Chapter Text
It’s as though Jimin begins to lead two separate lives.
With Jangwoo, everything is new territory. It’s a shocking contrast to his time with Yoongi, where everything is black and white, simple, lustful. If Yoongi is monochrome, then Jangwoo is light. Light like the color of the new curtains in Jimin’s apartment, light like springtime, light like the way the sun filters around them at this black wrought iron table, lemon tea and coffee in front of them, Jangwoo’s hand curled around his hand beside the glasses.
The alpha smiles, warm. Light. “You look so beautiful today. Really,” he laughs when the omega rolls his eyes, “every time I see you, it’s worse.”
“Worse?” Jimin quirks a brow. His cheeks are dusty pink. “Or better?”
Jangwoo takes a moment then. Soon a grin spreads on his lips. Jimin hates how perfect his teeth are, strong and white and straight. Envious. Maybe a little admiring. “Definitely better. It’s the color, this… baby blue. You look good in pastels.”
It takes getting used to. Jimin isn’t sure if he’ll ever understand it or be comfortable with it, these compliments. Little thoughts spoken out loud like the sweetest sugar. Unfiltered, so good they may as well be lies, sweet as they are. He wants to believe that’s what they are, yet whenever he looks at Jangwoo’s face for any trace of dishonesty, all he sees is that same light. As though the words are so true and meaningful that it brings the light to his face, like Jimin is the entire reason he looks like that to begin with.
“I guess I’m some dream come true,” the omega offers weekly in return. He doesn’t look at the alpha’s face, but he knows what it looks like all the same.
Jangwoo only beams. The tip of his index finger, long and bony but soft, traces each ridge of Jimin’s smaller fingers. “Yes. My dream.”
Their hands rarely stray from one another’s. For the first two weeks, it was always Jangwoo chasing after him, taking his hand and grinning and teasing when Jimin would hide, smiling against the crown of his head. After the first month, Jimin stops keeping track. He only notices it when they have to reach for something or step around an obstacle, the way their palms are melded together, the size of Jangwoo’s hand curving around the edges of his and keeping it safe, not like the width of Yoongi’s which close his in. It makes him dizzy.
They go to the carnival that day. Jangwoo buys them a cotton candy so blindingly baby blue it almost puts Jimin’s outfit to shame. He’ll tear off a piece, raise it to the alpha’s lips, pink blending in with blue as they laugh when it sticks to the corner of his mouth. Jangwoo tries to win him a prize, a top shelf big Brown plushy. Loses, but wins some tiny cheap rings with the logo of a mecha anime on them. Mock proposes to Jimin on one knee when he slides one on the omega’s finger. Makes Jimin’s heart die and start anew.
He also learns some new things about Jangwoo, that he likes roller coasters almost as much as Jimin himself does. That he has a beautiful singing voice, a little rough in good places, high and sweet in even better places. Or that he likes pups, when he and Jimin stumble across a little girl crying for her parents. They’re just around the corner, buying ice cream as they said they would before she wandered a little too far, but Jangwoo holds her hand the entire time until they find them. Jimin also learns that the sight is a little too much to bear on his heart.
It’s on the ferris wheel that Jangwoo finally kisses him. It’s so intense that it knocks Jimin aback, makes him laugh breathlessly when he asks, “What was that?”
The alpha laughs shyly in return. “I, I wanted to kiss you all day. I just… didn’t know how to ask.”
Jimin’s heart does a somersault. The gloss has worn off his lips, so they’re dry. He wets them once, twice. Tries speaking again before his heart gets the best of him. “You don’t have to ask,” is his answer, which is a little too soft, a little too honest. “Ever.”
“No?” Jangwoo grins against his lips. “Never ever?” When all he gets is a happy giggle in response, he goes for it. Kisses Jimin again, over and over until the presses become something bigger, and his bony spider fingers are splayed against the omega’s warm bare thigh until their lips become almost as melted together as their hands.
They only stop when the ride attendant clears his throat, not even noticing when their ride comes to an end.
The dates only get better from then on. So does the sex with Yoongi.
It should hurt more than it does to fuck and be fucked so good when there’s another alpha hopelessly head over heels for him, but Jimin can never think about it, not when he’s rucked up against the wall of the shower, holding Yoongi’s waist and cock between his thighs with suction like a vice.
The air is clear between them, and with that clarity comes a desperate passion. He’ll go to Yoongi’s apartment on off days, days where Jangwoo isn’t his, and that’s how he spends the night. Bare and splayed out and dripping, taking Yoongi over and over until he breathes nothing but him, feels nothing but goosebump raised skin and sweat slicked bodies. His. Theirs. Leather, the wood of the floor, the soft down of the pillows he hates so much. He drinks Yoongi in until one of these nights inevitably become their last.
The further they go, the less they bother with the pretense that this is anything more than it is. Yoongi doesn’t invite him over for a movie or a drink. Jimin comes, and they both know what they’re after, and Yoongi never says anything about it. Never says anything about the scent of Jangwoo in his clothes. Never says anything about how much it truly means to him, the parts that Jimin will never know.
Jimin strives to keep his two lives separates. He sees Yoongi at the alpha’s place, and though he has not yet spent the night with Jangwoo, he intends to do that at his respective apartment, too. It’s like a battle of hearts between the two men. Jimin hasn’t decided who he wants to let into his space yet, his security.
Letting Yoongi into his place should have been a warning sign in itself when he knows Yoongi hasn’t won any favor over Jangwoo. But Yoongi is getting his bathroom retiled and didn’t want to be there for the noise or the intrusion, so Jimin lets him in with a smile against the open door, a kiss different than the others. When he’s getting fucked into his headboard not even an hour later, he blearily thinks of the doorman. He wonders whom he thinks is winning Jimin’s heart these days.
Even with the consequences considered, Jimin thinks it’s nice. He and Yoongi lay side-by-side and half-dressed, the omega picking up an apple slice occasionally while he scrolls through his Instagram feed. Yoongi reads news beside him, ever boring and diligent, and once in a while, the alpha will lean over when Jimin isn’t paying attention and steal a kiss. It’s nice. Even nicer when a dropped apple slice leads to a game of play-shoving, which in turn leads to more kissing, which leads to even nicer sex.
He wakes blearily the next morning. It’s Saturday, so he doesn’t let himself feel guilt over sleeping until the sun is so high. Lifting his head off Yoongi’s chest, he expects to find the alpha still asleep but is startled to see him watching Jimin closely with sleep-lidded eyes, fingers carding through his soft gray hair.
“Good morning,” he mutters, sounding more a question than a statement.
Yoongi seems to find something amusing in that. He huffs softly, lips curling into a smile, and with a quiet grumble of “come here” and a cheesy finger beckon, the omega happily complies, giggling against the other man’s lips as they connect.
Offhandedly, Jimin feels he may be forgetting something important. It’s Saturday, near lunch. April… When the alpha kisses him like this, it’s damn near impossible to focus on anything else. He loses himself in it.
Large hands roam down his sides, tugging at an ass cheek and earning a soft breath in return. “Already?” he asks amusedly, eyes crinkling upward when Yoongi kisses him into silence. He shifts positions a bit for a better angle, kissing the alpha deeper and straddling him. He gasps softly at the wet slide of Yoongi’s rousing cock between his cheeks, gladly rocking back for friction as the alpha palms the length of his thighs where they flex around him.
The warm breeze fills the room from the open window, evoking a peaceful warmth in Jimin’s heart to match the building heat in his core. Yoongi moans beneath him, and he thinks it may be the final straw. He’s in absolute bliss right now, unable to imagine anything that possibly could feel this good. He’s lost in his mind, dangerously so, because when he leans down to recapture the older man’s lips, he fails to hear the sound of his front door being opened, or the soft cautious footsteps to follow.
“Jiminnie, you are so late, we thought you die-- Oh, what the fuck!”
Yoongi seems to sense it first but too late. Obviously he lurches up when he sees the beta round the corner, but the damage is already done when Taehyung gawks at them in utter shock. Jimin instinctually pulls the sheets around his waist to hide his arousal, already moving to leave the bed when Taehyung takes a step back.
“Taehyung,” he stutters cautiously and shamefully. “We were-- I just, I was, I can explain, please..”
His best friend scoffs at this effort, looking as though he positively wants to disappear off the face of the earth. “Yeah, you two were definitely just. And after all this trying, too, all this with Jangwoo” he laughs ruefully, mussing his hair as he goes to leave for real this time. “Fucking hell. I… I hope it was worth it.”
Jimin refuses it to end there. He rushes after Taehyung after yanking the nearest pair of briefs on; they’re Yoongi’s, not that he thinks any on that at the moment. He catches the beta just as he opens the door, and Taehyung spares him a look as though it hurts.
He tries to catch his breath. “Taehyung, please,” he begs shakily. “Don’t overthink this, please. I’m sorry. I’m, I’m trying, I want to--”
“You want a lot of things,” his dear friend laughs wetly. Frowns at his feet. “A lot of things, Jimin, that you don’t seem to care enough about to actually try. Even my understanding, which I can’t offer you right now because I can’t bear to look at you. I just… I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Taehyung,” he sobs. The tears are there before he can stop them. He doesn’t crumple like he wants to, doesn’t cry himself sick like he did in college. He can’t right now because the only way to weather those times was for Taehyung to come and scoop him up again, and the beta made it clear that that isn’t an option right now.
Disappointment always hurts more than anger. He and Taehyung have fought before, but rarely does he get a look so sharp he can feel it slice his heart into two. He hardly recognizes Yoongi standing beside him as he sits at the foot of the bed.
The alpha raises a hand. He seems to think better on it, but after flexing his fingers, he lowers it to Jimin’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m gonna give you some time, okay? Unless… Do you need me to stay?”
The word doesn’t come out at first. He shakes his head vacantly before sniffling. “No.” He blinks rapidly, his wet eyelashes tacky and heavy. “I’ll be okay.”
Yoongi leaves him with a kiss into his hair. He doesn’t go right away, rather lingering there as if to find any sway in Jimin’s resolve. When he doesn’t get one, he slowly makes his way out. When the door closes for the second time, Jimin looks around and ends up in numb shock. For all these days of excited decorating, his apartment has never looked worse.
Taehyung doesn’t come around easy. It’s an agonizing five days before he even gets a simple reply from the other man. It’s at work, Jimin biting the end of his pen nervously. His slacks are too tight and he’s been sweating all over his chair, maintenance still working on the air conditioner. He picks up his phone the moment it vibrates.
Message received - 14:01
Tae: look im sorry for the silence
Tae: it just really SUCKS
Tae: i dont hate you i just need some time
Jimin’s thumb smears sweat across the screen in his haste to reply.
Message sent - 14:03
Jimin: No i get it, i understand
Jimin: take your time
Message sent - 14:06
Jimin: i’m really sorry
The guilt never leaves. He’s been carrying it with him for days, and with the relief of something that offers the promise of an apology comes the pain of reflecting on just how badly he hurt Taehyung. He can’t imagine how this reflects on him after behaving so confidently in his affections for Jangwoo, in his resolve to change. Has he told Jeongguk? Seokjin? How would they look at him now if they knew?
The spoon filled with sugar he has raised over his coffee trembles in his grip, and watching the little crystals vibrate and spill over, Jimin chokes on a sob, bringing the back of his hand to cover his mouth. He may be in the break room, but he refuses to let himself come apart here. Being an omega in the workplace is bad enough, but being an omega who has public breakdowns in the workplace? No, he would rather die.
A few coworkers pass as he evens out his breathing. He offers a shaky nod to one of them and a watered-down smile. He’s okay. He will be okay. It’s okay.
Coffee now secured and in-hand, he considers going back to work early rather than enjoy this, but it’s the little buzz of his phone that has him looking down, lips curling up when Jangwoo’s name appears. There’s a tiny heart emoji, followed by a thread.
Message received - 14:38
Jangwoo: hey!! No pressure and sorry for being out of the blue
Jangwoo: but movies and din at my place tonight?
Jangwoo: Been dying to see that psycho ballerina movie you told me about
Then, as Jimin is just about to reply, another comes in.
Message received - 14:40
Jangwoo: and to see you of course.
He sends “yes” before he even considers talking himself out of it.
“Sorry about not having a TV again. The laptop is…”
A giggle. “Jangwoo, really, really. It’s fine. I usually watch movies on my phone; this is a million times better.”
“Okay, okay. Gummy worms or Jordan almonds?”
Jimin considers this a moment, his face wrought with playful thoughtfulness. “Hmm. Surprise me.”
Ten minutes later, he’s curled against Jangwoo’s side, blanket huddled close and popping candied almonds into his mouth as Black Panther does something impressive on-screen. He’s in the middle of imagining what having super strength would be like when the alpha presses a kiss to the side of his neck, murmuring, “I should have picked something else. This is super nerdy stuff, not very romantic at all.”
The omega smiles. “I beg to differ. The weird Russian girl seems to really be getting it on with Vision. Very romantic, if you ask me.”
“Scarlet Witch.”
“Mm,” he giggles, taking another candy coated almond between his lips. Then, with a smirk, “What is this then? Are you trying to romance me tonight, Song Jangwoo?”
Said man laughs, cheeks coloring a bit. “Well, no! At least not, not entirely. Though… you do deserve that. Romance.” He pats Jimin’s thigh over the blanket. “You sounded so stressed when I called you earlier,” says the alpha quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He thinks on it, the pros and cons of talking about it. Shakes his head. “Not yet. Maybe sometime, but not yet.” He raises his eyes to follow along Jangwoo’s face. It’s so very close, the angle of his jaw. He can see the roughness of hair coming in. Wonders how Jangwoo would look with a beard. Thinks of Taehyung’s pathetic attempt at growing one. “Kiss me?”
Though slow at first, Jangwoo does comply. He shifts a bit and offers a lopsided smile. Rather than tease like Jimin thinks he might, he tenderly cups the omega’s face with his face, pressing into his cheek before closing the gap and bringing their mouths together.
It’s warm and soft and pleasant, so sweet a kiss Jimin can scarcely believe it’s meant for him. There is no tongue, no indication of lust, no wandering hands or pressure. There’s just Jangwoo, his soft wide mouth, and Jimin’s. It takes seconds for his entire being to melt into it. Good as it may feel, he hardly knows what to do with himself.
Jangwoo seems to know, however, because he adjusts them a bit, moving his laptop and spreading his legs. “Don’t worry, I’m not seducing you,” he laughs softly. “I have a cramp. Plus I can face you better this way.”
Jimin grins languidly. “Well, we don’t want that.” He presses three more kisses, sighing softly as his forehead bumps against Jangwoo’s chin. How can there be anything more tranquil, he thinks to himself, than this moment?
The alpha moves his hand in leisurely circles against Jimin’s back. He seems nervous, if the depth of his scent is any indication, but Jimin waits for him to make a move. Feelings are always best addressed when their owner initiates them.
“I want to tell you something,” Jangwoo murmurs, hand slowing its motions. “And I don’t want you to freak out. I don’t want you to think that it means something more than it does, or that I want a perfect reply. We’ve been seeing each other for nearly two months, and it’s not enough, yet it feels like a lifetime. I think I often forget the first times because I love all the others so much,” he confesses, brows furrowed. “But I just needed to say it, Jimin, because I’ve been thinking about it every night and I can’t go on if I don’t just spit it out. So I love you. I do. You… are the best omega I have ever known, and I don’t want to ever feel happiness again unless it’s with you. So… there. Feel free to hit me now.”
At some point during the admission Jimin thinks back to the last soccer game he and Taehyung had in middle school. Jimin was on the team himself; it was a time before they all presented, and being an omega didn’t bar him. It was he and his best friend, playing since the tender age of six. He was on the bench for an injury, but he watched his friend play that day. Taehyung was having it rough, his parents separating at home and the other kids not easing up on him any. He doesn’t remember how it began, but he recalls very well the feeling of something building up, all those little things--the coach badgering him for sloppiness, his mother not making it to the game, the way Ju Ilsong kicked him on purpose--mounting up until they were ready to burst. He could feel it, but he didn’t know how to react so he didn’t. He didn’t realize it until Taehyung’s fist was flying right into the goalkeeper’s jaw.
The words weaving through his mind and closer to understanding, he gasps softly, feeling an eerie sense of deja vu relating back to that soccer game, to watching something huge happen in slow motion, unstoppable. He opens and closes his mouth a few times in a desperate wondrance before asking shakily, “You do?”
Jangwoo laughs nervously. “Yes. Yes, I do. So much, Jimin, please believe me. I love you.” When the omega gives no response, no inclination either way, he eventually asks warily, “Do you not feel the same?”
Does he feel the same, Jimin wonders, eyes closed as his forehead bumps against the alpha’s. Has he ever known love? What does it feel like? What makes Jangwoo different from Yoongi? What is it that makes him want one more than the other? What is trust, and can Jimin bring himself to give it?
He exhales slowly as he moves his hands over his partner’s cheeks, swallowing thickly. Jangwoo loves him. Should this not be it: the moment Jimin has wished for before all his friends? The sincerity is clear, and Jimin knows affection of his own is here. It’s obvious, when he thinks about it, what the problem is.
How can he give his heart to Jangwoo when he has been unfaithful? Is it love if he fell between the sheets so easily with another? And would Jangwoo retract the statement if he knew?
Jimin sits back on his heels with distraught composure, feeling the words and anxiety tingle and bubble up behind his lips. “Jangwoo, I… I…”
In the end, it’s his eyes that makes him not do it. Just the sight of them, so classical and brown and hopeful, tender, scared, loving. If Jimin has to sacrifice the pleasures of Yoongi to be with an alpha who literally has given him his entire heart, he will accept the consequences. But no matter how it hurts him in the process, he refuses to hurt a man who looks at him like that because of his own selfishness. Let Yoongi be in the past if Jangwoo is offering him a future right here, right now.
With a soft cry Jimin brings their mouths together, squishy fingers latching onto the alpha’s collar so he can attack him with a passionate kiss. Jangwoo can only laugh in incredulity for so long because soon after Jimin pulls back, those tears he fights so hard to keep inside wetting his cheeks. “I love you, too. I love you, Jangwoo.”
Jangwoo takes his time with him. Even when the kisses grow impossibly smoldering, the alpha’s hands only slow, taking in the curves of Jimin’s waist and thighs with reverence and affection, so different than Yoongi’s greedy roughness. His lips dance in a pattern across the expanse of the omega’s bared chest, pressing and pulling at each nipple until Jimin is left soaking through his sweats. And of course Jangwoo peels those off slowly, too, whispering a cadence of appreciation down Jimin’s body while he travels between his legs, reacting to each gasp Jimin makes with an even firmer press of his tongue to his clenching hole.
It’s strange, it’s foreign, it’s wonderful. His back is arched to the fullest when Jangwoo takes him. The alpha focuses on his tender chest; Jimin is so aware of feeling him, the sweaty press of his bangs, the long curve of his cock deep inside, the way he won’t let Jimin shy away from his body even for a moment. It brews heat like the dead of summer, and it’s sticky, but it’s also so intimate and strange after this long year of off-and-on with Yoongi that Jimin finds himself crying. His tears add to the comical wetness they have created, and when he cums first, he is overcome so thoroughly with adoration that Yoongi, for the first time, has disappeared from his mind. There are no comparisons, no regrets, no fear. There is only Jangwoo. Only this night, theirs.
After their lovemaking, Jimin pats down his boyfriend’s hair, endeavoring to hold him despite Jangwoo being broader across than two of him.
“Thank you,” Jangwoo says after a short while, quiet and worn against Jimin’s collar.
“For what?” he asks quietly in return, straining to better look down at the man.
Jangwoo smiles, propping his chin up. Pokes his fingertip into the soft button of Jimin’s nose. “For this. For loving me. For saying you’d date me all those weeks ago. Just, for everything, Jimin. For you.”
He kisses the alpha because he can’t think of a better thing to do. Wetly he laughs, cupping the older man’s handsome face. “No, no that’s not right. I’m thanking you.”
Jangwoo waits until Jimin kisses him.
“For giving me a chance.”