped down on the instinct to protect Jeongguk's name, letting the silence stretch long and suffocating. He watched as the smile at the corner of Joonkyung’s mouth thinned, the man’s curiosity piqued by the lack of a response, before Jimin finally spoke.

“Jeongguk’s motivations are irrelevant.”

Joonkyung’s brows lifted faintly.

“What matters,” Jimin continued evenly, “is that you built a system where people were trapped, abused, and punished for trying to leave.”

Joonkyung sighed softly through his nose, the sound dismissive. “You’re still thinking in old terms,” he said.

Jimin’s expression didn’t shift, though his muscles were coiled tight.

“Abuse. Enslavement. Coercion.” Joonkyung rolled the words slowly off his tongue like concepts he no longer found particularly meaningful. “Those belong to a world with courts and governments and laws that pretended they could protect people. A world of delusions.”

“In this world,” Joonkyung continued, “there’s only order or collapse. Purpose or waste. There are people who contribute, and there are people who drain from those who do. I simply ensure the balance is maintained, by any means necessary.” He twisted the cap off of the bottle of whiskey slowly, pouring another small amount into his mug.

“Take omegas for example. They’ve become one of the most mishandled resources after the collapse,” he said calmly. “Most packs are too emotional about them. Too protective and too beholden to outdated ideas about autonomy and romance.”

Jimin felt his stomach turn slowly beneath the table, a wave of nausea hitting him as he kept his face a mask of neutrality.

“A surviving population needs children. It needs continuity, which in most cases, will require controlled pairings. Those controlled pairings will produce strong offspring.” His gaze remained fixed steadily on Jimin’s face. “Leaving reproduction to fragile emotional attachments and personal whims is exactly the kind of weakness that wiped entire settlements out during the early years.”

The cafe suddenly felt too warm. Maybe Taehyung had been right after all. Sitting across from him now, listening to him speak about omegas with the detached practicality of someone discussing livestock management, Jimin suddenly understood why Taehyung had looked unsettled whenever Joonkyung’s name came up.

Across the table, Joonkyung watched him over the rim of his mug before saying almost mildly, “You shouldn’t look so offended. If anything, you should understand my point better than most.”

Jimin’s gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowing into slits.

“You,” Joonkyung said quietly, “were always proof that omegas were never weak by nature. The fact of the matter is, that you were mishandled by culture. Too many of the wrong people are breeding with one another.”

The words settled unpleasantly into the space between them, heavy and suffocating.

“Your military record was exceptional,” he continued. “Extraordinary discipline and combat adaptability, as well as perfect leadership under pressure.” A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. “You refused to let biology become an excuse.”

The praise felt rotten, like fruit decaying from the inside.

“That’s why I promoted you,” Joonkyung said. “That’s why I watched you so closely. I saw potential where others saw novelty.”

Jimin finally spoke again before the silence afterward could stretch any farther.

“So that’s what this is about?” he asked evenly, leaning back slightly in his chair. “You dragged us out here so you could preach some obsolete idea of eugenics?”

A quiet scoff left him before he could fully stop it.