Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s strange to be back on the road now.

Seokjin is finished running, but neither of them are ready to go back. To go back means acceptance, and Seokjin isn’t ready for that. He isn’t ready for step one, making a decision about what he wants next, whether that means going home to officially make their announcement and finish his run or whether they want to eschew tradition and leave all together.

Jeongguk swears he could make it happen for them.

“It would be hard to see your family again,” he says, “but we could do it. We could start over somewhere new, just the two of us, no real expectations. But.”

“Not if I want to step foot in Seoul again.” Seokjin sighs, head on his crossed arms over the alpha’s chest. “Or anywhere in our home country.” There’s no way they would escape all attention. In some places, maybe. Is he ready to give up all that? Would Jeongguk really be so happy to do that, for him?

From the safety of Jeongguk’s back, they ride out of one country into the next on back roads under the cover of darkness, and from there, take another ferry into a major port. This time, it rains the entire time, waves a little rougher than the last time he was on a boat, but Seokjin wants to be on the deck and Jeongguk frets behind him, their clothes plastered to their skin. “Hyung.” He doesn’t need to say it. “We should be careful with your health, yeah?”

Seokjin smothers down a laugh when the alpha won’t see it.

In the next city, they rent out another small apartment that allows weekly rentals. It’s nicer than the last one, undisputed regardless of amenities because they’re back to sleeping together under the same roof in the same room, this time in the same bed. Jeongguk is there always, so close, close enough to be sure of his safety, and Seokjin wants to take advantage.

This is the city they fall in love.

They might have already been there; they might have already been in love, but in this new place, they explore everything. It starts with the streets and the shops, the local cuisine and difficult local dialects of language they stutter their way through. Everything they taste has a sour note to it, from the sweets to the savory meats, something that resembles the small, hard citrus that grew in backyards of Seokjin’s alphan grandparents. He would ask what it is if not for his limited language here, but when they take an afternoon ride into the country on one of the more mild temperature days, they pass under swaying trees with tiny fruits that drop like stones to the ground. Jeongguk pulls over to the side so they might walk beneath them, and when the gentle breeze masks both of their scents with nothing but sour citrus, Seokjin kisses Jeongguk to keep his nose close to the mark.

He looks so handsome there, under the orchard trees.

“Alpha,” he says, talking a hearty step back, then another. Jeongguk raises his eyebrows. “Are you - really?” Jeongguk asks, laughing, but when Seokjin darts off with a laugh, running as fast and far as he feels, he knows Jeongguk is right behind him, and when he tires, his feet slowing, Jeongguk wastes no more chase before snatching him up in his arms.

They both pant, out of breath, and Seokjin looks at Jeongguk’s face up close, so flushed, a few strands of hair stuck to his neck where it slips out of the short ponytail. On the breeze, the hint of rain looms, incessant and welcoming. He tugs all of Jeongguk’s hair out and runs his hands through it. He looks the same as the kid he grew up with, but also - the combination of hard earned muscle, tattoos, piercings, long hair.

Lethal.

Seokjin has to clamp his legs shut.

Jeongguk laughs. “Did you choose this excursion as an experiment to see if there was a place that could mask your interest from me?” he teases. “Every fruit and every bloom in the world would not be enough to hide your scent from me.”

“Alpha.” Seokjin’s lip wobbles. He still doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, and this? He fidgets in the alpha’s hold, but he doesn’t let go. He knows his scent billows, and it isn’t merely content. Jeongguk’s nose flares.

“What is it?” Jeongguk stops immediately, scanning the horizon for trouble while searching his face for the same. Seokjin hasn’t looked anywhere but the alpha’s face all day. If there is someone or something out there lurking, he would never know.

That’s how far he’s come.

“I don’t -” Seokjin pants, then whines. The whine, high pitched, decidedly needy, certainly fills Jeongguk in. He chuckles.

“You can just ask, hyung.” He turns in a new direction, back away from the road they were walking back towards.

“Jeongguk!” Seokjin laughs, tugging at his hair. “I don’t - I want -”

Jeongguk carries him away from the road, in the middle of nowhere, and sits down, the alpha’s back against a tree, so Seokjin remains in his lap. His hands smooth over his waist, meeting in the middle at his button and zipper.

“You shouldn’t have to wait,” he says. From anyone else, Seokjin knows it would sound ridiculous and sleazy. They’re not only in public, but in a wide open space. “No one is around.”

Seokjin stretches over the hands poised at his pants to undo the alpha’s first, his breath coming faster and faster. He doesn’t think he can wait, and his alpha’s body, fine tuned to his already, comes into hand half hard. Jeongguk jokingly told him all it takes is one whine and he’s hard, but it does not appear to the omega to be a joke.

He whines once more, and under his hand, Jeongguk twitches, fills out. His thighs twitch under him too while he curses.

Jeongguk sits upright to let the omega use him.

He also sits like that to keep a lookout.

Seokjin fucks him like his life depends on it, instincts driven mad to have such a considerate, powerful alpha looking out for him. “Alpha,” he wobbles, bouncing on his lap, their pants a hindrance neither care to stop and fully remove. His slick runs down his thighs but mostly right into Jeongguk’s lap, staining the front of his clothing.

“Even if someone was around,” Jeongguk grunts. “It wouldn’t matter.” Seokjin keens, high pitched, high enough that if there is a single ear on a single living thing anywhere in this valley, they heard him.

Jeongguk smiles. He helps him when he tires, picking up and lifting the omega’s body up and down for him. One digit caresses around his inner thigh to where his cock pushes in and out, teasing an extra intrusion. “It’s part of the rules as you know,” Jeongguk continues. “But I would never let someone else see you like this.”

It’s part of the rules for a mating run, a barbaric practice, to allow for a public mating and claiming, a cruel finale, should the winning alpha choose to exert that right. Most don’t, even if the law shields them from prosecution, but the potential to go through due process is seen as a hindrance, even if they are excluded from consequence. Just another way in which they are supposedly exceptional. So exceptional, the upper class is positively primitive.

“Can you -” Seokjin shudders on top of him, hands clutching his shoulders, fisting them and unfisting them. “Can you knot me?” So far, Jeongguk’s ability to knot outside of a rut or heat has been impressive, but Seokjin also knows they’re running on high emotions and high hormonal response to those emotions.

Jeongguk leans back, bracing himself with one hand on the ground, and sharply fucks up into him. Seokjin moans as loud as he wants, the loudest he can, and Jeongguk works him past the point of one climax into a sopping wet mess of trembling limbs until he pops.

Immediately, Seokjin crumples, spent. “You have to carry me back. I can’t move.”

Jeongguk chuckles. “Neither of us will be moving for a while, love. Just relax.” He kisses the side of his neck, both hands locked around his back. “We’re in no rush. We have all the time in the world.”

They fuck like that everywhere.

It’s almost unfortunate to find out that Seokjin is no better than every other omega, given into his basest needs. Almost every time they make it back to their apartment, he pushes Jeongguk down onto the nearest surface. Sometimes, it’s just the small bit of floor in front of their door, too desperate to make it any further. Sometimes they make it to the cramped living room, rarely to the bed unless they make a short stop on the couch for round one on their way to round two.

Jeongguk taunts him. With his knowing looks and his loose pants that don’t always hide his alphadom well. They go out and they might be squeezed in together on the back of a tram, bumpy road jostling them together, or it might be while they perch together on stools to eat at a food stall streetside, the alpha’s dark gaze lingering on his lips while Jeongguk hand feeds him, but it takes nothing for Seokjin to feel the stir in his guts that demands his alpha inside him that very moment.

Even if they’re doing nothing, the picture of innocence out and about in the park, all Seokjin has to do is lean back, spread his legs open by an inch, and place one hand on his belly.

Jeongguk drags him into a single stall restroom at the dizzying speed of one of his fastest knots yet. It surprises even the alpha. “Sorry.” He scrunches up his nose. “This isn’t as romantic as a field of fruit trees, is it?”

They both laugh, and make sure to buy a copious amount of snacks from the small omega worker at the front of the store. Behind the counter, along with diapers and formula next to cigarettes and hard liquor, are rows of shiny foil packets hanging down like garland. They billow in the late summer breeze catching his eye and holding it.

Jeongguk notices his staring. He cocks an eyebrow at him, as if to ask, but Seokjin shrinks up into his shoulder, hiding his face.

Not a single condom has been used.

When they aren’t testing the amount of knots the alpha can produce outside of rut, they swim in the river that cuts through the city and dry off on the back of Jeongguk’s bike. He doesn’t drive like he used to. Well - most of the time. Any time they ride in traffic with other vehicles, mostly motorbikes similar to Jeongguk’s - the alpha drives extraordinarily slowly and carefully. It’s easy to tease and call him ahjussi, but when they’re out of the city, on a dirt road with no one in sight, Jeongguk revs his bike and opens her up. They fly down the road - always for short spurts - before Jeongguk leans back into him and slows down.

Careful.

He is so careful with him.

For the first time in years, Seokjin feels like cooking again. They explore all of the local markets, wading through ingredients that he isn’t always familiar with. They travel back out to the seaside to catch fish only to cart it back to the city when they could have more easily purchased something just as fresh there without the trip, but the look on the alpha’s face when Seokjin hooks something as large as his torso is worth the early morning ride before sunrise.

The produce they find is wonderful; Seokjin marinades and decorates and feasts on all the different types of fruit. He lines their plates with peeled and folded vegetables while Jeongguk gathers flowers for the table. He lights a candle sheepishly, head ducked down with a shy smile despite the fact Jeongguk spent the morning with his nose buried between Seokjin’s legs with zero hesitance or shyness.

Seokjin works barefoot in the kitchen wearing Jeongguk’s baggiest shirt, hanging mid thigh on him, wide enough to grow into. Jeongguk impishly lifts the hem of it to peek under, fingers skittishly running over the waistband of his own underwear paired with his shirt on the omega.

“I just washed all of your things,” he reminds him, as if Seokjin wears his alpha’s clothing because he’s out of his own. He presses his chest up against Seokjin’s back while he whisks the sauce together, harder and harder until Seokjin’s hips dig into the counter. With a gasp, Seokjin folds, Jeongguk pushing him flat down, bent over in half, but the alpha’s hands stay wrapped around Seokjin’s delicate stomach, protecting it from the harsh ledge digging in.

“I’m making you dinner, alpha,” Seokjin tries to pout, but it’s hard when Jeongguk’s scorching body heat sinks through the thin shirt and something else has a penchant to be just as hard.

“Hmmmm.” Jeongguk nuzzles and kisses behind his ear. “I think you’re baking something for me.”

They can’t even make it through a meal.

Seokjin moans, head cushioned when he throws it back against the kitchen cabinets by a tattooed hand as desperate thrusting rattles the pots above them precariously.

They must be noisy enough to be renowned; within a couple of weeks, they’ve caught most of their neighbors hastily peeking at them whenever they come and go. “Do you think we should move on?” Seokjin asks, flustered.

Jeongguk shrugs. “I don’t think they’re a danger to us, but we’ve certainly caught some, uh, attention.”

Attention in the past was dangerous; it meant alphas on a mission prowling for answers might get somewhere. The run is over though. They bide their time, because they earned said time, but the rose pin moves freely among them. On one notable occasion, Jeongguk pins it into the front of the omega’s pale pink panties. “My rose bud,” he teases, fingers tracing around it, directly on top of Seokjin’s quivering clit.

“You already -” he pants “-plucked it.” The ticklish sensation combined with the heavy and cool touch of metal is too much; he clamps his legs shut and seizes Jeongguk’s hand with a shaky laugh, accepting of the kiss that a widely grinning alpha surges up to offer with an impish grin.

The woman Jeongguk rents the room from kindly asks if they’re planning to stay past the month. Seokjin can’t look at her, face crimson, while Jeongguk laughs and stumbles through a shared secondary language to assure her that the unit will be available again.

“Where to next?” the alpha asks. It takes no time at all to pack their meager possessions. For the first time in his life, Seokjin feels reckless enough to leave all of his worldly items behind, his carefully constructed go bags that he stashed around Seoul, ready for the day. He doesn’t need anything but the person in front of him, and maybe it’s a mistake, but Seokjin isn’t ready to let go of this scene of domesticity.

“Can we stay in the area a little longer?”

“We can do whatever we want.”

They take a hotel room for the next week because Seokjin wants to see the inside of an individual soaking bath, but there is no kitchen, so after they take another small studio apartment above an old mail office that a young family has renovated into a bookstore. In the mornings, they can smell the coffee they brew as a makeshift coffee shop for the neighborhood, and a stray alley cat sometimes graces them outside their window where scaffolding functions between a fire escape and loose patio.

All day and all night, the windows are open to the sounds of people coming and going. Someone yells up that their dinner smells good one evening and Jeongguk growls quietly until Seokjin rolls his eyes and elbows him to eat.

They buy extra bed clothes for how often they go through theirs; it’s too much laundry to keep up with, just the sheets, and every time Seokjin tries to wait until Jeongguk isn’t looking to strip them, face burning, because they just never seem to dry.

While folding laundry and moving around their stacked items of possessions, so few as they are, something drops from Jeongguk’s things.

Seokjin can barely believe it, just laying there, on the clean if not aged floor of a nondescript municipal building in a country he never planned on running to, lies a diamond collar not only worth an estate, but something he will willingly put on.

His fingers twitch.

“Want to put it back on?” The voice behind him is quiet. There is nowhere to hide.

“I don’t -” Seokjin flushes so warmly he feels lightheaded. He sits on the floor, feet bare, the bottoms of which are tinged, and the alpha behind him steps up to press his shins to his back, touching him gently with hands more calloused than his own. He’s felt all of those callouses, watches as Jeongguk reaches around him to pick the collar up.

“There are just diamonds on the floor,” Seokjin whispers. Laughing, Jeongguk blows off invisible dirt from it. “I can’t believe you’ve just been carrying that around-”

He goes silent when Jeongguk brings it up and across his neck. He hears the comforting inhale and exhale of the alpha behind him and nothing else, shaking hands coming up to press stones to flesh.

“What’s it feel like?” Jeongguk asks quietly. He doesn’t clasp it, merely holds it to him.

“Like it’s missing something.” Seokjin skims his fingers along the circular track to his nape, covering the alpha’s hands.

“You want it now?”

He has to be bitten.

There’s even a doctor’s office on the street they could go to tomorrow to have it inspected and disinfected.

Seokjin’s heart races. There is no reason to wait.

One alpha hand eases the collar away while the other completely encloses his throat. Jeongguk kisses the side of his neck.

If he takes the bite now, it feels like it’s over. They’ll have to make a decision. Go home, or start somewhere new.

Seokjin doesn’t know what he wants.

He feels so much anger still - at his friends for their simpler life, for the society members that stood by and watched Seokjin and those who came before him, and mostly, his parents. Why couldn’t they have just told him? Given him any warning, especially that this was something he could have been hopeful about?

If his parents told him about Jeongguk - if Taehyung knew, if he warned Seokjin - he likes to think it would have soothed something in him. Can he say definitely it would have meant anything to him?

Even internally, Seokjin declines to answer.

He didn’t know Jeongguk the adult then. At the start of his run, despite fortuitously running into him beforehand, it couldn’t mean as much as he’d like to think now. Jeongguk was a figure of the past. Seokjin of the now so desperately clings to his own denial that someone should have told him about Jeongguk, but what could it have meant? One instance of an alpha being sweet to him still frightened him at the time.

Seeing Jeongguk at the pier where Seokjin took his first boat out of the country was terrifying. It felt like an illusion, a nightmare, and a lie all wrapped into one. He hadn’t known Jeongguk as an alpha - only a young, eager kid - and to be confronted with new knowledge, then forcibly run down by it?

Jeongguk releases him with another kiss. “Before the next big rain starts, I booked us an excursion.”

Seokjin perks up. “Is it a boat excursion?”

Jeongguk hides his grin.

They fish off a small boat for a day, bobbing up and down enough that even Seokjin feels a little green by the end of it. Jeongguk watches every time he cradles his stomach, but he weakly pushes him away, insisting he’s merely seasick. As if he’s ever been sick on the water before in his life.

When they make it back to dry land, Jeongguk jumps off with a groan, staggering with hands on his knees, and Seokjin hugs a post until the alpha helps him wobble to a nearby cafe to sit. They opt for a taxi ride over a bike ride and spend the late afternoon napping in their nest. Seokjin kicks around when he gets hot, then hooks his feet under Jeongguk and the edges of the covers when cold.

His toes somehow brush a diamond collar once more.

“Will you put that thing somewhere safe!” Seokjin scolds him later, after he’s had both some broth and tea to settle him completely. Jeongguk just grins at him.

“You know what they say - the safest place for fine jewelry is on your body.” He smacks an annoyingly loud and devastatingly gentle kiss on his forehead. “What do you say, hyung? What kind of sambal are we craving today?”

Jeongguk moves around their small home, shirtless, barefoot, toothbrush in hand. Seokjin trimmed the alpha’s hair the day before, but just barely, just enough to say he did, because he loves that the locks brush the tops of the alpha’s shoulders. He likes to gather it up and put it in a sprout for his own amusement, and Jeongguk tolerates it even as he does his pushups and crunches. Watching a man with both rippling muscles and a sprout of a ponytail makes Seokjin squirm until he tries hiding in the bathroom, never for long before a playful growl pries open the door.

Jeongguk pauses in the middle of his ministrations to cock an eyebrow at him. “I smell you.” Seokjin barely flushes this time, pulling the hem of his shirt down. When Seokjin woke him up that morning, it was by scooting backwards until he met Jeongguk’s hips facing his, lifting one leg, and pulling Jeongguk inside him before the alpha had time to open his eyes.

Seokjin curls up in their bed with their perma-soiled sheets wrapped around him. He stares until Jeongguk gives him a sarcastic and leering look from the floor, then hides his head under the covers until it smells too strongly of only him. When the alpha joins him in bed, sweaty because Seokjin has given up on keeping their nest clean for the day, better to keep it warm and well marked, Jeongguk does what he always does - thoroughly checks all his major glands for subtle changes.

It starts at his neck, then wrists. His groin. Usually deep inhales there turn into a fresh round of fucking, but Seokjin lies still when Jeongguk collapses across him for the moment. The alpha licks at his neck, at first lightly, nonchalantly, then firmer and firmer. He growls, a low rumble that sometimes makes him sit up straight, heart racing, and other times, makes his eyes droop. Today, it is more of the latter - Seokjin blinks drowsily, cocooned and covered by alpha, upset only when Jeongguk doesn’t allow him to snuggle in further.

“Stay still,” he laughs.

“You can’t will it to be there,” Seokjin mumbles, only because his face is hidden. When Jeongguk gently tugs at the hair at his nape, he whines, balling up tighter. “We could take a test if you want to know.”

Jeongguk rubs his arms, goosebumped despite the ever present humid warmth. The windows are open, as always, but there is no breeze from the ocean this far inland. “Do you want to know? For sure?” Jeongguk asks like he doesn’t care, like he doesn’t spend his days sniffing at him for changes or shielding his stomach from the dangers of a sharp counter.

Jeongguk talks about it as if it’s inevitable they’re expecting. He bides the days by waiting for the shift in his scent, but it’s far too early for the change that comes with later pregnancy hormones, namely, the ones that cause lactation and the creamy notes that all dams carry while nursing.

Once he starts smelling like milk, Seokjin will continue to smell like milk for some time.

They roll so Jeongguk lies on top of him, head cushioned on his chest, staring so intently, undoubtedly both hoping and moping at his breasts. Seokjin covers his face. The alpha laughs.

“You’re shameless!” Seokjin yelps, in between a knot, a rattled pregnancy vitamin bottle, and a dinner “good for vital organ development.” Jeongguk chases him across the floor from kitchen to bedroom, but because it’s a studio, there’s nowhere to run, just the one room, but Jeongguk growls playfully as he darts from one side to the other after him.

Suddenly, it doesn’t take much to make Seokjin breathless.

Until recently, it felt like he could run as long as he needed to, until his lungs collapsed, as long as it took him away from alphas. Now, he pants, short of breath and restless from happiness, as he runs to be caught by one alpha.

Jeongguk captures him by pressing his body into the wall, both of his arms propped around his head and pinning him in place, chest heaving as if he ran a marathon as well. He drops his chin, heady gaze piercing, and Seokjin can’t look at him. “Kim Seokjin, I’m going to marry you.”

Embarrassingly, all he can say in response is a whine, fingertips reaching for his shoulders, legs jumping of their own accord around the alpha’s waist. Jeongguk squeezes him fiercely to his chest, scenting manically with his chin over the top of his head and side of his face, nostrils flaring, sucking in his scent as he goes. His teeth graze along his skin - a meandering track of two canines scrapping from the back of his neck to the side, hot breath eating his skin up.

“Marry me-” Seokjin gasps.

Jeongguk growls, pushing him back against the wall so their bodies collide with a thud. Seokjin smiles leaning back.

“Mate me-” he continues.

Jeongguk supports Seokjin’s body with one knee while pulling his pants down one handed, just enough for his cock to spring free.

“Claim me-”

Jeongguk pushes into him; Seokjin’s voice wobbles out, breathier and breathier as every thrust jostles him up the wall.

Seokjin leans down so his lips rest at the shell of Jeongguk’s ear. “Pup me.”

With a ear shattering roar, Jeongguk heaves them away from the wall into the nest, fucking him so vigorously that they arrive across to other side of the room before his knot pops. “Stop gnawing on me like a bone,” he complains after the alpha has come down, but not before he’s done biting at his neck. It’s all for fun, for practice - the bites, although harsh enough to linger - aren’t the bite.

“I can’t,” Jeongguk grunts. “Just need to-” he thrusts up in him sharply, still lodged there. Seokjin moans sluggishly, back bowing, a tremble from his fingertips all the way to his womb.

“What if I said I’m hungry?”

Jeongguk opens one eye to look at him. “I’d say you’re fibbing to get rid of me, but we take no chances.”

Jeongguk quietly maneuvers the kitchen - Seokjin learned to cook recipes - traditional recipes out of popular cookbooks or the ones passed down by family. He can measure and follow along, but never had much passion for it, mostly disdain for the thought of feeding some nameless alpha in the future and their children born out of obligation.

Jeongguk learned to cook to feed himself, and now, Seokjin. Between the two of them, he can whip up a meal in no time flat, dexterous in ingredients whereas Seokjin has to make things step by step. From the comfort of their nest, Seokjin rolls up into a caterpillar and watches. He sees Jeongguk’s smirk from his side profile as he whisks eggs before pouring them into a sizzling pan.

“You could have at least put some clothing on,” the omega mumbles, comforter pulled up around his mouth, but Jeongguk laughs buoyantly.

They stay another week like that in that lovely little apartment, then ride along the island up to a port to catch the mainland at sunset. “Where to?” his alpha asks, as if he has an answer. He doesn’t reply, only leans further into his arms to hide his face in his neck. Jeongguk gently massages the back of his neck. “Okay then.”

Jeongguk drives so carefully out of the city and into the mountains. It takes several days of rooming in homes or the limited hotel along the way, but they arrive to seas not of shimmering water, but shimmering tea leaves, tier by tier into the valleys. They walk along the lowest rungs where sweat sticks to their backs, then hike up around curving bends to a more pleasant breeze where Seokjin can nearly shiver.

Every step of the way, Jeongguk stays close to his elbow, one hand always at the ready to steady him or gently ask by way of curious touch if he’s alright. “Is it too much?” he says, the two of them half way back the winding road to the small house, closer to a hut, they were able to secure for now. Despite the tackiness to his skin and the sun in his eyes, despite the way he feels so short of breath, he shakes his head.

It isn’t too much.

He walks until a rock in the road catches his foot and he stumbles momentarily. The vice-like grip on his arm keeps him upright, but before he can take another step, Jeongguk gruffly tells him enough, offering his back to him until Seokjin relents and clings on. “The amount of time I spend riding on your back,” Seokjin sighs.

“You like to ride my front, too,” Jeongguk teases.

Seokjin stays quiet the rest of the hike up; when Jeongguk eases him off his back, he accepts a kiss from Seokjin and his requirement that he allow the omega to bathe him in the springs nearby to soothe his muscles. The water is warmer than it would have been even just a handful of years ago, but for this, Seokjin appreciates what they have. This is one of the few times Jeongguk sits in front of him and allows Seokjin to do the pampering.

“Head back,” he says as quietly as he can get away with. The bar soap they were given with their accommodations is from rice water, something gentle they were told to use when cleaning themselves with water reserves in the area. It neither suds much or smells like much, but all the better for him to smell his alpha natural.

The sun goes down and the temperatures begin to drop; the insects here are the loudest they’ve been yet, and Seokjin uses both hands to massage Jeongguk from shoulders down each and every vertebrae. In his arms, the alpha hums occasionally in contentment, eyes closed, water rustling around them. Every tiny sound, a delight. Every small gesture, his love.

Seokjin loves him so much.

It’s as if Jeongguk smells the tears; before one can drop, water to meet water, he opens his eyes and sits up. “Baby? What’s wrong?”

And how could he explain? In many ways, Seokjin still doesn’t know Jeongguk. He might know the time of morning the alpha naturally rises, or the precise amount of pushups he can do. He can predict which song Jeongguk might sing in the shower depending on the day and he knows some of the stories he might offer to distract him when sleep is hard to come by, about his tattoos or the first time he truly wiped out on his motorbike and gave himself the scar on his thigh. Seokjin knows the number of wrinkles in the corners of Jeongguk’s eyes. He knows there will be more to count in the future.

He knows these things but none of them feel like the things he thought he should know to fall in love. How can he explain just how desperately he now feels about Jeongguk? When he was scared of him not so long ago? Seokjin knows him, but it doesn’t feel like he knows Jeongguk enough for just how desperately he loves him.

Seokjin doesn’t have to explain.

Jeongguk understands perfectly. After all, he did, or so he claims, fall in love with him so long ago, back when he knew so little about him.

Just kids back then, people might say, but it feels like little has changed about them or between them.

“Where do you want to raise our children?” Seokjin asks instead, and Jeongguk stands without ceremony, picking him up out of the water. Just thinking of the image of the two of them nude and glistening wet in a spring makes him squirm. He’s being deprived of watching the alpha himself, wants to sit back and see Jeongguk get out of the bath, but he stays still in his arms, even as Jeongguk walks them back barefoot into their little home to dry them off. “Do we need to make a home now? Are you ready for a permanent nest?”

Seokjin didn’t really nest before, but the thought of making one now that he’d be allowed to keep for as long as he likes?

He suddenly can’t breathe from the chokehold the tears have on him.

Jeongguk settles him with a heavy scenting fresh out of their bath. Neither of them bother to put on clothing, Jeongguk’s skin the softest blanket yet to cover him. Seokjin kicks his legs and huffs and puffs until Jeongguk rearranges himself to more squarely lie between his legs. “Can I put it on you?” he asks. Seokjin doesn’t need him to clarify.

With a nod, Seokjin breathes in and out evenly seven times before Jeongguk twists back on top of him, laying heavy diamonds across his throat. He doesn’t clasp it, doesn’t need to. Seokjin lies still enough it remains perfectly in place.

“Did you consider anything other than diamonds?”

“For this?” Jeongguk grins. “No. Never.”

Seokjin knows that means he has more collars somewhere, most likely stashed away in a safe and stationary location.

“And if I never want to debut wearing it?”

Jeongguk’s smile never falters; if anything, it grows larger. “You think that matters to me? Hyung. You could throw that in the river for all I care.”

He traces his fingers over Seokjin’s sides. “I made myself fit to be your alpha. I made sure to buy the traditional diamond collar, the estate in the country close to your parents, stowed away assets in different places. I built you a trunk by hand to place all of your favorite possessions in.”
He leans in. “But - it doesn’t change who I am.”

Jeongguk, with his tattoos and piercings and long hair. Came from no name and no money, not a living relation to vouch for him.

He could never be considered a traditional match for Seokjin.

The only way he could have Seokjin’s hand and a future where they both remain in society would be to win him in a mating run.

“But did you build a cradle with these hands?” Seokjin brings them together to kiss. He hopes he sounds more confident than the perpetual blush makes him look.

Jeongguk doesn’t reply for a long moment, head bowing down to rest on his chest. Seokjin brushes his hair back, lets his chest rise and fall with Jeongguk’s warm cheek puppeted by the motion. His eyelashes flutter. “If I did, it only needs a home.”

Jeongguk is his only home.

How unoriginal the truth is.

In the morning, Seokjin takes a walk along the path alone. He’s never been somewhere that smelled as lovely as this place - not overtly earthy or sweet or salty, but all of those things and more. It doesn’t smell like anyone or anywhere in particular to him. Dew drops collect on the tops of the greenery to make it look like it just rained even though it hasn’t, so Seokjin removes his shoes and steps off the walking path through a row of leaves until his feet fill with numb chill.

When he turns around to head back, there stands Jeongguk in the distance, at the top of the walking path near his shoes, waiting for him. Hands in his pocket, enough of a breeze to ruffle his hair, he looks similar to an alpha waiting for him on the docks.

This time, with a cry, Seokjin runs forward to meet him, a giddiness for the future lifting every footstep.

It feels of a dawning, unspoken truth between them that their time alone is coming to an end; they spend every second of it both exploring new places, experiences, taking tea in traditional local ceremonies but also harvesting their own, and forging routines between them that they will take into the rest of their lives. In the mornings, Seokjin wakes up, sometimes to cramps, sometimes with the restless need to move, often before Jeongguk now, the natural early riser between them.

He wiggles his way from under his alpha’s arm to walk around their little mountainside path, as open as it is long. This early, there is still a thin fog rolling down the hillsides, everything quiet save the occasional bird, rarely the hint of another person on most days.

It feels like Jeongguk is never far from him, often because he can keep the hut in sight.

That doesn’t make it true.

The season is about to change. He can feel it on his skin the same as the pressing need to make a decision about where to go, where to put down their roots and build their home. Seokjin walks with a hand on his stomach. It doesn’t feel any different, the same size and shape, but this morning it was more than general unease that pushed him out of bed, a nausea that passed once he sat out in fresh air for a while.

For now, he bides some time in hopes of settling his stomach before breakfast. He knows his alpha won’t take no for an answer - he will make anything and everything they have to find something Seokjin can eat, neither of them openly discussing the fact that there is nothing to do for his morning sickness other than wait. Jeongguk is insistent on feeding him so much a day, no longer allowed to skip meals under the watchful eye of someone who cares more than he has ever for himself.

Maybe he should pick a few flowers for his alpha; Seokjin pulls Jeongguk’s jacket tighter around himself as he steps off the dirt road onto a hillside that narrows down the opposite side of the growing tea where things are allowed to grow wild. There are taller trees here that offer a shady spot to sit under that they discovered, but also some pretty wild flowers that Seokjin is sure would be considered more weedlike than flowerlike by the location population, but Seokjin thinks they’re pretty. He doesn’t think they’ll be missed, so he plucks one at a time, feet sinking into the soft earth from a heavy rainstorm two days before.

It’s what he hears first - a second set of feet approaching in damp mud, and then it’s what he smells - not his alpha’s scent, not even the tea or the small bouquet of flowers in his hand.

He is not alone.

The hair on the back of his neck stands. Suddenly, he is chilled to the bone, and he knows he needs to turn around but can’t make himself do it.

“Jeongguk?” he calls out, well aware it isn’t Jeongguk, but if this person thinks he can scare someone just because they’re an omega, they should know. He isn’t alone, and his alpha is closer than they realize.

“I’ve been looking for you, sweetheart,” the voice sneers behind him. Gasping, Seokjin drops the flowers in his hand. Before they can hit the ground, he sucks down as much air as he can to yell for Jeongguk, but a hand snaps his head back, a grip so tight over his mouth that he gags, even as he tries his best to bite and kick at the body now wrapped around his.

“After all this time, you just walk right into my arms,” Jaehyun laughs. “You might as well save your strength, love. It won’t do you any good against me, and we have a lot to do, don’t we?”

Jaehyun takes a deep inhale at the junction of his neck. Seokjin can’t see his face, but he feels the sharp exhale immediately after. “You reek!” he growls. “The fuck did you do? Let some bastard mount you? At least you were smart enough not to get bitten yet. Fuck. I always knew you had more beauty than brains, but of course you couldn’t keep it together to keep your legs shut. Shit!”

Seokjin drags his feet in the mud as Jaehyun pulls him along, then flails and kicks when it does nothing for him. His cries remain muffled from the hand on him, and the panic and sheer terror make it hard for him to breath around it, the edges of his vision blurring. He doesn’t have much in terms of brute strength, but he’s tall for an omega, has a long body to twist and turn in Jaehyun’s hold, and between dragging him and holding him still, the alpha trips on something, grip on him relenting.

It isn’t enough for Seokjin to get far from him, Jaehyun immediately hot on his trail as Seokjin takes off, clambering up the side of a steep bank. It’s slippery enough they both slide down the side of it, but with his mouth free, Seokjin shouts for help. “Jeongguk! Jeongguk, help! Alpha!”

Jaehyun’s hand on his ankle tightens with such a sharp jerk that Seokjin screams all anew; he thinks he heard a snap.

“Hold still or I’ll break your other leg,” Jaehyun pants, crawling atop him even as they slide back down to the foot of the hill. Seokjin feels the numbness of shock sweeping over him, colder than anything he’s felt before, cold enough to numb the pain in his ankle so he can hardly feel it. “I should have broken it the first time I ran into you. This all could have been over and done with.”

“You’re too late,” Seokjin says, voice foreign even to his own ears. He doesn’t sound like himself. He doesn’t sound like anything, not even as he tries to curl up to protect himself under Jaehyun. “I already carry his pup.”

Seokjin can’t know for sure, but he knows. As surely as he catches Jeongguk watching him at every moment, they both know.

Jaehyun just laughs. “You think that matters? I’ll tear that unborn bastard out myself if I have to! From the day you were born you were meant to be mine, Kim Seokjin, and this just proves it. He didn’t even bite you!” He laughs some more.

“Honestly.” Jaehyun wraps his fingers around his throat and forcefully shoves Seokjin’s head back, elongating and exposing the base. “You almost made it easy for me.”

Fear cuts through the shock enough to register Jaehyun simultaneously licking his lips and canines, slobbering over himself in preparation to bite while also squeezing the outline of a cock through his bottoms. Seokjin tries to yell, but the hand around him tightens to the point that no sound comes out and no air goes in. Seokjin can’t breathe. A belt buckle clicks open, the sound of a zipper being pulled down. Seokjin’s vision blacks out but he can still flail his feet.

Any second now.

He’ll be there any second now.

He doesn’t need to be afraid, even if he feels a hand groping him between his legs. Jaehyun struggles to both hold him down and remove clothing at the same time. Seokjin can at least do this. He can give Jeongguk time to reach them by making it as hard as possible for Jaehyun to have what he wants.

The rattled choke from his throat isn’t replaced with any air. He has no air - he can’t breathe. He has to relinquish fighting back at the hand between his legs to claw at the fingers around his throat.

He can’t see, he can’t speak, and he has little fight left.

He isn’t afraid.

It is shockingly silent.

One moment, a heavy weight begins to slump forward onto him, and the next, it’s gone entirely, and sound comes back to Seokjin first, then slowly his vision as he blinks furiously.

Jeongguk’s face comes into focus first, lips moving and eyes pinched as he gingerly scoops Seokjin to his chest. His body moves in the alpha’s arms like a puppet, he can’t control his limbs nor head as Jeongguk supports all of him. When he tries to swallow, tries to say Jeongguk’s name, his throat burns so terribly that he whines and that only makes it a thousand times worse.

“Shhhh, baby, don’t cry, it’s okay, I’ve got you, and it’s over.” Jeongguk kisses his face everywhere, just everywhere, taking the trail of tears with him although he is so careful not to touch his neck or let him move his head.

When Jeongguk curses, so warm in his arms, Seokjin hears the tears behind it. “Shit, baby. Are you - of course you’re not okay. Fuck. He fucking assaulted you!” He struggles to stand without jostling him on the muddy incline.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Jeongguk says, at the same time as Seokjin sees Jaehyun, lying face down in the mud not far from them.

He isn’t moving.

The back of his head is caved in.

A new fear washes over him. “Jeongguk -” he rasps as best he can.

Jeongguk hushes him. “You’re safe,” he says. Repeats it. “You’re safe.”

“Make it so,” Seokjin gasps. It burns to speak, just absolutely burns. When he swallows, it feels like nothing happens, his throat collapsed and no air available to help him. “Finish it.”

“Hush, don’t speak.” Jeongguk’s gaze bores into his neck. Seokjin knows it must be purpling by the second. “Just rest, hyung. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Jeongguk. Alpha.” His voice rasps until he coughs, Jeongguk wincing at the sound, pulling him closer very carefully, one hand bracing his head so it doesn’t move. “Do it.”

“Hyung.”

“Alpha.” Seokjin’s whine is short, painfully lived and died in his throat. With both hands fisted on Jeongguk’s shoulder, he pulls himself forward, tilting his neck back despite the new pull of pain.

“It’s - time,” he gasps. “I’m yours. Claim me.”

Jeongguk hesitates though, and Seokjin, hurting and in a more delicate position than he was days or certainly weeks ago, can only bring his neck closer to the alpha’s teeth. “Please. Please make me yours. Forever.” If he could, there is more he would say, but everything that needed to be said has been, perhaps less so in words than actions. What has this all been? All this time between them? What’s lying in wait in his womb?

“It’ll hurt,” Jeongguk says quietly, but both hands frame his face, then his neck. Seokjin gives him the most content smile he can.

It was always going to hurt. Ready, he mouths. “Alpha,” he says.

When he lowers his mouth to his gland, Jeongguk’s hot breath sends a shiver down his spine then heats him up like an inferno from the toes to his ears. How long he waited for this in fear? How little he fears now.

The alpha kisses him, a barely there kiss. If Seokjin didn’t expect it, if he didn’t know Jeongguk, he wouldn’t have felt it, but he knew his alpha would give him only the gentlest touch he could muster first.

Then Jeongguk’s teeth rip into his neck; mating is an act of passion. Claiming is an act of violence.

A scant few feet from them, a body lies unmoving.

The gush of blood down his neck rivers until it slides down most of his chest. When Jeongguk sits back, his eyes are a different color. He tries to hurriedly wipe the blood off his mouth, but Seokjin stops him. The adrenaline ebbs from his body so he can enjoy the ache, but at least he has this to focus on versus the pain in his foot.

“Thank you.” His fingers feel a little numb, but blindly searching leads him to this: a rose bud pinned to the inside of Jeongguk’s shirt, and somewhere beyond them, a picked bouquet scatters to the wind.

Jeongguk carries him back up the mountain only to ride back down on the alpha’s bike; the closest hospital takes nearly two hours to reach, but longer with a fretful alpha who stops more than once or twice to check on him. He makes sure the splint on his ankle stays still, then he looks over the bandage on his neck without touching it.

He will touch his cheek, cradling and kissing him.

He trembles when he puts a hand over Seokjin’s stomach.

The hospital is a rural one, just a few communal rooms with rows of beds for admitted patients. As is, Seokjin isn’t an emergency, despite Jeongguk’s insistence and borderline aggression with the alpha nurse doing her best. They give him an IV and something for pain before they cart him off to set his ankle bone.

Dressed in a hospital gown, Seokjin gets to see his marked neck for the first time ever, hardly the glamorous experience some might expect. An older beta nurse with a hand mirror smiles at him, smiles at Jeongguk, even when he shoulders in to force her to take a step back. Seokjin’s neck is more than bitten and scarred - the dark bruises dotted and dashed on his upper throat look more brazen than the violently red and new bite, but only one will last.

“Bite looks good,” the doctor says, thumbs up. She and Jeongguk use a translator between them when the doctor rattles off something else in her language, shaking her head at whatever Jeongguk types.

She leaves and comes back, handing him something. Jeongguk turns to him, a little white box between his hands. “They didn’t run your blood for this,” he explains, head bowed down. His alpha spares him a smile when Seokjin catches his hand with a look, otherwise his shoulders have stayed close to his ears the past twenty-four hours. Guilt washes off of him when it was Seokjin who let his guard down.

“Alpha,” Seokjin whispers hoarsely. Jeongguk winces.

“Don’t. Don’t speak, baby.” Jeongguk pulls up the chair next to his bed, head huddled close to his. Seokjin knocks into it.

“Give me the test,” he says. “It’s easier this way.”

Neither of them have been in a hurry to test their firm belief; what was the point? If Seokjin didn’t naturally conceive inside his most fertile window during heat, then the amount of knots he’s taken since, even if the chances were lower, were still heightened by the copious amount.

It would be a shock if he weren’t.

He is.

Jeongguk accompanies him to a private bathroom and back; he nervously trembles there, earnestly cries bedside. At least his smile is back. A genuine, heart warming and heart giving smile. He cradles Seokjin’s hand to his cheek, alternating between furiously nuzzling and kissing it and the omega’s face. “I can’t believe it,” he repeats, over and over again, even though they both firmly believed it all along. “You’re - we’re - a family!”

Seokjin reaches out with his unencumbered hand to brush away the tears.

“Do you think - your heat? You’re probably already five or six weeks along.” Jeongguk slides down to eye level with his stomach. “Hi, baby.” Still clutching his hand, Jeongguk leans over to nuzzle and kiss at his tummy too.

“That’s for you! One kiss for you,” a kiss at his stomach. “And one for you!” He comes back up to Seokjin’s lips. Back and forth, and Seokjin has never felt so flustered before in his life, because he knows this is a good alpha. This is Jeongguk as a sire. He will smother them both with love and affection.

“I love you, I love you, I love you!” Jeongguk is back, wiggling with excitement, the broadest smile on his face. “Oh my god - hyung!” He takes his hands back to protectively hunch over Seokjin’s body, both hands hovering over their growing belly.

“Did he - did anything happen? You didn’t get kicked or anything?”

“No, alpha.” Seokjin coaxes Jeongguk to lay his head down on top of their child so he can massage the alpha’s scalp, his eyes almost immediately growing heavy. Jeongguk needs to sleep, and Seokjin has a new weapon to deploy. “They’re safe. I’m safe. You can rest.”

Jeongguk snores softly off and on through the evening. The nurses tiptoe to their corner of the room and offer Seokjin snacks or water, gesturing with a thumbs up or down at his IV, which he assumes is an inquiry about pain, but he isn’t sure. His throat hurts with only every breath he takes, and his entire left side throbs, but nothing as much as his ankle.

They put a boot on him.

He sighs, shielding Jeongguk’s eyes with his hand when someone opens and shuts the door, light from the hallway flooding in momentarily. The alpha scrunches up his nose in his sleep, so Seokjin holds his wrist close until his face relaxes. In the morning, it’s Jeongguk sitting awake by his side with a tiny pink onesie in his hands that greets him. He smiles sheepishly when he folds and pockets it, quick to stand and wave in someone to check on him for the first time since they arrived without growling. How convenient.

The doctor visits to remove the bandages, check the bite, and offers a referral to a gynecologist. Jeongguk takes the information, but when it’s quiet, when it’s just the two of them other than a woman snoozing in a bed on the other side of the room, Seokjin reaches for Jeongguk’s hand. “I’m ready to go home,” he says.

Jeongguk stiffens, looking up with a guarded expression. “And do we know where home is?”

Since Jeongguk came back into his life, there was never a question. There is only one place he can imagine raising their family. “It’s the place you said you fell in love with me.”

Jeongguk’s jaw tenses, but his scent gives him away. “Are you sure?”

“Take out the ad.” Seokjin looks away to the window. He can’t see it, looks for it in the reflection, but if he had to guess, Jeongguk wears the rose on the inside of his pant pocket today. “Let’s go home. They’re expecting us.”

It isn’t quite the return he imagined; Jeongguk supports every step he takes with the boot on, one hand on his waist and the other holds his hand. They return the same way he left - by boat, and his friends and family wait for them on the dock, excitedly waving and cheering for them as they pull in. Jimin is the first to reach them, taking Seokjin in his arms while Jeongguk holds his waist from behind. He hears Jeongguk address someone over his head against the grain of Jimin’s many questions, and then Taehyung’s boxy grin swims close enough by to garner his attention. Even as he embraces Jeongguk, his alpha’s hands stay firmly on his hips, his chest close to his back.

Autumn has arrived, and with it, shorter days. Under the bright lights on the boardwalk, Seokjin’s neck sparkles.

Those who know him best, Jimin and Namjoon, can’t take their eyes off it, both seemingly a little nervous to be caught looking at it but unable to look away. Both of Seokjin’s parents congratulate them - as per tradition, Jeongguk foretold the time of their homecoming, but no one was allowed any communication with the couple beforehand.

There are tears and hugs and no one says anything of his broken foot; if they were worried for a moment it was an injury by the hand of Jeongguk, then the alpha’s attentiveness to carrying him and providing his comfort in picking up and putting down the foot as needed in the car and in the emptied restaurant chair would surely quell their fears.

“I’ve never seen you smile at an alpha before,” Jimin whispers, forehead cradled to his.

“I haven’t seen hyung smile in a long time,” Namjoon says almost as quietly behind him.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Jimin confesses, short fingers rubbing at Seokjin’s cheeks. He kisses him softly there, quick to move back under Jeongguk’s intent watch.

It’s strange to let him and Jeongguk into his old apartment for the night. It’s clean; undoubtedly, his parents had it cleaned upon news of their pending arrival, but Jeongguk’s never been inside. He takes in the bare walls and does not mistake it for chic minimalism, his hands and eyes softer and softer as Seokjin can hardly find anything to say about anything.

“Come to bed,” is what he says.

Ten months.

That’s all he lasted.

It felt longer - there were days that felt like years taken off his life when Seokjin was on his own, especially in those first weeks before he settled with Hoseok. He gathered supplies, planned meticulously for years leading up to his run, thoughts consumed by little else most of his early adulthood, but it did little in the end. All it gave him? Ten months of time. Most of it, he couldn’t last on his own.

If he could have known Jeongguk beforehand - really known him - then it could have saved him some things.

But he understands to some extent why no one said anything. Doesn’t mean he agrees with it. Even Jeongguk seems hesitant to imagine a different past; in his head, he did what he had to do. There were few options or opportunities available to him with his lack of connections or funds. He needed all that time to put everything in place. He was never a sure candidate, even after initial success, and he would have never wanted to get Seokjin’s hopes up.

“And what if you did all that and my parents denied you the right to lawfully compete?” he asks, wrapped up in half of his closet on their bed. He’s been looking through the meager things left behind. “Would you have so easily given up then?”

Jeongguk’s jaw ticks. “Failure wasn’t an option. I knew they’d let me run if I had the resources.”

“And if you never got the money, you would have stood still the day you found out it started?” Seokjin admires the ink on Jeongguk’s bicep for not the first, second, or fifth time. Did he keep it covered when he arrived on the shores of his homeland to claim the pin?

Jeongguk doesn’t answer. Maybe, in a different life, Seokjin would have been presented with a different Jeongguk and a different option. Maybe he would be running forever with this alpha. Maybe they’d still be traveling to each and every island of Indonesia.

Seokjin had a debutante ball after presentation. His formal coming out as a mated omega is of course larger and grander. Even though it is not a wedding, it is treated as something of higher importance in his world. The wedding will be for him and Jeongguk, but this ball is a formal declaration to the world that they participated, they are participants and worthy society members. Kim Seokjin ran and Jeon Jeongguk caught. They are a true matched pair in a world of modern society. They have not only wealth, but the vitality needed to bring forth worthy heirs.

The morning of their coming out as a mated couple, Seokjin gets ready with Jimin and Namjoon, allowed as such, his omegan companions. There is much primping and polishing to be done, and Jimin’s eyes catch to his after lingering on his stomach. Jeongguk says the scent isn’t there yet, and although Jimin is well acquainted with his, Seokjin imagines it is more Jimin’s curiosity and paranoia driving the suspicion.

It isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, mating run to end with more than a bite.

Perhaps it is just an assumption on Jimin’s part, but what does it say about Seokjin? That he is an omega just like every omega that came before him?

They apply color to his lips and cheeks to appeal to the vultures of society; it is unneeded in the eyes of his alpha mate, but Seokjin allows the makeup and scent enhancers and absurd diamond collar to highlight the plunging neckline of his top. There will be a grand finale, a moment in which Jeongguk steps behind him to drop the collar from his neck so that all of their friends, family, and society may see that he is properly marked and claimed, Jeongguk’s first duty fulfilled until his second, that by which they can’t know but also has been fulfilled.

They don’t know of the body left behind.

Seokjin didn’t ask what his alpha did with it. He knows that this, too, is not the first nor last time someone has gone missing during a run, and now it only matters whether or not that alpha’s family will pursue the limited legal avenues they have if they can find evidence.

Unlikely, Seokjin thinks.

All participants know the rules, both spoken and unspoken. Such violence isn’t expressly allowed, but what can anyone expect when the smallest amount is forgivable? Maim, but not permanently. Be aggressive to win, even if it means injuring the omega in question. Seokjin feels sure that wherever Jaehyun is, he is exactly where he deserves to be, and no one will disturb him.

As is tradition, Jeongguk stands ready to receive him at the bottom of the stairwell up into the grand hall of the ballroom that the omega’s parents reserved in the center of the city. He looks every bit like a prince from a fairy tale, but this isn’t a fairytale. That’s what he told Hoseok when they met, and now the beta stands in attendance in the crowd gathered to witness everything Seokjin swore to hate.

Jeongguk takes his hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, devilish look on his devilishly handsome face. He may look every bit the part, but it is a firm reminder to Seokjin that he cares not for the opinion of anyone there. “Ready?” he asks.

Seokjin replies.

They ascend the stairs, they enter the hall, their procession behind them. There are announcements and reunions, tears shed by a new friend newly reacquainted and still more introductions to be made. Seokjin’s robes aren’t meant to keep him warm, but they keep his injured foot covered, and he has an alpha to keep him warm anyway.

“Seokjin-ssi,” Min Yoongi greets him with a tight smile. Where was he during the run? As customary, this alpha presents the prevailing and triumphant alpha with his pin.

The lapels of Jeongguk’s jacket are lined with rose pins. They match the delicate roses embroidered into the hems of the omega’s pink robes, meant to be invisible to everyone except an alpha graced to see the inside of said robes.

“Taehyung tells me you all knew each other as children,” Yoongi comments. “How quaint that you’ve been reunited.”

“Yes. Quaint.” Seokjin smiles and bows his head, hands wrapped around Jeongguk’s elbow. This is not an alpha Jeongguk was ever directly threatened by, so he allows Yoongi to pin the rose on the jacket himself without so much as a grimace or growl. Defeated alphas must humble themselves by pinning. It’s Jeongguk’s privilege to stand still as victor.

“Can’t wait to see what kind of scar he left you with,” Yoongi remarks as he departs, hands in the pockets of his tux, one of the few who chose to don more modern formal wear for this event. “May you both be blessed with good health and good fortune.”

When they count the rose pins, all are accounted for - all thirty. Thirty alphas, almost all of whom were unknown to Seokjin until he had to watch a man older than both his parents stroll up with a cane and thrust it at Jeongguk. Did this alpha really think he could compete and win? Seokjin keeps his eyes down in disbelief. There are others - men and women he is familiar with, at least by face if not by name.

How many of these alphas participated by obligation? How many were out there, perhaps closer than Seokjin ever imagined, eager for the opportunity?

“Baby, let’s sit for a minute.” Jeongguk leads him away from the crowd to a balcony; as soon as the cool night air hits his skin, Seokjin shrinks up, trembling and nervous for no reason. “Hey. Hey. You’re okay. I’m right here, and it’s over.”

Jeongguk wraps him in the same jacket with roses up and down the lapels, hair falling into his eyes as he frets over him.

“Hyung, I brought you someone,” Taehyung grins, head hung around the door when he finds them. Behind him, Hoseok nervously steps out.

“Hoba.” Seokjin gestures him closer, and Jeongguk makes space for the beta but doesn’t let go of him. “Are you back?”

Hoseok nods. “I’m going to see what Seoul offers for now. Maybe not forever, but. Your cousin was kind enough to offer to show me around.”

“Come see me for a proper visit,” Seokjin kisses his cheek. “I want to see you not like this.”

Hoseok tilts his head. “Remember what you said to me?” He leans forward to whisper in just his ear: “It kind of looks like a fairy tale ending to me.”

He squeezes his hands and then is gone.

When the mated couple leave their ball, there isn’t a car gifted from the alpha’s parents waiting for them, the modern equivalent of a joke to say - your running is over - but there is a car. Jeongguk shares a nod with Taehyung - most likely it was acquired with Jeongguk’s money but arranged by their mutual loved one to be delivered. Beside Taehyung, Hoseok waves, teary eyed, and Min Yoongi stoically strolls up behind him, lit cigarette in hand with his own little wave. Not far from there, Namjoon wraps his arms around Jimin’s waist from behind as the omega couple watch Jeongguk open the passenger door for Seokjin.

“Where to?”

They’re meant to settle into their homestead for life as a mated couple now.

Seokjin reaches to curl his fingers around the alpha’s ear as he looks at him, foot on the brake, waiting for instruction. He would take Seokjin anywhere he wanted.

“Take us home,” he says. “Take us where you fell in love with me.”

In days that come, they revisit every room, taking things down or adding their personal touches here or there. His ancestral home was Seokjin’s right, and as much, his parents vacated without a single word of protest. How could they protest when Seokjin played their game? Even his alpha sibling has no right to claim it. His family’s personal possessions disappear whenever the couple isn’t looking, and instead, Seokjin fills up a master suite with a new wardrobe for the both of them.

His things from his apartment he leaves. When Hoseok calls him to tell Seokjin he will be staying in the country for the time being, Seokjin offers him the place. “It’s only fair I house you now,” he assures over Hoseok’s protests.

“Is this the nursery?” Jeongguk asks when he finds Seokjin sitting on the built-in bench under a window in one of the bedrooms. It oversees the garden in the back of the grounds.

He used to love sitting here when he was young. Seokjin read many things under the sun in this window, a lot of gentle tales.

“Apt, don’t you think?” Seokjin accepts the hands that cradle his burgeoning stomach. “Look what they will be able to see.”

The garden lies dormant for the season, but by the time the baby arrives?

It will be full of life.

They’ll wait together.

“What would you tell your younger self if you could?” Seokjin asks his mate and now husband. During the day, he walks the grounds and thinks of all those days past, when he was young and alone, parents and alpha sibling rarely home with him, how Taehyung, presumed to be an omega, was left in his charge as a companion. They played house together and Seokjin learned how to make crude meals and fold sheets and keep things tidy until he presented and his fate was sealed, when he understood that’s all he’d be doing for the rest of his life. Somewhere in all that, there was always Jeongguk.

Always just a few paces behind him.

Jeongguk tucks a lock of hair behind Seokjin’s ear and leans in. His lips tickle, but he feels that Jeongguk smiles as he says, “I’d tell him to pick the rose. I’d tell him, the wait is worth it. Wait for full bloom.”