Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You never forget. That’s what no one tells you.”

PD-nim’s words cut through the noise of the party celebrating their biggest international tour to date. It was the only time PD-nim had ever opened up to Namjoon like that, after too much to drink the year before Namjoon found himself joining Seokjin for the heat, when they were all already more famous than they’d ever thought they’d become.

The pack and the staff celebrated the tour announcement at the rooftop terrace of the label’s new building, with views of Seoul stretching in all directions. The label had put some money into the summer night’s festivities: a bartender mixed cocktails on request and servers kept the buffet table laden with snacks while music blared. There had been speeches – Namjoon had given one of them. We’ve all worked hard for years, let’s take this moment to recognise how far we’ve come!

PD-nim let loose and towards the end of the night he had Namjoon sitting in the corner of the terrace, the two of them having a bit of a heart-to-heart as they sat on the outdoor wicker chairs. And, without any prompting whatsoever, PD-nim said it: that you never forgot. That no one tells you that.

“What don’t you forget?” Namjoon hiccupped – he was heavy on the beer for once, a half-empty bottle in his grip. The sun had set and the fairy lights lining the rooftop glimmered around them.

“Their scents,” PD-nim said. He’d been downing gin, a glass in his hand – and was staring into the space between them, unseeing. “Your former packmates’ scents.”

PD-nim had headed a small pack at some point in his twenties, but the drama of it was obscure to Namjoon. Hoseok thought that the two packmates had fallen in love and abandoned PD-nim in an act of rebellion, but none of them knew for sure.

“Look over there,” PD-nim then said, pointing to where Taehyung was slow-waltzing with one of the web designers, making the man laugh. Maybe a bit flirty. “What is he to you?”

“Like grass. Earth.” Permanent, warm – that was what Taehyung was to him. So clever, so creative – his favourite, in the way that they all were.

PD-nim looked satisfied and said, “Thirty years from now, you will know his scent.” Across the rooftop Taehyung’s smile was wide, his eyes sparkling – forever young. “Thirty years from now, even if tomorrow he disappears, you will know his scent.”

Namjoon jerked, alarmed and a little buzzed. “Where’s Tae going?”

“Nowhere,” PD-nim said, waving a hand. “Nowhere now. But when he goes, kid, when you all– all settle down, find mates, the usual song and dance. And when that happens, you will do what I did: you let them go. And this is what I’m telling you, so it doesn’t catch you unaware, alright? This is what you need to know: that you will keep looking for them for the rest of your life. You understand that, don’t you? You will keep looking for them.”

Namjoon frowned, looking over to Jimin and Jungkook doing a silly dance together with lots of arm waving and butt wiggling, of Hoseok laughing and filming them with his phone, of Yoongi sitting on one of the chairs with a glass of wine, observing the chaos with a bemused smiled, while Seokjin was making the biggest racket of all, trying to teach five of their staff the choreography to their latest MV, herding them like sheep and loudly complaining they weren’t getting it right. Their tour manager observed from the side with her mate and child, shaking her head.

“You already do it, I’m sure,” PD-nim said, “with the way your schedules sometimes split you up. We try to keep you together, you know, but it’s not always possible.”

There was a lump in Namjoon’s throat. “What do I do?”

“Try to locate them. It’s that moment of asleep and awake that gets me, anyway – when you try and catch their scents to check they’re there.”

Namjoon did do that, he realised, stirring from sleep and trying to listen to the sounds of Nonhyeon-dong, thinking they were all at the old dorm and that any of the pack could wake him up at any second by tugging his covers aside and pushing into his neck while he groaned in faux protest. But then he awoke and was in a hotel room alone in a foreign land, and his packmates were somewhere close by, but the relief was not the same. No one had ever told him how lonely hotel rooms could be – and were.

PD-nim was leaning back in the chair now, sipping on his gin. “They’re like little ghosts or spirits,” he said, mostly to himself. “Ghost memories, ghost instincts – you get them for the rest of your life, even if you haven’t seen the people in years or decades.”

“Why would– Why would I not see them in decades?” he managed, tongue thick.

“Because life will take you to different places. Don’t be naïve, not you – you’re too smart for that,” PD-nim said impatiently. “The seven of you are one of the most remarkable packs I have seen, but even you will end up on different continents at the end of all this, don’t you know that? And people always warn young alphas, and I know I warned you plenty. But you didn’t listen, of course you didn’t. So I’m telling you what I’ve learned: that losing them never leaves you. You’ll think you see them on the streets, you’ll think you catch their scents, you’ll think they’re just an arm’s length away – but it will be a stranger who reminds you of a time when they were yours.”

“Okay,” he managed – was all he could say. He couldn’t think about losing his pack. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

“You carry them until the day you die,” PD-nim said, looking at his drink. “And that is what I believe. You celebrate your success decades down the line, on rooftops with beers and glittery lights, and you wish they were there with you, but they’re not. Will never be.”

He nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Ah, you’re welcome,” PD-nim said, sounding pleased, but Namjoon was neither grateful nor pleased. PD-nim stood up and clutched his shoulder for support, but hid it as a paternal gesture and not drunken wobbliness. “Us alphas, you know – we carry our losses deeper than they know. Don’t let them in on that. Don’t let them know that all this time it was you who needed them more. Okay?”

And PD-nim tapped his cheek and waddled off.

People were now dancing in the middle of the rooftop – Seokjin had somehow ended up carrying their choreographer’s toddler while the parents were taking the opportunity to dance, and the kid, a year-and-a-half-old boy, stared at Seokjin with a distrusting face until Seokjin blew up his cheeks and said, “Huh? What you looking at?” The kid slowly began to smile so Seokjin did it again, and soon the kid was laughing so hard he twitched and jerked in Seokjin’s arms, and Seokjin flashed the kid a wide, winning grin.

Meanwhile Taehyung was dragging a reluctant Yoongi to dance while Jungkook was draping all over Hoseok and scenting his favourite hyung, and nearby less innocently Jimin had an arm slung around the waist of one of their makeup alpha noonas and was practically grinding on her – and she looked mortified but also like it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

And PD-nim hadn’t said anything Namjoon didn’t know really, but for the first time he asked the question without avoiding it: who first?

Would it be Jungkook, who often talked about having his own pack one day? Or Taehyung waltzing away from him into the arms of some other alpha? Or Jimin perhaps who would be unable to wait for Namjoon to finish conscription, too used to a pack to endure such long absence? Would it be Hoseok, would it be Yoongi? Would it –

Seokjin appeared, face flushed, eyes shining, black hair a little messy, with the toddler still propped on his hip, and Namjoon felt both more focused and confused at the same time, insides tightening, belly pulsing warmth. Too much beer, far too much beer.

But god, how could so much beauty be condensed to a single person like that?

Seokjin scoffed at him. “Yah, no brooding in corners when there’s a party happening!” Seokjin bounced the giggling kid, who had decided in just a few minutes that he loved Seokjin, of course he did. When Namjoon didn’t move, Seokjin spoke to the child conspiratorially. “What do we say, hmm? Should we say Namjoon-oppa, come dance with us? Namjoon-oppaaaa,” Seokjin said mischievously, which sounded all kinds teasing and wrong, and Namjoon very much wanted it to stop instantly.

He put his beer down and quickly stood up, obliging. Seokjin nodded his approval, and Namjoon admired the certain hold Seokjin had of the child, the way the lights around them immersed everyone in a soft surreal glow – like the party could go on forever, all of them young, happy, and together.

Still together.

Seokjin reached out to grab his hand while keeping the kid securely pressed to his side, pulling Namjoon with them, and said, “Come on, let’s show them what good dancing really looks like.”

This night would end. It had to.

He asked it again: who would leave him first?

Kicking out a packmate wasn’t necessarily a dramatic act: you simply stopped scenting them, sending both parties into withdrawal. But you sucked it up, suffered the symptoms, didn’t give in to the urge to call them, find them, reclaim them. No, you shunned them: ignored any calls or pleas, signed up to a rehab centre just to get it over and done with, left abroad for a few months without a forwarding address, and changed the code to the apartment as necessary.

Okay, fine – perhaps that was a little dramatic.

But eventually the symptoms went away: your former packmate was no longer embedded into the scent of your skin, the claim having faded. You were clean of each other, on the surface anyway. People did it all the time if they unmated or if they decided they were better off without pack claims.

To Namjoon, however, the thought of proceeding with such tactics felt impossible, like someone was tugging at the end of a thread that would make the whole tapestry unravel. Seokjin left out of the pack? What about their fans – how would they explain it to anyone? Would anyone ever forgive Namjoon for this? Would Seokjin?

The only certainty he had was this: the pack would never forgive him.

He sat on it.

After the Paris shows they had a day to themselves, and Namjoon spent it trying to regain his inner calm, trying to be Namjoon From Before, admiring impressionist and realist paintings with the two staff members who sometimes accompanied him around museums. Yoongi was sleeping at the hotel, Hoseok and Jimin had gone shopping, and Seokjin, Jungkook and Taehyung had invaded Disneyland Paris.

The staff with him shared his passion for art and they usually analysed the works they saw together, but Namjoon was taciturn that day, which attracted a couple “Namjoon-ah, is everything okay?”s.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” he insisted as they moved around the galleries, with him trying not to call the other pack members.

He missed Seokjin. He missed the way Seokjin’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, the way Seokjin would find something so funny that he’d smack Namjoon’s arm as he hollered – and then leaned into him, a little. He missed the pursed, pouty lips when Seokjin was displeased. He missed the quiet moments when Seokjin was lost in thought, a million miles away. He missed them being so comfortable with each other that it was like air, and not – guilt. God. Was this guilt?

Everything felt wrong, a possessive streak lurking in him constantly, upset that Seokjin wasn’t in his bed although he had a much more serious problem with a packmate that could in the long run ruin everything if he didn’t get the hell over it.

They stopped to examine one of the paintings: Après l'accouplement, 1883, Toulouse-Lautrec, which showed a female youth of twenty or so, sitting naked on a bed amongst laid out fabrics, and on her neck was a bleeding mate bite. The hues of the painting were brown and orange, autumnal and warm, with her auburn hair hung loose and long, her cheeks rosy and her face in side-profile, a hint of a smile visible, and there was bliss and release in the way she was seated. Contentment.

No shame – no guilt. No silent agreement never to talk about what had happened.

But where was the alpha or beta who had claimed her? Why were they not there?

One of the staff said, “Ah, yes. You know he was a cripple, this alpha painter? He painted all these romantic scenes – bedroom scenes, mating scenes. He hired prostitutes to model for him. It’s funny, isn’t it? Painted things like these with such tenderness that they feel real, but he never had any lovers himself.”

“Why not?” Namjoon asked, feeling ill at ease.

A shrug. “No one found him particularly attractive – because of how he was crippled, I think. People have always been cruel that way, huh? Brilliant art, though – it’s got such warmth, don’t you think? Such a– a wealth of intimacy to it all. Makes me miss my mate, really. Gosh, I should call her.”

Namjoon was still looking at the artwork, at the painted omega’s flustered ease. And as he looked he realised why the alpha wasn’t in the painting: the alpha was Namjoon himself, the viewer. This was how Toulouse-Lautrec dreamt of seeing his beloved: youthful and beautiful, loved, mated and his own. And as Namjoon examined each curve, the way the omega had been crafted with careful strokes, he recognised that the painting wasn’t love, it wasn’t contentment. It was agony – agony of absence. Agony over the impossible. The painting was screaming, and all the while the woman sat on the bed with the most beautiful, coy smile he’d ever seen.

“Let’s keep going,” the other staff member then said, and Namjoon realised a handful of teenagers from across the gallery were filming them on their phones.

He ducked his head and moved along – they thankfully weren’t followed, while the security guy hired to trail them at a distance was already dispelling the small crowd.

That evening the pack convened at a restaurant that reportedly served the best steak in France, and they liked their meat. Yoongi had finished working on a song that afternoon and was pleased; Jimin and Hoseok showed up carrying ten high-end boutique bags between them; Taehyung and Seokjin appeared with Mickey Mouse headbands and arguments about which rides were safe or too scary; and behind them was Jungkook with a beaming smile, high on cotton candy. They all seemed happy to be reunited, quick hugs and exchanges of scent, while Namjoon dared a tentative smile at Seokjin, who returned it. Namjoon felt far more relieved than he liked.

When the seven of them were together like this, Namjoon believed in most miracles. He even believed that perhaps he and Seokjin could overcome the heat and the wedge that it had forced between them. They’d struggled before, but been stronger for it. Maybe this time too. Maybe –

Jungkook had won a Donald Duck plushie from a shooting game and gifted it to Seokjin, proclaiming this happily to them all. Seokjin had said duck under his arm, the toy’s inanimate fabric eyes staring at nothing, and Namjoon’s gut reaction of a suppressed snarl, followed by a sour taste in his mouth, was jealousy. The relief of their reunion vanished in an instant: Jungkook giving Seokjin gifts? Jungkook following Seokjin around all day? He took in the wide smile that Jungkook was giving Seokjin and tensed up. Jungkook had offered himself as heat companion, hadn’t he? A rival. A threat. Jungkook was challenging Namjoon and –

Namjoon excused himself and then simply stood outside their cabinet for a minute, trying to calm down. He’d been fine most of the day – had been trying very hard to move on, to get over it, to ignore the instincts leading him astray. He’d only called the Disneyland team twice to make sure everyone was fine and now they were reunited and within minutes he wanted to snarl? At Jungkook of all people, convinced that their youngest harboured intents to court Seokjin?

Was he having a breakdown? Were Sejin’s fears right and he was heading for cocaine and knuckle tattoos? God, he couldn’t keep going like this. He couldn’t be on edge and aggressive for all days to come, and if that was all he felt around Seokjin now, if this was all he’d become, then he –

It was Taehyung who came to find him, poking his head out the cabinet door. “Hyung, we can’t understand the menus or the waitress.”

“Yeah, okay,” he nodded, clearing his throat. “Just need a minute.”

Taehyung frowned and stepped out, sliding the door shut behind himself. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said, jaw set tight. Taehyung didn’t buy it, of course, brows furrowing in concern. Namjoon hesitated, then gave in. “Nothing, but– but can I get a hug?”

Taehyung’s surprise lasted only a second before he’d already engulfed Namjoon in a firm bear hug like he’d been waiting to give one for weeks. Namjoon returned it, exhaling away the frustration and confusion, taking in the earthy scent of Taehyung – the beta was a lot taller than he’d used to be, a lot taller than the day Namjoon had initiated him at an arcade. Taehyung’s familiar scent was bittersweet somehow, perhaps because Namjoon’s talk with PD-nim had been on his mind lately. Of course Namjoon would spend the rest of his life looking for this – trying to locate it again. Of course he would.

He clutched Taehyung tighter to him, too wound up to be embarrassed.

“You wanna talk about it?” Taehyung asked against his shoulder, but he shook his head. Taehyung tsk’ed. “There’s seven of us, hyung, you don’t have to carry it all by yourself.”

“Yeah I know,” he said, still clinging onto Tae. He hated feeling so possessive and aggressive, yet that was all he’d been since the heat, like exactly the type of alpha he’d always loathed. No wonder Seokjin wasn’t talking to him. “Am I an asshole?” he then asked.

“No,” Taehyung said, “I checked just now and the global consensus is that no, you’re not an asshole. Did someone say that? I’ll kick their ass!”

Namjoon pressed his nose to Taehyung’s hair. “Just me.”

Taehyung stepped back, surprised. “But you’re the best person I know.”

There was nothing but sincerity in the statement, and Namjoon had to look away. But Taehyung remained where he was, studying him carefully and squeezing his arm. “Be kinder to yourself, hyung. Haven’t you spent a few years preaching that to the rest of the world?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Of course Taehyung was right. There were still just a lot of times when Namjoon didn’t like himself, but he’d always liked himself around Seokjin – nearly always, some incidents aside. Now he hated how he behaved, and it drained him of all self-belief.

“I just– just hate getting tangled in my head and affecting all of you because of it. I hate us not being okay.” And as he said ‘us’, he realised he meant him and Seokjin.

“We go through rough patches,” Taehyung admitted. “And we’re all stressed, I think – you, me, Jin-hyung…” Taehyung then grabbed his hand. “Come on, you need food and the company of packmates who support you.” And he let Taehyung pull him back into the cabinet, Tae declaring, “Alpha-hyung is a little blue today so we’re ordering extra steak.”

Namjoon felt embarrassed, but Jimin was already up on his feet and hugging his side – because they had all been there and you didn’t need to explain yourself if you didn’t want to: it was okay not to be okay sometimes. Even Yoongi squeezed his hand as Namjoon made his way back to his seat, their seating order having changed while he was outside. Now Seokjin was sitting next to him, eyes full of concern.

But Namjoon nodded as he sat down – fine, it was all fine – but Seokjin nudged Namjoon’s knee with his own like a question, and Namjoon couldn’t look at him. It was easier when he ignored Seokjin the little he could.

“Let’s order food,” he said, clearing his throat.

His pack argued for an appropriate twenty minutes on what to eat, their private cabinet filling with chatter, Namjoon quieter than usual but he was smiling at the jokes. Seokjin, uncharacteristically, was mostly quiet too, but it felt like the others were working harder to fill in those gaps. Yoongi ordered wine while Jungkook kept craning his neck, looking for the steak to be brought in, and somewhere in the midst of it all Seokjin grabbed Namjoon’s hand under the table.

Namjoon stilled, surprised. Seokjin slotted their fingers together and gave his hand a squeeze. Had they touched each other that day? He wasn’t sure, but the warmth of Seokjin’s palm against his radiated through him. Seokjin’s Mickey Mouse ears were now slung around his neck, while a white turtleneck hid the bruises from the heat. Seokjin was snacking on a breadstick, eyes on Hobi across the table – but Seokjin held his hand, even with a growing flush on his cheeks.

Still there. Hanging on even at this late hour. Were they both fools, he wondered.

But he squeezed back, even as something else lurked in the connection – an instinct that was urging him to close the distance between them, to get Seokjin to turn his head so that Namjoon could press a chaste kiss to Seokjin’s lips. Let it linger. Exhale and give in – finally, at last.

“Food’s here, food’s here!” Taehyung gushed, and Seokjin’s hand slipped from his as waiting staff came in.

The next hour and then some was spent on food, and the steak was amazing, the bechamel sauce worth crying over, the asparagus better than anything Taehyung was able to do at home while Yoongi complained that everything was too salty and he wanted kimchi fried rice. Even so, at the end of the meal they had a happy, overstuffed Taehyung on their hands, a mildly chardonnay-buzzed Yoongi, a crashing-after-sugar-rush Kookie, a still-jetlagged Hoseok, a giggly Jimin making moon-eyes at the beta waitress, and a fussy Seokjin ushering them all out and checking for leftover belongings as the Donald Duck dangled from his grip.

They filed into the large nine-seater outside, their security accompanying them, with fans waving and shouting because someone had spotted them coming in a few hours earlier and word had gone around.

“That one was on me,” Yoongi said amicably as they reached the hotel, referring to the two-thousand-euro bill that Yoongi had pocketed in spite of “not getting French food”. Yoongi petted Jungkook’s hair. “Hyung’s treat.”

“Thank you, hyung,” Jungkook mumbled tiredly, draping over Yoongi.

As they got to the hotel lobby, Yoongi suddenly said, “Let’s go have a drink at the hotel bar! A night cap!” Yoongi was on a roll. “Best view in Paris, they said!”

Jimin was instantly game, peer-pressuring Jungkook and Taehyung into joining them, their security guard looking long-suffering as he carried Jimin’s shopping bags and followed the quartet after looking to Namjoon for approval – and he granted it with a tired nod. He, Seokjin and Hoseok wanted to sleep, however, and as the three of them got to their floor and passed the hired security monitoring the lifts, they tiredly reached for their key cards and tried to remember their room numbers.

Hoseok stopped quickly, however, feeling his pockets. “Ah! I gave my key to Yoongi-hyung for safekeeping! Too much wine, too much wine…” Hoseok turned on his heels. “See you tomorrow!” he called over his shoulder, heading back to the lifts around the corner.

And then Namjoon and Seokjin were alone.

They both stilled, standing in the quiet corridor together. Namjoon had not expected this challenge yet, but no – it was an opportunity for them to talk, to fix things, for Namjoon to show they were going to be okay because the thought of forcing Seokjin out of the pack made Namjoon sick to his very core.

“What number are you?” Namjoon asked.

“Uh, I have no idea,” Seokjin admitted, holding his key card.

“I’ll show you to your door.”

“Sure. Tap until I get lucky?” Seokjin asked, trying to joke – and that was what Namjoon needed.

Their throng of staff had taken up the entire floor, but moving around past midnight still felt sneaky. They stayed close to each other, nearly bumping together whenever Seokjin paused at a door to test the reader.

After silently testing a few doors, Seokjin said, with an air of forced casualness, “Oh, I got my lab results back this morning, from the hormone check. I thought about texting you.”

He tensed. “Oh. And?”

“And a considerable increase,” Seokjin said, not looking at him. “It’s balancing out still, but the trajectory is, ah, remarkably fertile, I believe they phrased it. So, go team?”

Somehow the news didn’t surprise Namjoon: the entire heat had felt like taking a bath in intense mating hormones, where nothing made more sense and no one could be more compatible with him than Seokjin. Remarkably fertile – the words trickled down his spine, Seokjin’s scent in the air, calling out to Namjoon since the first day when he’d what? Literally walked into a door. God, that had been a lifetime ago. He’d perhaps learned to ignore the effect Seokjin had on him or had begun to recognise the pull of Seokjin as home – but lately that comfort had changed.

“That was all?” he then asked, heart beating a little faster. Would it show yet in the blood work? “I mean did it show if you’re preg –”

Seokjin turned to him with a look of surprise. “No.” Fast. Sharp. Rosy cheeks getting redder. “I mean no,” Seokjin then repeated, and the silence that followed felt awkward, both of them flustered. Seokjin looked down the corridor, avoiding Namjoon’s fixed stare. “I mean I– I know I– I said things, during, but… that was just…”

“Right.” Namjoon clenched his teeth and looked away, nodding. Of course, he’d been a fool thinking otherwise, for hoping for two lines. For thinking Seokjin wanted that too.

But ten years from now Seokjin would be mated to someone and they’d have a slew of kids, and Namjoon would in some warped way have helped with that. Seokjin would carry a mating mark on his neck while bouncing a toddler against his hip – a small girl, black-haired and button-nosed, no dimples in sight – and say, “Guess she wouldn’t exist if you and I hadn’t, you know, back then”, and Seokjin’s mate would always dislike Namjoon by default because Namjoon had beaten them to it, meaning that inevitably he and Seokjin would talk less, and then Namjoon would leave Seokjin to his bright family home, on another continent, scattered to the winds, and return to his empty Seoul bachelor pad and watch concert recordings of his former pack while helping himself to too much soju.

Was that where he was heading at the end of all this?

And yet Seokjin was right in front of him, still young, still unmated, like the promise of an entire life to be lived, and Namjoon’s gaze lingered on Seokjin’s neck hidden by the white turtleneck, Mickey Mouse ears around it and a Donald Duck still in Seokjin’s grip. He thought back to the painting of the stunning omega freshly claimed, but the alpha wasn’t there. Why? Because they were scared? That was no excuse.

“Anyway…” Seokjin muttered and then decided on the opposite direction just as confidently as before. “My room is definitely this way!”

He snatched the key card from Seokjin’s hand. “We have to be systematic.”

Seokjin rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure. Let’s be systematic.”

But they were hovering, it felt like, around each other. Namjoon pressed the key card to each door they passed, on both sides of the corridor, zigzagging as Seokjin trailed him.

“What’s French for ‘help me, I’m too pretty to sleep on the floor’?” Seokjin asked.

“Merde, I’m pretty sure.”

“Maybe I’m stranded.”

“I’d never let you be.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Hyung, you know I’d never –”

Just then a card reader flashed green with a clicking sound.

“Ah,” Seokjin said, pushing the door open before the mechanism locked again. Namjoon handed him the card back, Seokjin’s fingers curling around it with one foot stuck between the door and the doorframe. “Look at you, my alpha in shining armour.”

A spark of pleased fulfilment instantly spread in him – a task well done for Seokjin. He thought back to his dreams of late, filthy as they had been, but in the dreams he’d had such clear purpose, had known exactly where he stood with Seokjin: as a mate.

But they weren’t mates.

And Seokjin had flared red. “I meant– I mean, I didn’t mean it like– Aish, you know what I meant.”

“Do I?” he asked in spite of himself, taking a step closer. Seokjin’s eyes widened, the scent of him stronger: pulse picking up. Little giveaways. Little handholds. The immediacy of the reaction was pleasing – god, why had it taken them this long to realise the effect they had on each other? And now knowing how good it was…? How did you ignore something like that, deny yourself that?

“Should we– Should I come in?” he then blurted out, in a single sentence ruining all the psyching up he’d been doing all day, all tour. He steadied himself. “You should invite me in.”

Seokjin stared at him, the air around them thicker, warmer. “Okay, say that I…” Seokjin said slowly, but he was tense. “Say that I invite you in. Then what?”

He fidgeted, a little frustrated. “You know what,” he supplied – smooth as ever, a true wordsmith.

But he knew the way they’d undress and the way they’d kiss each other like two people who had gotten good at it; he knew the warmth of their bodies pressed close and the scents of the two of them mixed together; and how good it felt to have Seokjin come apart in his embrace, shivering with release and pleasure. He knew the deep sense of purpose it gave him and how he himself felt found when Seokjin pulled him in.

And so he stepped closer, ready to dive in, to give in – to push into Seokjin’s hotel room and reclaim, consequences be damned. Enough with the guilt, enough with the distance. Let him be in the painting.

But as he approached, Seokjin sidestepped, putting distance between them. Namjoon stopped – a refusal? His omega refused him and –

“Sneaking around in hotel rooms?” Seokjin said, nervously glancing down the corridor. “That’s not a solution to anything, that’s just– just stupid.”

Namjoon bit back the frustration, confusion. “Maybe I want to be stupid, want to risk it.”

“You?” Seokjin asked, almost bemused. “Unlikely, Namjoon-ah.” Namjoon frowned at this, but Seokjin added, “All of this? This stuff with you and me? It’s impossible. Always has been.” Seokjin clutched the Donald Duck, shrugging but visibly embarrassed. “So this, what you’re trying to do right now? It’s the heat withdrawal, that’s all.”

“You think that’s what this is?” he asked, taken aback. Was it just typical alpha brain where he’d bedded an omega and now he couldn’t keep his hands to himself?

“Yes,” Seokjin said. “It’s just gonna take a bit more time for that instinct to fade, for us to forget about what we did. Because whatever you think you’re feeling right now, we both know it’s not worth risking everything over.”

He nodded slowly, unsure. “You’re right. I guess you’re right.”

Forget about it. Let it fade.

But he thought of how he couldn’t relax unless Seokjin was in his line of sight, how he kept thinking of Seokjin carrying their child, and how standing with Seokjin in the corridor now he felt such loss and desire in equal measure that he didn’t know what to do with it.

Seokjin stood up taller and said, “Of course I’m right. How long have you known me?”

“A long time.”

“And do I often err?” Seokjin asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“You never err, hyung.”

“So whatever I say is correct?”

“It is.”

“So I am infallible, would you agree?”

“Yes, I suppose I would.”

“There you go then,” Seokjin said, but Namjoon faltered, something sad in him persisting, something that perhaps had always been there in how he regarded Seokjin: that he couldn’t have this one – move on because you’ll never have him.

It turned out that Namjoon hadn’t learned a single lesson on Seokjin since the age of seventeen. He was still just as stupid – just as smitten and foolish.

Seokjin scratched the side of his neck absently, foot still keeping the door propped open. The sleeves of the white turtleneck were rolled up from the wrists, the long-sleeved shirt underneath showing: Breton striped, soft cotton. Namjoon had been wearing the shirt for some interviews just a day earlier, hadn’t even noticed it missing yet.

Namjoon stilled. Seokjin was keeping Namjoon’s scent close, right on Seokjin’s skin, even now – perhaps especially now when they weren’t talking, when everything hurt. Something awakened anew in Namjoon that had been so clear during the heat: who they both belonged to.

But before he could express his approval and relief that Seokjin was keeping Namjoon’s scent on him, Seokjin said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m always right. It’s a curse, this much knowledge.”´

As Namjoon tried to place why that sounded so bitter, Seokjin’s phone started ringing, startling them both. Seokjin fished out the phone and read the caller ID. “Oh, I gotta –”

“Yeah, sure,” Namjoon said and quickly moved in to scent goodnight because of course he did.

But Seokjin had already turned away from him, phone pressed to his ear as he stepped into the hotel room. “Hmm, yeah? Right, that outfit, sure. Oh, you want me to try it on tonight?”

The door shut behind Seokjin, who didn’t look at him again – whose shoulders were tensed, who moved away from him quickly, whose smile was strained whenever he looked at Namjoon.

Namjoon stood outside for far longer than he should have, unsure which of the feelings circling in him were real. He couldn’t tell anymore. But in that moment Seokjin reminded him of the sea: crashing against him with benevolent force before eventually retreating, and there was nothing Namjoon could do to stop it.

And so this was where they ended, he realised: amidst this confusion of what the two of them could take from each other, amidst all the instincts they had to suppress, amidst luxury hotel rooms and VIP cabinets and Michelin restaurants, amidst private escorts and bodyguards. They had gained all this and now could no longer find each other.

Was it worth it? No. No, it wasn’t.

But at least he finally knew: Seokjin would be the first one he’d lose.

Seokjin joined the pack only a week before their debut. The label wasn’t pushing a bond of course, but Namjoon was told that it looked odd: a six-piece pack was debuting, and oh there was Seokjin too.

“Don’t you get on with him?” PD-nim asked, worried because it was too late in the game for personal issues.

But they got on just fine – in fact, they had started getting on really, really well. Outside of Namjoon’s pack, he hung out with Seokjin the most beyond them obviously living together, and because Seokjin wasn’t in the pack Namjoon had gradually started to vent to him about how stressed he was about the responsibility. Seokjin always listened, patient and doe-eyed, and offered sage advice. Namjoon couldn’t go to his pack and admit that he was overwhelmed: a hormonal, Jimin-shaped omega; an all-over-the-place Taehyung; a bouncy Jungkook running on alpha pheromones; a stressed-out and self-doubting Hoseok; and a stubborn, determined Yoongi. They were killing themselves with practices, resolute to make this debut really something, but Namjoon still feared that it wouldn’t be enough.

Seokjin was such a constant for them through it all that Namjoon sometimes pretended that Seokjin was in his pack. The illusion was eased by Seokjin’s breakup with Chiwon the autumn before their debut; and as Seokjin no longer carried the scent of another alpha on him, Namjoon found it easier to pretend. Seokjin had started seeing a girl alpha from the university around November, just a couple of dates that had left Namjoon on edge, but nothing had come of it. The debut was too close: Seokjin wanted to focus on the group. Around the same time Namjoon had fooled around with the brother of one of his rapper friends – his age, a beta – but nothing had come of that either.

When the debut was only a week away, the label finally took note of them falling asleep in the practice studios and meeting rooms and gave them the Sunday off: enjoy it because you’re not getting another one for a long, long while.

God, a day off! They could do anything at all, absolutely any –

They slept.

The morning fog lifted with the June sun coming out midday, and by mid-afternoon it was too hot to sleep or stay inside the small dorm. They rolled out of bed and dressed in shorts and tank tops before they headed out from the gridded maze of Nonhyeon-dong to the river for their last day of leisure in a good while. Taehyung carried a boom blaster while Hoseok ran to a 7-Eleven for melon-flavoured ice lollies, and Seokjin fussed with the sun lotion and smeared it on all of their faces: “We’re not debuting sunburnt!”

They found a sloping knoll by the shoreside cycle path, with joggers running on the lane next to the cyclists. The respectable breadth of Han River glistened in the sun and high-rise buildings arose on the other side, marking messy clusters of one-bedroom apartments and billion-won luxury schemes, with the mountains beyond Seoul glooming ever behind them. Did Namjoon love or hate this city? He had never decided. In the distance the cars of Hannam Bridge hummed.

“I want to live there,” Yoongi told him, sitting next to him on the towels they’d laid out as picnic blankets. Hoseok and Taehyung were engaged in an ill-advised dance-off on the cycle path while near the bushes Jungkook and Seokjin were trying to find any kind of pebble to test on the water. Yoongi motioned at one of the more expensive developments. “I want us all to live there.”

“Yeah, me too.” He and Yoongi had lived together for years already – Jimin, who had fallen asleep on the grass beside them, a baseball cap shielding his face, had lived with them for just over a year. “Do we want too much?” Namjoon then asked, watching Jungkook’s black and Seokjin’s reddish-brown hair disappear amidst the bushes and branches, then reappear.

“If you want a lot and don’t work for it, then yes,” Yoongi said thoughtfully, “but we work for it.”

That was all Namjoon wanted: for his pack to be safe, successful enough to be financially secure, and for them not to agonise if they could splurge on the seven ice lollies they’d bought on the way over. For his music to have listeners, too. For someone to listen.

“One day we’ll live over there,” Yoongi said. “We have to.”

Big house, big cars, big rings.

God, these were precarious times, Namjoon thought, before he too fell asleep in the warm afternoon sunshine.

It was Seokjin who shook him awake, the sun having dropped lower in the sky. Namjoon stirred and was instantly alerted to the absence of his pack: he sat up, abruptly.

“They wanted to let you sleep,” Seokjin said with a smile, standing surprisingly tall and squinting down at him. “You’ve barely slept for weeks now, so we figured you needed some rest.”

“Did they head back?” he asked, feeling betrayed as Seokjin nodded. How long had he slept? How long had Seokjin stayed there, waiting for him to stir?

Seokjin shielded his eyes from the sun, smiling, and then reached out to touch Namjoon’s forehead. “You need more lotion.”

“Aish, I can do it,” he said when Seokjin attempted to apply some on him. Seokjin shrugged and sat down, but seemed amused as Namjoon rubbed at his face haphazardly, spreading the lotion blindly. “Am I good?”

Seokjin grinned, then reached out and brushed a thumb over Namjoon’s eyebrow. “There.”

The breeze caught Seokjin’s hair – beautiful. Always beautiful. Namjoon dropped his gaze to his knobbly knees, kids speeding on the cycle path and hollering at one another. “Suga-hyung wants us to live there,” he then said and motioned across the river. “In one of the nice buildings, in a big apartment high up.”

Seokjin leaned on the backs of his hands, looking across, the wind rustling Seokjin’s loose tank top, showing collarbones and toned arms, skin golden and smooth. “That’d be nice,” Seokjin said. “I’m sure you guys will.”

“You too,” he said instantly, confused – Seokjin too.

Seokjin smiled, ducking his head. “If you can afford a nice apartment for your pack, you won’t have to put up with outsiders anymore.”

Namjoon frowned. “But you’re not.”

“Well I’m not a pack member either.”

Namjoon stared, crestfallen. Move to a bigger apartment in a well-off part of town one day – without Seokjin? What was the point without him, with his admittedly bad jokes and wild laughs and his endless fussing over them? It’d break Jimin’s heart, Jungkook’s, Tae’s – it’d break all of their hearts.

But Seokjin was meant for some other pack: an omega that smart, handsome, and talented? Who knew which alpha could ever dream of catching Seokjin’s attention? Namjoon certainly didn’t.

“Should we go?” Seokjin said after a silence far too long.

They picked up the towels and dusted themselves off. Namjoon got out his black sunglasses – and snapped them in two as he tried to put them on. “What…?” he managed, staring at the broken halves.

“Aish, this kid,” Seokjin sighed, but he was smiling as he took the broken pieces and dropped them in the first bin they passed. Namjoon huffed, but said nothing.

Usually they talked when walking together, whether to the label, the dorm, the shops. Those were the few times they had a slither of privacy, but in the late afternoon that day they were quiet. The tarmac felt hot through Namjoon’s flip-flops, and they sought shade, shielding their eyes – first in the wider, cleaner streets with high-end boutiques, then reaching the narrower, rickety lanes of their neighbourhood.

When they eventually reached their building, Seokjin thumbing in the code and them entering the small lobby with mailboxes and recycling bins, Namjoon had a lump in his throat and wasn’t sure why. They both stopped there in the small space instead of bouncing up three steps at a time like they usually did. A lump in his throat, an ache in his chest, a sickening feeling at the pit of his stomach, Namjoon stilled.

“Hyung,” he said, voice thick, “I don’t think I want to make it without you.”

Seokjin shrugged – small, like it was announcing defeat – but he looked broken, a deer with a broken limb, mouth downturned. “Me neither, I don’t think?”

In the next second they were hugging like it was the air they breathed, Namjoon tightening his arms around Seokjin firmly, and Seokjin pushing right into him. Seokjin felt sun-kissed and smelled of light sweat, sun lotion, melon ice lollies and honey, and Namjoon buried into the scent of it fiercely, unwilling to let something so important go. Seokjin nuzzled against the side of his neck, full of comfort – and Namjoon stilled for a brief second. The hug changed, then, from just a hug: it changed to them scenting each other, at first dissipating the dread that they’d be torn apart, but then continuing because Seokjin was catching Namjoon’s scent in a way that made Namjoon’s heart soar.

Seokjin had to take a step back from the change in force when the scenting became less subtle, more intentional. Namjoon was about to pull back, knowing he’d pushed his luck to its limits, but Seokjin’s arms around his back tightened, stopping him. “You can keep going if you like,” Seokjin said against his shoulder.

It sounded like a question. What came after some friendly scenting?

Namjoon was bewildered but in that instant didn’t question his dumb luck: he dove back into the scenting. And the hug that had turned to scenting turned to claiming, a sharper edge to Namjoon’s scent as he began to nose against Seokjin’s skin with sudden excited intent. Seokjin’s breath hitched – and then Seokjin hummed, gratified, offering his neck for Namjoon, who let out a pleased growl, the bridge of his nose rubbing against the soft skin of Seokjin’s neck.

It felt like coming home, like the most important discovery Namjoon had ever made – and was different from before, from the five others. Initiating Seokjin was like a drug, dizzying, blood-soaring. They staggered, nearly losing balance, both scenting each other – electric, it was electric – and Namjoon slipped an arm around Seokjin’s waist, while Seokjin’s arms wrapped around his back even tighter. The tip of his nose brushed by Seokjin’s scent gland – he’d never done that, not with anyone, not even with Jimin, and Seokjin’s breath hitched. He had fistfuls of Seokjin’s loose tank top, and Seokjin stayed where he was.

Namjoon stalled before pushing in closer, the honeyed musk so close and right there under his nose, right there for Namjoon’s mouth and – and he stilled, and Seokjin stilled, and Namjoon nudged at Seokjin, nudged for better access, and Seokjin relaxed, sighing, tilting his head, exposing his neck and gland, and –

Somewhere above them, a door slammed and echoed steps filled the stairwell. They broke apart instantly, both of them flushed – from the sun? From the –

Seokjin was rearranging his clothes, eyes wide and surprised, and Namjoon wanted to say sorry – was he sorry? He hadn’t been about to kiss or to…? But no, he –

“You’re back!” Jungkook’s voice came, bright and happy, Jungkook hopping down the stairs. Then Jungkook stopped on the last step, looking at them standing in the lobby awkwardly, somehow caught red-handed. Jungkook frowned, sniffing, before a mad grin appeared on his face. “No! Hyung! Did you two really?!”

And then Jungkook leaped to Seokjin – Namjoon didn’t take this personally – saying, “Hyung, finally!”

Seokjin grinned at Namjoon from over Jungkook’s shoulder, the air between them filled with the faint scent of Namjoon’s claim on Seokjin. Namjoon felt shy again – shy, bewildered, but happy. Seokjin as his packmate! How lucky was Namjoon? How undeserving was he?

The evening was chaos: his pack crowded in on Seokjin, all of them seeking a new pack scent that included them all, and Seokjin kept pushing into Namjoon’s neck, too, friendly and happy, just like the rest of his pack often did, but Namjoon’s heart skipped at least four beats each time. This could be fatal, he thought.

At the end of the day he sheepishly gave one of his sleep shirts for Seokjin to wear, to reinforce the new scent even more.

And lying in bed, with six – six – packmates around him, Namjoon was too excited to sleep. Butterflies skirted in his stomach, his heart so full somehow that he couldn’t get it to calm down. He had to get that apartment. He had to get that nice apartment and all the ice lollies any of them could ever want, he had to keep his promise and his word.

Turning in bed, he caught a whiff of himself, and he found Seokjin’s scent there, on his skin and mixed in with everyone else.

How had he ever, even for a day, gone without it?

Just as Namjoon feared that the end had come, that the ache inside his chest was going to ruin the pack forever, he learned its real name and purpose.

He shouted the name to sixty thousand people in London and then was backstage again for a quick outfit change, and soon was back to performing with all of his pack, the seven of them hyping up the crowd.

And then, mid-song, as Seokjin was singing his part to tens of thousands of people, an endless sea of glittering lights sparkling around the stadium and illuminating Seokjin’s hair and face, Namjoon stilled watching Seokjin from across the stage and thought how fucking desperately in love with Seokjin he was. And he flinched because hang on, what? But it was true: he was devastatingly in love.

Oh.

And so there wasn’t a specific moment, Namjoon learned, when love happened. Sometimes people had wholesome anecdotes like “On our fifth date she held the door open for me, and that’s when I knew…” or “He showed up with balloons when I was ill, and I realised that…” or “When we met her family and she scented all of her baby cousins so gently, my heart exploded with…” What those stories showed wasn’t that the acknowledgement or certainty had erupted in one’s heart, but that the love had already been there, unbeknownst.

For instance: “He was my packmate and best friend for eight years, and one day I looked at him and knew that he was the foundation on which I wanted to build the rest of my life.”

Or something like that – give or take.

The force nagging at Namjoon like a sledgehammer was possessive, sure, and a little angry because it was fearful and hurt and confused after everything that had happened – but when he took away the negatives what was left was love, and that love was full of pure adoration and awe.

All the warnings bells Namjoon had ever let pass through his mind – not this omega, not Seokjin, anyone but him – had been wrong: he’d never been in danger of falling in love. He already was.

He managed to finish the concert – he was a professional.

And Seokjin, who had been trying very hard to be somewhat normal with him again while completely refusing to even acknowledge what they had done, approached him backstage with, “Was it good tonight? Were we good?” Namjoon looked at Seokjin, weakened to the centre of his soul, and he was so sure of what he felt that he was floored by the strength of it. Seokjin frowned. “What? What do I have on my face?”

So that was why he wasn’t getting over the heat – so that was why. And as for the ache and sorrow? Heartbreak. Simple, old-fashioned heartbreak.

Namjoon took Seokjin in, amazed, and then Jimin launched on Seokjin, anyway.

At the hotel he searched the internet for ‘I’m in love with my packmate, what do I do?’ because you could be an award-winning musician-cum-pack alpha at the age of twenty-four and still be kind of fucking clueless. Step 1: Do you have your pack alpha’s blessing? Well, he supposed he did… Step 2: Be respectful of your packmate’s current relationship if they are in one. Seokjin was single, thank god. Step 3: Weigh the different outcomes: happily ever after or pack permanently destroyed.

And even more so: their careers damaged, their public images tarnished. They had always been cited as an example of how betas, omegas, and alphas could share packs without getting it mixed with love and hormones – get your mind out of the gutter, not everything was to do with mating!

And then Namjoon turned around and was to be found in Seokjin’s bed? He’d seduced one of his omegas? They’d lose fans, prestige, endorsements… They’d lose a hell of a lot.

Step 4: Get perspective.

He knocked on Yoongi’s door, Yoongi opening it for him with bleary eyes and messy post-shower hair, already in pyjamas. Namjoon stood in the hotel corridor, annoyed at himself, and sighed. “I need to talk to you about something important.”

Suspicion crossed Yoongi’s face before Yoongi held the door open. “I think I’ve been expecting you.”

Namjoon sat at the end of Yoongi’s hotel bed while Yoongi poured them giant glasses of chianti, the bottle having been already a quarter empty. Their London rooms were a handful of floors up and Yoongi had the window open, late evening traffic and honking sounding, the air smelling of early summer and traffic fumes and just a little foreign to Namjoon. Yoongi sat down on the large armchair by the window, and Namjoon examined the contents of his glass, letting the wine swirl slowly.

“So I’m in love.”

Yoongi stared at him intently. “That,” he said, punctuating the word, “would explain a lot.”

He lifted his head. “It does?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said, intelligent eyes observing him. “And that’s what this is about, right? You want to include them in the pack?” Yoongi nervously went to sip his wine and –

“It’s Jin-hyung.”

– Yoongi choked and spilled red wine all over himself. “Goddammit!” he swore, blotting at his top uselessly, wine glass hastily put on the side table. “What the hell do you mean it’s Jin-hyung?”

But Namjoon didn’t really know how to explain it to Yoongi, that he had acknowledged something that had been in him for a very long time, far longer than the past week or month. And Namjoon had to give credit to both himself and Seokjin when Yoongi choked on his chianti a second time upon learning they’d spent the heat together.

“You two what?” Yoongi said, slapping at his chest to get air in.

“We shared his heat,” he said, a tad wistfully.

“You shared his– What, just now? You two…? Holy fuck, you two had sex?!” Yoongi yelped, voice rising to the point where Namjoon worried it carried through the walls and out the window. Yoongi lowered his voice and hissed, “Shit, Joon-ah. He showed up so ravished – that was you?”

“He wasn’t that bruised…”

Yoongi stared at him, astonished. “Well, that’s a content alpha’s response.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted, still sitting on the end of Yoongi’s bed, feeling useless. It was practically miraculous that the pack hadn’t figured them out, but then who was able to share a heat and avoid each other like they had? Post-heat instincts were clingy and needy, but they had forced a distance between them that sickened Namjoon.

“Hang on,” Yoongi said, “I need to process this.” Yoongi went to his open suitcase to change shirts as Namjoon fidgeted at a loss.

When Yoongi sat back down in a stain-free black tee, he said, “I just thought you couldn’t handle it, him having his heat. That’s why you vanished, washed us off, that whole thing – having one of us submit to another alpha was too much for you so you took off, and that’s why you’ve been so goddamn weird.”

Yoongi sucked in a breath, pouring himself more wine – generously. He lifted the glass to his mouth, stopped. “Wow. Okay.” And then he took a huge gulp before wiping at his mouth. “How did I not see this coming? And with the– Hang on. Hang on, hang on. You were smart, right? You didn’t– He’d had the heat shot, right?”

Namjoon shrugged in response but nodded – disappointed.

“Joon-ah! Are you kidding me?” Yoongi asked with wide eyes, but Namjoon didn’t want to apologise when he didn’t feel sorry – because he’d failed, he knew that. His task had been simple: breed Seokjin. He hadn’t. Of course that was a failure, a missed opportunity. God, in nine months they could have held her for the first time, but no. No. Heat shots. Modern medicine.

“They mess you up,” he said slowly, thinking back to Seokjin in his dream: carrying. Expecting. The surge of joy and excitement it sent through him. “Heats, they get to you. You know that yourself.”

“Yes, but when Eunsun and I…” Yoongi began, trailing off before estimating Namjoon slowly. “Well, the bite makes sense now. Strong heat hormones, I thought, but it didn’t add up. And look at you – were you all baby feverish like this for the heat?”

He frowned. “What? I don’t have baby fever.”

“Oh sure you don’t,” Yoongi said, but it sounded more fond than accusatory. “That whole vibe can be hard for some omegas to resist, you know, and hyung moons about having a mate, like, all the time. God, of course he let you bite him. Hang on – he offered. God, he offered himself, didn’t he?”

Yoongi looked mildly victorious as Namjoon nodded with, “Yeah. Yeah, and… I made a mistake, maybe, when I didn’t go for it. I mean I shouldn’t have, of course not, not like that but…”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said: but omegas didn’t offer themselves to just anyone, heat or no heat. Namjoon was relatively sure Seokjin had never offered before either, not to Chiwon or Jaebong or any of the others. The moment had been new for both of them. Intoxicating. Yoongi frowned. “He read it as rejection?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Although when I– I bit him, he… ah, you know,” he said, and Yoongi frowned. “He came.”

Yoongi reeled back in his chair. “Ahh, spare me, come on!”

“Sorry.”

“Mental bleach, mental bleach!”

“Sorry!” he said, placating, but a possessive thrum in his guts was pleased.

“New rule: no details, never give details,” Yoongi said, holding up a hand before lowering it. “And warn a guy next time – goddammit, alpha-yah.”

“Yeah, sorry.” But in truth it felt good to tell someone, anyone – how Seokjin had briefly been his, how in sync they had been and how magical that had felt. How right. “But it’s been awful since, everything’s been awful,” he admitted, knowing Yoongi was the only person he could ever admit this to. “I’m so unhappy all the time, on edge and angry and– and just unsure of everything somehow, and Jin-hyung will barely speak to me, except now I realised that I –”

“Love him?”

“Aish, of course I love him,” he said, annoyed. “I’ve always loved him. But now I– I feel.” And he rubbed at his own chest in frustration. “And he told me we should stay the same, but we’re not. We’re not the same anymore.”

Both of their phones beeped with a notification then and they dug them out: Jimin had started a livestream like he’d told them he would, and habitually they clicked to view it.

But Jimin wasn’t alone: Seokjin was with him, wearing a black hoodie zipped all the way up, keeping Seokjin’s neck hidden from view. Most of the bruises had faded, but some remained around the scent gland. No one should see what remained – and yet Namjoon desperately wanted everyone to see them as testaments of his devotion.

Jimin and Seokjin had noodles and chicken and were chattering happily, sitting at a table in Jimin’s hotel room just a few doors down, saying they would start their delicious meals after more viewers joined them. They already had three hundred thousand viewers which was a nice start, and Seokjin was explaining to Jimin about a croissant he’d had for breakfast in Paris – unexpectedly with chocolate filling that had drippled all over Seokjin’s shirt – and Jimin covered his mouth laughing, eyes disappearing as he did so. Seokjin had on a goofy smile, cheeks round and warm looking – and was charming and personable, the way Seokjin always was. Namjoon stared fondly, aching.

“Are you sure it’s not just heat brain?” Yoongi then asked, phone in his lap, Jimin’s laughter echoing from the speakers. “Show me someone who didn’t think they were in love after a good heat or rut. I mean even I thought Eunsun and I were soulmates for a solid day or two but the delusion faded with the hormones.”

“This isn’t the same,” he said, eyes lingering on Seokjin on his phone screen. “This is more than that. I think it’s been more for a while.”

“The last few months?”

“Longer,” he said. “I don’t know from when, but much longer. Years, I think. Maybe even before we ever debuted, maybe… God, I don’t know.” And Yoongi looked genuinely sorry for him. “Having him here has been enough, but I– I don’t think it will be anymore, not after we…”

“And Jin-hyung?” Yoongi asked, glancing down at the phone.

He shook his head. “He thinks I was only interested in the sex or saw it as a… a duty of some kind, I don’t know. He said that it’d be impossible. And he thanked me too when we were done.”

Yoongi smiled at that – crooked. “He always is so polite, huh? But I can tell you he’s not unaffected – he’s been out of sorts all tour too.”

“He hides what he feels even more than you or me. More than Hobi, even.”

“That’s true,” Yoongi agreed.

Namjoon hesitated. “He says that the stuff now is heat withdrawal.”

“It’s what?”

“Heat withdrawal.”

“That’s not a thing.” Yoongi’s nose scrunched up. “You don’t get actual withdrawal from sex.”

“No, you– you do. You do when– when you share a heat and feel really close afterwards, so any distance seems wrong, makes you ache, and nothing helps, and you’re just stuck daydreaming.”

“Fuck me sideways, that’s a crush,” Yoongi deadpanned. “Congrats, you two, it’s a crush.”

“A crush is for kids.”

“And heat withdrawal is made-up,” Yoongi said sternly. “Besides, you said what it is, right? Love or whatever.” Yoongi said it with just a hint of unease, eyes on the painting of the Thames on the wall.

“Love,” he said, an ache at the pit of his stomach. “When we’re barely talking.”

“Yeah, the kids have theories on that. Territorial pack alpha stuff mostly.” Yoongi glanced down at the phone again. “Maybe you two have had a thing for each other all along, now that I think about it.”

On the phones, Jimin and Seokjin were chatting and digging into their meals.

Yoongi carefully put his wine glass away, expression thoughtful before saying, “Look, the two of you carry torches for each other. You always have. And… the label discourages us from dating, but us agreeing to it was our own rule. It’s a commodity that we sell, us being single, it’s expected and it benefits our careers, but… You’re our pack alpha – is it time we make new rules?”

“What, for dating?” He shook his head. “We’d lose fans.”

“Then those aren’t the fans we want.”

“No, but– but you know what it’s like, how they bounce on any rumour like that, tear us and the other person to pieces. And I hate the thought of someone crying because, I don’t know, Kookie gets a girlfriend.”

“Okay, factcheck? Jungkookie could sneeze and someone would cry about it.”

He snorted – but true, that was true. “But how much do they love us? That much?”

“How long is a piece of string?” Yoongi shrugged. “You don’t know until you measure it. And– And there are days, most days even, that I live for the fans. What is my purpose in this world? The fans, beyond you guys. But– But it’s also a crutch, an emotional crutch and… and at some point you have to live for yourself instead. That’s the terrifying part,” Yoongi said thoughtfully, and Namjoon knew he was hearing something new, something that Yoongi had only said in therapy before. “But this love thing?” Yoongi then asked. “This is what you do for yourself – that I know for sure. Not the fans or the pack, but for you.”

What were they allowed? A heat, apparently. A maddening heat. And then…?

“Besides,” Yoongi added, “you wouldn’t have to go public with it.”

“No I would,” he disagreed instantly, “because – because if I… courted.” The word made him fill with disbelief and nerves. He pushed on. “If I– Then all of you should do the same, see people if you want to, and that would never work in secret. It would be unfair to force that into being secret.” He thought of what Seokjin had said: sneaking around in hotels wasn’t a solution, wasn’t an option. “You all deserve better, and we’ve all lost people before because of those restrictions.”

“Okay, so then you make it public,” Yoongi shrugged, a little too defiant like always. “Release a statement – you have ‘good feelings’ for each other.” Yoongi used air quotes and rolled his eyes. “We were the first pack in this industry and that worked out. Let’s be the first to date as well, inside and outside the pack – go wild, let them all have a meltdown over it. Hell, let’s unleash Jimin on the dating world.”

Namjoon fought off a smile before he leaned back and asked the real question: “But would I survive it?”

Because that was what them all dating really meant, after the repercussions, after the media chaos, the drama, the rumours, the scrutiny, the hate, the love, the fear. After all of that Namjoon would still be tugging at the string of a tapestry, unravelling, sending the seven of them to seven different continents.

Taehyung still talked about that makeup artist sometimes, the one who’d dumped him when the distance got too much but who had been texting Taehyung every now and then lately; and Jimin had told that omega girl that the timing was bad but maybe later they could try again; and at least three different acquaintances had told Hoseok to call the second he wanted to elope or buy a house or adopt eight dogs or have, like, a dozen children maybe, really whatever Hoseok wanted, they were in; and Jungkook had a soft spot for a guy he’d known as a kid in Busan, a family friend who’d presented as an omega and whom Jungkook always went on discreet coffee dates with when back home, Jungkook always turning bright red when the pack teased him about his ‘cute Busan friend’.

And if Namjoon told them to go ahead, knock yourselves out – not only would that negatively impact their careers when the general public attacked their romances, but Namjoon was opening up the chance that another alpha wanted to claim one of his packmates. Already. So soon. Too soon.

“You never forget,” PD-nim had warned him. “That’s what no one tells you.”

“Of course you’d survive us all dating, whatever that would lead to,” Yoongi then said, but Namjoon shook his head. Yoongi frowned. “Hey, listen to me. There are lives within this life we haven’t even begun to live yet – you understand? You and me? We’re young. I rarely feel young, trust me, but we’ve got at least fifty more years to get through. And it’s… it’s scary for something to end when the next stage hasn’t really started yet, or it’s uncertain and unclear, but in ten years when you and your mate are minding your disturbingly intelligent and beautiful triplets – as I can only assume you will be – then you will think you never knew what being a pack meant until then.”

Yoongi could be wise beyond his years sometimes, so maybe Yoongi was right. Yoongi had lived before, as a yew tree perhaps, and would be a rock in the next life as Yoongi so ardently wished: morphed at the bottom of an ocean, the earth spitting him out, and washed ashore much later. Taehyung would pick him up – take him places. Taehyung had promised. But –

“I know what being a pack means,” he objected, sternly. He might not know much, but he knew that.

“You do know,” Yoongi then amended. “Fine. But do you know what being in love means? How that is something different?” Yoongi’s voice was just a little teasing, but Namjoon felt overcome anyway, glancing down at his phone again – Seokjin slurping noodles, Jimin explaining about the day’s concert. Seokjin swallowed and then smiled at Jimin’s commentary, corners of his mouth upturned, cheeks puffed out and soft and round, and god, Namjoon had never seen anyone as perfect, as amazing. When he looked up again, Yoongi’s teasing smirk was gone. “Yeah,” Yoongi said. “Love, huh?”

He took this in uncertainly. “Do you have someone? Someone lined up, you know, like the others do.”

Yoongi’s mouth pursed and he scratched the back of his head. “Ah… Maybe.”

“Let me guess. A musician?”

“Might be,” Yoongi granted. “She’s a songwriter, very good too.” And Yoongi suddenly gave him a shy, smitten smile, gums flashing, before Yoongi filed this away – but that brief second of unfiltered joy on Yoongi’s face cut through Namjoon painfully. “But nothing might ever come of these things,” Yoongi then said evasively, “of course. But at some point, sooner or later…”

And Namjoon nodded. Yoongi was twenty-five now, Seokjin was twenty-six, and Namjoon was twenty-four. That distant idea they all had of Finding Someone was ever closer, had never felt as close, and it would leave Namjoon with nothing. Sooner or later they had to grow up: a young bachelor pack. It never could have lasted, but when Namjoon was made of building blocks in the shape of his packmates, he couldn’t fathom how to exist without any of them.

Thicker than blood, more than brothers, confidantes, soulmates, packmates, whatever word one used for it, the seven of them were more than that to each other. And they’d all been a complete pack for years, knowing and needing no one beyond it. How was Namjoon expected to let them go? But –

“Sooner or later,” he said thickly.

Everyone knew it, everyone from Yoongi to PD-nim. Namjoon had spent years in denial. In love, too.

Seokjin and Jimin’s livestream kept going, three million viewers by now. The comments were coming in with such speed that they were illegible, but Namjoon caught perfect omegas UWU, more frustratingly let me scent you jin-oppa!!! and even are you hiding your neck, seokjinnie…??!!

Of course it had always been like that and always would be, with the rumours and affairs, with Namjoon sitting at his assigned seat while Seokjin continued to explore his romances, the successes and failures, the thousands of alphas who wistfully stared at him, from fans at concerts to billionaire Kim Jisoos. Namjoon would deal with the downfalls – the moments of fear in Japanese hotels, waiting for one line versus two – and the eventual success when Seokjin truly fell in love one day, when someone proved worthy of him. Someone would come and formally ask Namjoon’s permission to claim Seokjin for their pack, and Namjoon would let go. He’d have to let Seokjin go.

“And if you really feel this way about hyung,” Yoongi said, “I’d make it sooner rather than later.”

He sighed, restless. “Because all alphas want him, I know.”

“No,” Yoongi frowned. “No, not because of other alphas, but because this decade-long asceticism is a bad look on you, for fuck’s sake. Who are you trying to be, the Dalai Lama?”

“I’ve had flings.”

“Such great romances, Joon-ah, you truly are the modern Don Juan.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, you know you’ve never pursued anyone, not with any real intent,” Yoongi said. “And I mean, why would you? The one you wanted was right in front of you.” And as Yoongi said it, Namjoon knew it to be true.

He took this all in, wondering where it left him. So maybe being in love with Seokjin wasn’t something he could put on hold – not anymore. Not when it radiated in his chest like this. Not when they weren’t kids anymore.

“So what is the right thing to do?” he asked because he had no clue.

“You tell him,” Yoongi said, patience running thin. “You tell him all the shit you just said to me. What? Should we write him a letter? Should we tweet about it? Should we crash this livestream with a passionate rap about the heat and how you –”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Wow, he really should’ve gone to Hoseok about this. “It’s not that simple, I have to think about the wider repercussions, about the fans, the media. About the pack too.”

“The pack adores you, you idiot,” Yoongi said, “no matter what you do.” And there was no bite to Yoongi’s tone anymore, Yoongi’s gaze on him steady – and trusting.

Namjoon managed a smile, but sadness clung to it. “Thanks.”

He stood up, dusting his hands against his jeans, pocketing his phone and cutting off the livestream feed because he could only handle so much in one night.

Yoongi offered his neck as Namjoon leaned down to scent goodnight – and he thought of the two of them at the cheap neighbourhood restaurant a decade earlier, with no awards to their names, never even having met the rest of the pack. Just two foolhardy kids with Yoongi fiercely saying that they were in it come what may as he first offered his neck for scenting. A decade. How lucky was he to have had Yoongi for a decade?

Because he knew, somehow, although Yoongi hadn’t said it: “That songwriter you like is an alpha.”

And Yoongi, still seated, didn’t look up at him but nodded. Guilt clung to the gesture.

Of course she was. And Taehyung’s ex, the makeup artist, was an alpha too, and Jungkook wanted to start his own pack one day. That left him at least three packmates down – at least three, and pain cut through him as he thought of Taehyung with his large doe eyes, tearful and lost-looking in an arcade. Such a slim kid, skin and bones like a fox cub. That had been, what – eight years ago now?

And Jungkook had been just a kid too, so much younger than Namjoon had ever understood at the time, Jungkook’s mother’s alpha claim barely faded from the kid before Namjoon stepped in. The best rash decision he had ever made, he thought, remembering the way his heart had clenched the first time Jungkook had ever called him alpha-hyung. There would be a final time for that too, he thought. He should have memorised those moments better, appreciated them more: Jungkook’s wild, happy exclamations of “alpha-hyung!” and Jungkook clinging onto him with a beaming smile.

Not to even mention Jimin whining for his attention and extra scenting, not to even mention how Namjoon always went in search of Hoseok when he thought he couldn’t handle the pressure and schedules a second longer – and then Hoseok was there, so patient, so solid, enduring all with a genuine smile, and Namjoon found yet another layer of strength within himself.

How lucky was he to have held onto any of them for as long as he had? To have them accept him as alpha, as home, for so long?

“She’s lucky,” he said quietly – those successful suitors who would steal Namjoon’s pack from him.

“Aish, I don’t know,” Yoongi said dismissively.

“Trust me,” he said. “Damn lucky.”

Those thieves would be the luckiest bastards in this world.

He’d hate them if he could, from those yet to come to Yoongi’s songwriter friend.

He’d hate her weren’t it for the way she made Min Yoongi smile.

Namjoon had never expected to find himself as the pack alpha of a chaotic bunch of fellow youths when only a kid himself, but he had learned on the job, with years spent agonising over how to be a better leader, a better alpha. He’d gradually grown into the responsibility and liked to think he’d improved, too.

And Yoongi was right: life was far longer than anyone living could understand, and by the time other pack alphas he knew – from his grandmother to PD-nim – reached middle or old age, their packs had undergone several changes with people leaving to mate someone, with people dying, with people being born. Packs were never stagnant if you lived long enough.

And no pack had ever filled out the largest stadium in Europe on a warm June evening like this. He admired the audience from the stage, marvelled at the endless extent of their supporters. Only his pack – only the very first version of his pack.

Maybe he’d set the standard too high from the get-go.

But even as they wrapped up their final show in Europe, Namjoon was busy – he always was. He’d been messaging Sejin bihourly: progress report?

sejin-hyung cannot come to the phone right now, Sejin typed, because he is dead from irrational alpha demands

Namjoon had huffed at that. But after the Barcelona concert, Sejin finally came up to him and said, “It’s all good to go.”

Namjoon was sitting in the dressing room, exhausted from the show and pressing a cooling pack to his sore shoulder, one of their massage therapists rubbing his thigh – yet he perked up instantly, adrenaline rushing through him anew. “It is? You sure you got them all?”

“Yeah,” Sejin said, smiling at him a little fondly – and proudly, that was clear. It was a far cry from Sejin’s utter shock when Namjoon had first approached him. Surely this needed to be cleared by PD-nim! But no, Namjoon said. Not this.

Now Sejin said, “Look at you all excited. Reminds me of when I was being –” And Sejin motioned at his neck. “Time flies, huh? And the kids are right, too: just look at the alpha you’ve become.”

Namjoon mumbled, “Ah, I dunno…” But he was smiling.

The next day they filmed a Run episode at a vineyard somewhere in central Spain: a wine tasting that was Jungkook’s brainchild (supported by and perhaps truly originating from Yoongi). They were all buzzed by lunchtime, although Namjoon and Taehyung used the spittoon for their wines. The episode would be a classic no doubt with them all mildly intoxicated, Taehyung drippling wine on himself, Jimin getting outrageously touchy with them all, Hoseok lecturing that drinking too much was bad for you, and Seokjin offering flourishing observations on the wines: “A flexible and tender body, like a young go-go dancer, but with bubble-gum undertones.” The maknaes cackled, their dozen staff giggled behind the cameras, and the vineyard’s sommelier remained utterly baffled.

The day was long but finished at a hilltop villa with a large pool and seven actual bedrooms for them all, and they were not spoiled to the point where they didn’t appreciate the beauty and luxury of the place. The staff filled the fridge and left them to it – the crew had originally wanted to film them having dinner together, perhaps play some games too, but Namjoon had asked for a night off. He didn’t often pull the ‘we need private pack time’ card, but when he did he was listened to: the production team backed off, saying they had plenty of material from the day itself, anyway.

“We’ll stretch it out if we need to,” one of the film crew said.

“Yeah, and we’ll add slow-mo shots and baby sound effects,” another added.

“Mm, they like that,” their director agreed.

Jimin and Hoseok got stuck cooking while Jungkook and Taehyung hit the pool with Seokjin loosely supervising. Yoongi read a book in the shade with a glass of wine like he hadn’t had enough yet, and Namjoon settled one deck chair over. With the camera crew gone, they were enjoying the pool area shirtless but were still careful not to get tanned. Seokjin splashed in the pool with Jungkook and Taehyung, the three of them trying to fake-drown each other to Namjoon’s mild distress. Seokjin looked young and strong, however, skin smooth and toned everywhere. The bruises from the heat had faded completely now, but Namjoon ignored the loss that permeated through him. Marked or unmarked, he knew the scent of that skin, the feel of it, the touch of it, and that knowledge was calming, not maddening. A centre to weave all else around.

Jungkook launched on Seokjin’s back in an attempt to force him underwater, Taehyung defending Seokjin, Seokjin flailing – the three of them loud and ridiculous and Namjoon’s – and he took in Seokjin’s smile and laughter most of all. Yoongi cleared his throat from the sunchair beside him, arching an eyebrow at him. Namjoon quickly averted his gaze.

Yoongi hadn’t bothered him about it, hadn’t pestered or probed, and seemed to be letting Namjoon figure it out on his own. He was nearly there.

Before dinner he stood in his bedroom on the first floor, nervously trying to decide what to wear: jeans or slacks? Shirt or tank top? Formal or informal? But to be underdressed…

He chose black shorts and a large white t-shirt, fixed his hair, and doubted every single decision he’d ever made in his life except this one (and perhaps six others). He looked at his reflection in the mirror: “Come on, Namjoon,” he said. “Fighting. Come on, you’ve got this.”

With one final calming breath, he headed downstairs.

As the pack settled around the large dining table, Taehyung observed Jimin and Hoseok’s food offerings. “Is there no Spanish ham? Jamón, I looked it up, it’s called jamón. Ha– Ha. You spell it with a J, but it’s a ‘ha’ sound. Do we have some?”

Namjoon sat next to Seokjin, whose black hair was still wet from the pool but Seokjin had changed back into navy shorts and a loose grey tank top. The humid summer air was warm, the pack chattering and eating.

The remaining European dates had been challenging. He’d been trying to stay close but not too close, give Seokjin space but also not too much of it. Seokjin probably hadn’t known what to make of it, keeping him at a cordial arm’s length, and now –

Seokjin launched into a new joke he’d heard – with success because it made Jimin nearly fall off his chair, feet kicking in the air. Seokjin turned to him for a verdict. “A good one, right?”

“One of your best,” he agreed easily, knowing why he’d always gone along with the craziest or lamest of Seokjin’s antics. Now he stared at Seokjin intently and – as Seokjin had started doing at some point (when exactly?) – Seokjin seemed flustered and looked away.

They carried on eating, sipping on wine and beers and celebrating selling out the largest stadium in Europe, now in a luxury villa in the Spanish countryside, just the seven of them until the staff pick-up the next morning. Namjoon tried to stay calm but he was finally unravelling, one thread at a time, every now and then reaching to get some more food, but then just pushing the extra slices of meat onto Seokjin’s plate. Seokjin said nothing although he was starting to tense up, and Namjoon tried to calm himself. Seokjin kept eating, however. Namjoon felt gratified beyond words. Encouraged.

Jungkook said, “Hyung, where do you want to play next?” and Yoongi tilted his head, pondering. “Glastonbury headline?”

The rest tutted their tongues and shook their heads.

Intact. Safe. Happy.

Nothing pleased him more.

After the food was gone, they lounged on the couches in the patio area, the evening now fully dark with millions of stars above them. The lights from inside the house were reflected on the surface of the large pool while crickets sounded in the air.

Looking up at the stars Jungkook said, “It’s like one of our concerts.”

“It never feels like real numbers,” Hoseok said, likewise stargazing. “Sixty thousand per show – how can that be true?”

They were having melon and pear slices for dessert, Jimin mourning that another diet was imminent. Seokjin sat at the end of the rattan sofa with Yoongi and Taehyung, munching on a pear slice, with Jimin and Hoseok cuddled on a sunchair together. Jungkook was on the two-seater with Namjoon, showing videos he’d taken on stage the night before. “I’ll make a film with this!” Jungkook enthused.

But what time was it in Korea? Was it eight in the morning yet?

Just as Namjoon thought he couldn’t wait any longer, his phone vibrated with messages from Sejin. The first one was in English: live.

This was not a command – go and live! – but a status update: they had gone live. But Namjoon was fond of dualities, and he liked the first interpretation better. Go live. Live life. What else was it for? And that was happy even as it was somehow sad. Go live: when a door closes a window opens, was that the phrase?

The second message read good luck kid.

Stomach in knots and with a vague sickening feeling in his chest as the gravity of it all hit him – holy shit, he’d actually done this – he looked up from the screen. His pack was talking over each other loudly, arguing over whose fault it was that Yoongi had slipped on stage during their second Barcelona show: Seokjin’s for throwing water around in the first place (Yoongi’s argument), poor shoe and stage design (Seokjin’s counterargument), Yoongi’s innate poor balance (Jimin’s interference), perhaps both of their faults a little (Hoseok’s appeasement), divine intervention (Taehyung’s musings) or, simply, gravity (Jungkook’s conclusion).

Namjoon said, “I love you all.” This cut through the noise, and his pack ogled him in the dark of the evening. “I really love you. More than you know.”

Hoseok, sitting on the sunchair with Jimin, covered his mouth and pointed at Namjoon. “He’s turning into Suga-hyung! Two sips and he’s off!”

“No, you say it back!” Jimin said fiercely, sitting up straighter in Hoseok’s half-embrace. “We have to be emotionally vulnerable with each other! It’s okay to be! It’s healthy! You don’t think I love you?” Jimin challenged Hoseok.

“Yeah!” Taehyung cut in from the couch. “You don’t think we’re proud of you?”

“Because we are!” Jimin declared, eyes still on Hoseok. “And I love you!”

Hoseok averted his gaze and muttered something under his breath as Jimin turned to Namjoon. “Alpha-hyung! I love you too!” Jimin made firm eye contact with Namjoon as he said it. Jimin then leaped up and went to the couch, climbing straight onto Taehyung’s lap, grabbing the front of Taehyung’s shirt and rattling him. “Taehyungie, I love you!”

Taehyung was already hugging Jimin back and declaring his own love, rubbing his scent to Jimin’s shoulder, as Yoongi said, “Aish, enough with sentimentalities!” Jimin reached for Yoongi next, and Yoongi inched back. “Fine, fine, I love you too!”

But Namjoon wasn’t done.

“I wanted to tell you that I no longer feel like I have to prove to anyone that I can lead you – you all prove that for me every day, even if we’re chaotic sometimes,” he admitted. “And as for me, well I… I know I haven’t been perfect, that as we’ve had our ups and downs I’ve let you guys down sometimes – too often, all of you.” At this, he looked at Seokjin who was studying him with an uncertain expression. Maybe he’d always let Seokjin down most of all. No more. “But… but when I look at you now, and not just in terms of how far we’ve come but the amazing people you’ve become, I know I must’ve done something right. And I love you.”

A silence settled on them – such speeches were for special occasions, carefully selected, usually highly significant if not life-changing.

Taehyung pushed Jimin off his lap and, sounding half-serious, asked, “Are you dying?”

“No,” he laughed, although the nerves were killing him. “No…”

It didn’t take long – perhaps a moment or two longer than Namjoon had anticipated, given how quickly everything trended and spread these days – because Jimin looked up from his phone and said, “Namjoon-hyung, what’s this statement?”

Taehyung peered at the screen of Jimin’s phone. “You made a food donation, hyung? You didn’t say anything.”

Hoseok had also gotten out his phone, the screen lit up in the dark. “No, you sent a food truck? For a week? Can’t be right, hang on. Wait, several food trucks…?”

“What? Who to?” Jungkook asked with a craned neck, just as Jimin read, “To the… the people of Seoul and Gwacheon…”

A pause followed. Jungkook then carefully said, “But Gwacheon is where Jin-hyung’s from…?”

The rest turned to look at Seokjin, who was sitting on the couch with a melon slice in his hand, frozen to the spot and staring at Namjoon, face blank – the smile from earlier vanished.

Hoseok clutched his phone as he then yelped, “You’re donating a million churros?!”

Seokjin dropped the melon slice he’d been holding, the rind rolling under the patio table as Seokjin jerked – the blank expression changing into shock.

Namjoon fought for an ounce of serenity as he met Seokjin’s stunned gaze and said, “Yeah. I’m courting someone.”

A second passed, then two, three –

Jimin bolted to sit upright with a loud gasp just as Yoongi stood up with a “Let’s go, come on!” Yoongi grabbed Jimin by the collar and Taehyung by the arm, hauling both up with surprising strength. Hoseok’s mouth had dropped open but no words came out, while Jungkook was leaning back and looking between Namjoon and Seokjin like he had never seen them before in his life.

“You can all stay,” Namjoon said calmly. “It affects you too.”

“We can stay!” Taehyung protested, caught in Yoongi’s grip, being dragged towards the house.

“No, they need privacy,” Yoongi said.

“Since when is this actually happening?!” Jimin objected, scandalised.

Jungkook jumped up when Hoseok did, the two of them scurrying after Yoongi’s cohort and re-entering the house – Jimin’s voice still echoing through as the glass doors closed, with Hoseok shouting, “Really tired suddenly, see you tomorrow!”

The door slid shut with a click, and suddenly they were alone in the warm night air, the two of them and a thousand crickets chirping in the darkened grass.

Seokjin looked shell-shocked sitting on the couch. “Namjoon-ah, I… The– The statement?”

“Confirms I’ve made a donation.”

Seokjin was frowning. “But the label…?”

“Don’t know. I didn’t ask. Sejin released the statement for me directly, that’s all.”

Seokjin spluttered, like getting in air was a challenge. “That’s all?! It’s to my hometown! In your name! They’ll take one look at it and know what– Speculate that you and me…!”

“Not just speculate,” he said, trying to be calm. “Know.”

That was the point: to let the world know.

It could be some other omega from Gwacheon, of course, but what were the chances? No, people would take one look at the whole thing and figure it out. Sejin had told him as much, warning Namjoon of what it would lead to: RM courts own packmate Jin headlines, worldwide trends, internet meltdowns, perhaps the breakdown of civilised society as they knew it. Namjoon was risking utter humiliation if this went badly, was risking the pack as they were (would they play it off as an elaborate prank if Seokjin turned him down?), but Namjoon had to show Seokjin that he meant it. That his heart was Seokjin’s, should Seokjin choose it.

“But that’s so stupid,” Seokjin said, even as Namjoon saw that none of this had sunk in yet. “God, that’s so… When you could just talk to me, not go crazy with a– a…”

“A courting declaration,” he said, slowly and clearly. “From me to you.”

Seokjin flinched. Namjoon had known this donation was coming. Seokjin hadn’t. Let it sink in, let Seokjin adjust. Accept. Please. “This isn’t – I don’t...” Seokjin managed, shaking his head like it was too much. Seokjin exhaled shakily, shoulders slumped. “Is this real?”

“Yes, it’s real,” he confirmed. “I want you to know what it meant to me to have you. What this means to me now and where I want this to go,” he said as gently as he could, heart aching. Seokjin was bathed in starlight and the light from inside the house. The simple tank top on him was loose, Seokjin’s hands twisted in his lap. They were at a luxury villa rented out purely for them, in a region Namjoon couldn’t remember the name of, in a country whose language they did not speak or understand, but it was home. It was home because Seokjin was there.

Focusing on that, he said, “Can I say something?”

“Yes,” Seokjin said, disbelief still on him.

He’d thought long and hard of what he wanted to say, but nerves bubbled under his skin. Out of all the speeches he had ever given, none had mattered as much.

“I’ve been struggling since the heat,” he admitted. “I’ve struggled being who I’ve always been around you, ever since we left Seoul, ever since I left your apartment.” He should have stayed – he knew that now. God, how he should have stayed, taken that plunge even if he hadn’t known what it was yet. Maybe they could have figured it out together but instead he’d painstakingly done it on his own.

He looked at Seokjin sitting in the dark, heart heavy and hopeful. “And so I realised that going back to what we were before? That’s not an option for us anymore. We passed that point, and I think we both know that. I know I do, and I think you do too.”

At this, Seokjin gave the smallest of nods.

“Good. Okay…” He exhaled, fighting nerves. “And so when I… when I stopped to take stock of my life – to think of our lives – I realised that one day all of this will go. The stadium tours, the screams, the insane schedules and huge rented villas like this one. This will morph into something else, and what that is I’m not sure yet, and sometimes that terrifies me, but… but I can handle all of this ending.”

Namjoon pressed on to the hard part. “And I can handle them leaving me.”

Seokjin looked alarmed as he paused, clenching his jaw. “I don’t know how it will happen or when, but I will accept it when it does: when Jimin finds someone, when Jungkook forms his own pack. I’ll accept it when someone courts Hobi, Taehyung, or the other way around – I’ll handle all that. Even Yoongi. Even him.”

The first one who’d ever shown him what being a pack meant.

“I can handle it when one day they’ll all live elsewhere, and we’ll see each other sometimes and talk about– about our insane youth, and days spent at stadiums and vineyards and shared nights in Spanish villas, before they all outgrew me. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night thinking about it, like I’m being sucked into a black hole I’ll never get out of, because the fear of losing any of you is so tangible. But all of that, all of it I can handle, one way or another,” he said, looking at Seokjin. “But I can’t handle losing you.”

Seokjin looked like a statue perfected from marble, even sitting in the dark, even with the unshed tears in his eyes.

Namjoon pushed on. “And so I… I need you to know that it wasn’t out of a sense of duty, or, or jealousy that I came to you. It wasn’t instincts, it wasn’t just desire, or any of what you think. It was because I realised that if I want you, if I ever attempt to claim you, then I need to step up and be the person you need me to be now. For years I’ve…” And he trailed off, unsure. “I never thought you were someone I could have in any version of my life, but I did. Briefly, but I did.”

He steadied himself, hands flexing on his knees. “Those four days, those… those insanely amazing four days are what I want to give to you every day from now on. Every day, because no one will ever come close to being what you are to me. And when it comes to my future and what happens next, the only certainty I have and know, deep down in my soul, is that you are there, and that when everything else is stripped away you are all I need. And that, to me? Is worth risking everything for.”

He stopped at this, adding, “That is what the gift means. What I am offering to you now.”

Seokjin began to speak but nothing came out. Namjoon had a lump in his throat, the sickening feeling in his guts pulsating. He had never known how awful this was: waiting to see if the offer was accepted, if he was accepted. He’d never offered before. Seokjin, however, had received offers in the thousands.

Seokjin tried again, faintly. “You’ve never said any of this.”

“No,” he admitted. “I don’t think I knew the extent of this until I allowed myself to know it. But now I… I look at you and see all of it so clearly.”

Seokjin wiped at his cheek quickly, not quite looking at him. “All of what?”

“Small things, big things.” The alignments of the planets, the changes of the seasons, the hundred different smiles of Kim Seokjin and what each of them meant. “Like where I’m going after this ends, like that you’ll carry my children one day, like that –”

“I’ll what?” Seokjin cut in.

“Yeah,” he said, taking Seokjin in, wearing plain shorts and a tank top, black hair messy, the warm scent of him distinct. “You will. God, you definitely will. Five,” he said. “It’s an odd number, but I like it. And –”

“We are not there yet,” Seokjin pointed out, efficiently shutting him up for good, but Seokjin was wiping at the corners of his eyes. Namjoon jerked, about to move closer but Seokjin motioned for him to stay where he was. “Goddamn you,” Seokjin said with an unsteady exhale of breath, wiping tears away, looking down at his hands before wiping them to his shorts. “You spew out lines like that like it’s nothing – goddamn you, you and your words.”

Seokjin breathed unsteadily, like he’d run a marathon and then some, but then cleared his throat. “God, okay. Okay...” But even then Seokjin took a few seconds, and Namjoon sat still, waiting for Seokjin’s call. Was it too late? Had he misread Seokjin entirely? Seokjin motioned around them vaguely. “How long did it take for you to plan all this? The donation, the gift.”

He hesitated. “A week and a half?”

Hiring enough food trucks and staff, synchronising the launch – details Namjoon did not know but simply paid for.

“A week and a half,” Seokjin repeated slowly. “That’s– That’s ten days. Ten days.” Seokjin sucked in a breath. “Ten days we’ve been in hotel rooms and dressing rooms together, ten days of me agonising over this! What were you thinking?! That this is up to your convenience?”

Namjoon faltered. Mad. Seokjin was mad. “B–But I had to declare my intent – properly, fully. I had to… the pack and what this all –”

“Everyone’s been feeling like shit because you and I aren’t talking, and you’re sitting there organising grand courting schemes at your leisure? Are you kidding me, Namjoon-ah?!” Seokjin snapped – and Namjoon saw his point.

“You’re right! You’re absolutely right, that was stupid, a miscalculation, that –”

"I’ve been courted hundreds of times!” Seokjin declared. “Hundreds, from the absurd to the lazy! You know that better than anyone! But I always thought that when you… If you ever, then you’d know all it had to be was something small, that it didn’t have to be more than a look or a kiss. A simple conversation. Why would I want more than that?”

Seokjin looked frustrated but Namjoon caught each word. He caught them and picked them apart, and he was up on his feet before he knew it, crossing the distance between them because this was so much worse than he’d thought.

Seokjin wouldn’t look at him but still let Namjoon sit down next to him, Namjoon not daring to touch but he hovered anxiously.

Seokjin gazed at the house, throat bobbing and shoulders tense. “Now it turns out I was an idiot,” Seokjin said, “getting wistful every stupid time you passed me some food when I should’ve been waiting for a goddamn pastry parade. Ten days?” Seokjin shook his head. “Do you have any idea how worried everyone’s been? You obtuse moron.”

“I’m so –”

Seokjin hugged him, pushing against his chest and into his neck. Namjoon exhaled, heart at his throat as he wrapped firm arms around Seokjin, clutching the back of the loose tank top – but still terrified and bewildered. But Seokjin smelled of the pack, of home, sun lotion, honey and melon: and was still there. Was still there with him.

“I don’t need much,” Seokjin said against his shoulder, face buried against his t-shirt. “Why would I need much? I have everything. God, even a– a single wilted rose would do. Okay?”

“Okay. Okay, noted,” he said, hugging Seokjin to him tight. “I – Hyung. You haven’t told me if you accept.” He swallowed, tightening his hold of Seokjin. “Do you accept?”

Seokjin pulled back from their embrace, taking him in and then letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Oh, you’re nervous.”

He was dying, yes.

Seokjin looked at him steadily, grasping his hands. “Well, I guess on behalf of the people of Seoul and Gwacheon I thank you for the churros, but…”

No. No, no –

Seokjin tilted his head to the side, eyes thinning. “Pretty sure you promised a bazillion?”

He despaired. “So you don’t? Or you do?”

“Accept?” Seokjin asked, perhaps savouring the mild horror cursing through him. But Seokjin’s smirk faded, something more sincere taking over. Something raw, something of their own that Namjoon recognised. Seokjin caught the front of his shirt in his fist and pulled him closer, eyes full of depth and light as he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Namjoon stared at Seokjin, in awe. “I accept. I accept, but next time you realise you love me, you come and tell me, because no churros will save you from here on out, do you understand?”

God, that was the most perfect sentence ever strung together.

All he could think to say was, “Yes. Thank you.”

Then it was done. Then it was agreed.

Seokjin kissed him – and Namjoon pulled Seokjin into his lap and squashed their mouths together with a complete lack of finesse. Seokjin smiled into it, arms looping around his neck. Laughing with relief. Disbelief.

But there was no exact definition of how much a bazillion technically was. More than a million, yes they agreed on that, and Seokjin said that a bazillion was more than a billion, while Namjoon argued it was financially unfeasible and ill-advised to purchase a billion plus one churros, and Seokjin said all Namjoon had to do was feed the population of China, like, once, but Namjoon asked how he was expected to tend to his pack, let alone his intended mate, if he spent all of his earnings on feeding the Chinese?

Seokjin faltered – and Namjoon did too. Intended mate. They both had one.

Of course it was Seokjin. Of course it was.

He kissed his intended mate again.

The rest of the pack was still waiting when they returned indoors, nervously sitting around the dining table. Seokjin instantly said that he did not want a scene but he’d said yes, and Jimin took one look at their clasped hands and burst into tears. At the sight of this, Jungkook and Taehyung teared up while Yoongi excused himself for a suspicious five minutes. Hoseok was hugging them both with teary eyes as he insisted he wasn’t crying.

After everyone had not-cried an appropriate amount, Jimin demanded that they say something because it had been a whole hour without confirmation, and frankly the internet and the world was having an absolute meltdown to the point they’d all switched off their phones. They thus authorised Jimin to tweet Yes he accepted ❤ #JIMIN. That covered it for now, right?

Confirmed. Declared.

As the shock of that settled in, Jungkook bit on his bottom lip and said, “Well... everything’s gonna change now, I guess.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it will,” Namjoon confirmed. It changed everything with the pack, with the fans, with their futures and careers. Yes. But maybe that didn’t have to be scary – something ending, something beginning. “You’re still my kid alpha, though,” he said, weakened by the evening, feelings at the surface.

Jungkook coloured. “Ah, that’s not what I meant, alpha-hyung…!” But Jungkook hovered close to all of them for comfort and a few minutes later was giving Namjoon a fleeting yet firm back hug, nose pressed to his neck for a quick exchange of scent. A few more years, Namjoon figured – Jungkook would still need him for a few more years at least. Thank god for small blessings.

Jimin poured them all celebratory champagne and passed glasses around. “I always knew, you know! I can sense these things! The heat Jin-hyung spent with that alpha really pushed you two together!”

“Yeah because I was the alpha,” Namjoon admitted, and Jimin choked on his champagne.

A moment of mild chaos later, Hoseok asked, “What are they saying? The fans?”

This thought always lurked on all of their minds, no matter what they did – a behaviour Namjoon doubted any of them could unlearn. Jimin took out his phone to check, tapping at the screen. “Well, uh – Why isn’t it... Wait. Hang on… Has- Has Twitter crashed? Uh. I think it’s crashed.”

They should have seen that coming perhaps.

But Taehyung wanted clarification too: “So you’re gonna start dating now?”

“A bit late after a near decade to be dating,” Yoongi said mildly, while Namjoon’s thoughts short-circuited with the endless options of taking Seokjin out on dates: simple dates, lavish dates, arcade dates, museum dates, (sex dates?), and, and –

Taehyung was not deterred. “Or are you together, would you say you’re together? I mean are you easing into this courtship, or would you say you’re –”

“Going to bed, yup,” Seokjin said – it was late already, far into the night, and the day had drained them all physically and emotionally.

Namjoon held Seokjin firmly to his side, unable to uncurl his arm from around Seokjin’s waist. “Yeah? You tired?”

Seokjin gave him a calm stare perfected by endless photoshoots. “I don’t know, alpha-yah. Am I tired?”

Namjoon’s brain jarred, halted, crashed. Seokjin was going to be extremely hazardous for his overall health.

Taehyung grabbed Yoongi’s arm. “Oh no.”

“Welcome,” Yoongi said and took another sip of his drink.

“Well, I’m exhausted!” Namjoon decided, tugging Seokjin to the direction of the stairs. “Don’t stay up too late!”

Wrapped around Seokjin’s little finger, they’d all say – some sniggering echoing behind them. Yeah. Yeah, he’d happily confirm it each time.

But, in Namjoon’s defence, it wasn’t a break-the-furniture, wake-up-the-neighbours event – but it was deep, long, needy. Excited and possessive. Slow too. Soft. Tender after they were done, and Namjoon whispered all kinds of nonsense during it: little confessions and admissions, Namjoon vowing up and down how devoted he was. It felt good to put all those fleeting thoughts into words – god, he’d never even known.

“I’ll make a donation to mark the big events,” he promised as they were locked away in Namjoon’s bedroom and he was kissing Seokjin’s newly bruised neck. He was marked too, felt the sting of scattered love bites on his throat: intended mates, and Seokjin had gotten possessive. God, was there any other world Namjoon wanted to know? “I’ll make a donation for when I claim you,” he vowed. Was it morning already? The light coming through the window was brighter. He pressed another kiss to Seokjin’s throat. “And for our firstborn, for –”

“No need for all that,” Seokjin said, bathed in Namjoon’s scent. Seokjin had a fresh bite on his shoulder, the skin red and punctured, but only superficially – yet the bite was closer to his neck than the last one. They were working their way up to that. “No need for any big donations because you need to hang on to your money. I expect star treatment at all times.”

“At all times?” he asked, nosing over the bite, hand brushing the sweat-slick skin of Seokjin’s inner thigh, soft, smooth, for his to worship. He could spend the rest of his days right there, amidst the warm sheets of the villa bedroom with Seokjin, both of them with stupid smiles on their faces.

“I’m high maintenance,” Seokjin said. “What did you expect?”

“Noted. Please list your demands.”

“Hmm, bring me refreshments when I’m gaming.”

“I will bring only the most delicious of beverages.”

“Offer me scent presents on a regular basis.”

“God, baby, nothing would please me more.”

“Go down on me in the mornings.”

“It would be my pleasure to – Every morning?”

“Once a week.”

“Twice. Let’s make it twice?”

“…The council approves the amendment.”

“What cou– Oh. You’re the council.”

“Yes, get used to it.” Why were they grinning into a messy kiss? Seokjin stretched against him, body long and warm and homey. “Also, leave little love notes in my lunchbox.”

“But you don’t have a dosirak box,” he said, and Seokjin stilled, an eyebrow raised. “…But I will of course buy one for the sole purpose of leaving eloquent love notes.”

“The council deems that acceptable,” Seokjin said, then squirmed as Namjoon tickled his side. “Stop it!” Seokjin pressed a wide smile to Namjoon’s hair, breathing him in. Seokjin’s fingers travelled up his spine, over his shoulders. “I love the way you smell,” Seokjin then said quietly. “Like honey, I always thought.”

Namjoon had been wrong thinking the heat was a high: this was better than that. This was endless wonder.

They returned missed calls from their parents because Korean news was blasting that their sons had entered a courtship and that was something they would like to be told directly, thank you. Even PD-nim texted them both with I’m somehow surprised yet completely unsurprised... Congratulations. And, more plainly, A heads up didn’t occur to you then?

“Do you think he knew?” Namjoon asked as he put the phone away.

“Sometimes I thought so,” Seokjin said as Namjoon wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling Seokjin to him as they lay together. “He gave me a whole speech back in the day, how he didn’t want me seducing any of you even if the touring life got hard.”

“Oh god, he said that?” he asked, second-hand embarrassment at the ready.

Seokjin snorted. “Something about omega hormones being unpredictable – I wasn’t impressed. Mainly it seemed to be about Yoongi? Shows what he knows.”

Namjoon took that in, hand brushing Seokjin’s back. “But you knew otherwise?”

“No. Not really. I mean, no.” Seokjin hesitated. “But sort of.”

Namjoon waited it out as he held Seokjin close, Seokjin’s head pressed against his shoulder.

“I remember…” Seokjin said eventually. “I remember the dressing room for Music Bank. Or M Countdown? One of them – god, I don’t even remember if we won. Probably. But I fell asleep waiting on the couch before filming, and when I woke up you were sitting next to me with your arms around me.” Seokjin’s fingers brushed his bare stomach. “You had pink hair and were sleeping with your mouth open. You looked stupid.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Seokjin said, but then took in a deep breath. “You were all clingy, sleepy and warm, and when I tried to get up you pulled me back like you knew I was there and didn’t want me to go. And you slept and held me, and it sounds stupid but I just. I felt different. Loved. And I– I sat there, suddenly in love. And then they woke us up and you left and after that I…” Seokjin paused. “I knew otherwise.”

“But I don’t remember that.” He didn’t remember that at all, couldn’t place the day, the event, the dressing room. “Why don’t I remember that?”

“Why would you?” Seokjin shrugged, fingers gently tracing the skin of his navel. “Even after that day it took a long time before that feeling made sense. And besides, our lives are subjective experiences.”

He blinked. “That... is true. And hot. I really like that.”

Seokjin smirked, hand moving lower, stroking the top of his leg. “And I like these thighs.”

The imminent public mayhem and the social media crisis felt utterly far away, with the next month yet to be lived and unimaginable: the first public appearance at the airport as they landed back in Seoul, Namjoon’s hand on the small of Seokjin’s back, Seokjin in agony because he hated the attention. Press had shown up in the hundreds, a sea of fans kept back by gates. Namjoon was stressed out and glaring, ready to fight should anyone challenge him or yell out a single offending accusation, and as people shouted their names Seokjin pushed to his side for comfort and eventually grabbed his hand, much to the delight of the hungry journalists.

And somehow Namjoon’s fight mode faded. Seokjin held his hand, and Namjoon relaxed even amidst the chaos, and moments later even found himself beaming – because look! Look at Seokjin, holding his hand, pressed to his side! He navigated them through the busy airport with his head held high, keeping count of the pack behind them, of Seokjin by him. Maybe even smirked at the cameras.

He didn’t give a flying fuck about the millions of alphas whose hearts were shattered that day, when Kim Seokjin was photographed with his intended mate for the first time: Namjoon felt smug as hell.

“But aren’t you forgetting something?” Seokjin asked him once they were in the back of the SUV together and Seokjin showed him a headline on his phone: Get tissues out, omegas! World’s most eligible pack alpha RM flaunts intended mate Jin!

He anxiously took in the headline, hand curling around Seokjin’s knee. “But I don’t care about those omegas. I only want you.”

Seokjin looked at him, disbelieving. “That is not even a little what I – But yes. Yes, that’s good. You passed this round. Cleverly done.” But Seokjin’s ears had turned bright red.

And it was not the two of them who were caught smooching on camera – although rumour had it that such a picture would be paid for extremely generously – but in fact Taehyung, who not even a month later was photographed kissing an unknown, hot mystery alpha in a Seoul park, the picture taken by a gifted paparazzi from the bushes. This finally derailed Seokjin and Namjoon’s monopolisation of global hashtags for a few solid weeks. And instead of the label yet again issuing a statement that the picture was out of context and misrepresented, the statement now said that Taehyung’s business was his own and that Taehyung himself or Namjoon would clarify Taehyung’s relationship status if they so wished. For now – buzz off. Twitter crashed again.

It would be chaos, all of it, to the point where they desperately wanted people to focus on their music and not their love lives. Whatever hate there was – and there was plenty of ‘I told you so’s and ‘unhealthy pack inbreeding’ and ‘Stockholm syndrome’ claims with a dose of abuse of power charges, all coming from people who had never met them and had no clue – all of it was thankfully drowned out by the positive reactions, the beach clean-ups and tree planting drives because his and Seokjin’s “future babies need a planet to live on, let’s get to it!”

The pack endured the pandemonium well, and Namjoon expected nothing less. That was how they had learned, after all, by them all keeping each other on their toes. That was how Namjoon learned, by Taehyung nervously bringing his alpha boyfriend home and the alpha formally asking Namjoon’s permission to court Taehyung – and Namjoon granted it, even as it hurt. He granted it because Taehyung’s smile was wild with love, which his new boyfriend seemed to return twofold, and as Seokjin nudged for Namjoon to stop glaring and to shake hands for god’s sake, Namjoon knew what it was like to be so in love.

He was, however, disappointed to learn that he still hadn’t grown up – because that was not a process one ever completed, but an on-going challenge where he would always judge himself harshly. But he had grown – after relentless work covering thousands of days, starting from the overcrowded, pack-filled dorm of Nonheyon-dong and ending with Seokjin beside him, still there as the most solid constant for Namjoon through all of it. He’d gotten lucky so young – luckier than anyone.

And on the first night of something new, in the spacious bedroom of a Spanish villa where Namjoon leaned down to Seokjin’s mouth with an “I love you” that was so different from the ones before and all the more precious for it, the whirlwind to come felt distant.

Namjoon stretched out over Seokjin, using Seokjin’s chest as a pillow as Seokjin played with his hair. Namjoon relished the attention, feeling sluggish but loved. Seokjin said, “Of course there will be monthly monitoring on your progress as my future mate.”

“Yeah?” he croaked sleepily, smiling against Seokjin’s chest. “Am I a trainee again?”

Seokjin pushed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, just like when I met you. I always thought you were cute, you know.” Seokjin’s fingers gently scraped his scalp. “And the shaved initials on your head, boy if that doesn’t get an omega going.”

“Joke’s on you,” he said, “because look where you are now.”

“Joke’s on me,” Seokjin agreed. “You grew up nice.”

He lifted his head and met Seokjin’s warm gaze. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Mr. UN Speaker – much nicer than I thought. You don’t know that?” Seokjin asked, and Namjoon shook his head. Seokjin frowned. “Where the hell have you been the past decade?”

He reached up to kiss Seokjin and marvelled at having the kiss returned.

“Right here,” he said, “trying to live up to you.”

Seokjin was always two steps ahead of him, or three, even four: and that was the only path he ever intended to follow.