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jimin's fingers are stained purple from the blackberries, juice caught beneath his nails and smeared across his palms. he kneels at the edge of his mother's vegetable plot, fingers working a stubborn radish from the earth, twisting it slow so the root doesn't snap. the sun is barely over the ridge and already his knees ache against the packed dirt, the thin fabric of his trousers doing nothing to cushion the small stones pressing half-moon bruises into his skin.
beside him his mother hums something tuneless and old, her weathered hands moving through the carrot rows with a rhythm that doesn't need thinking anymore—pull, shake, toss into the basket, pull again.
the washing troughs are maybe twenty paces behind them, cut from long slabs of river stone and fed by a narrow channel that runs down from the main creek. two omegas crouch there now, sleeves pushed to their elbows, scrubbing what looks like a pile of linen between them.
jimin knows them in the vague way you know everyone in a pack this size—sooah, the taller one, copper-brown hair hanging in a thick braid over one shoulder, round face with a scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks like someone had flicked a wet paintbrush at her. the other one—yeji—is smaller, dark hair cropped just below her jaw, narrow foxish eyes and a mouth that always looks like it's about to say something that'll get her in trouble.
jimin isn't trying to listen. he's focused on the radish, which is being difficult.
"did you see him last night?" sooah's hands pause on the linen, water dripping from her fingers. "at the bonfire. standing by the eastern post with his arms crossed like—like he owned the whole clearing. which i guess technically he will someday, but still."
yeji snorts. she wrings out a sheet with a twist. "i saw."
"he was so handsome, yeji. the firelight on his jaw? i almost dropped my plate." sooah presses one wet hand against her chest like she's steadying her own heartbeat. "i swear to the moon, i would do anything for a chance with him. anything."
“i wonder if he noticed me refilling his cup”, sooah pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “i made sure to lean in close enough that he could smell my perfume. mother said cedar oil drives alphas wild.”
"like every other unmated omega in this pack," yeji says, but she's grinning. "you're right, though. i envy whoever his future mate ends up being. can you imagine? mated to the next head alpha. you'd never have to pull another radish out of the ground again."
jimin's fingers tighten on the radish in question. he doesn't look up.
"so who will he choose?" sooah asks, leaning closer to yeji like the answer might materialize between them. "has anyone heard anything?"
yeji shakes her head, dunking another sheet into the trough. water sloshes over the stone lip. "what i heard," she says, dropping her voice just enough to make it sound important, "is that his mother keeps arranging meetings with omegas from the allied packs. formal ones. you know—the whole sitdownandpourtea thing. and he refuses. every—single—time."
sooah's eyes go wide. "every time?"
"every time. apparently she told the head omega from the northern ridge that her son is—" yeji pauses, mimics a haughty, exasperated tone, "—'very particular about what he wants.' which is a polite way of saying he won't even sit in the same room as the omegas she picks."
"must be looking for the perfect omega," sooah murmurs, and something dreamy and determined crosses her freckled face at the same time—a girl building a fantasy and a strategy in the same breath. she lifts one hand and flips her braid off her shoulder and bends back over the trough to rinse her fingers. "someone who meets every standard. someone exceptional."
jimin's face is on fire.
he can feel the heat crawling up the back of his neck, flooding into his cheeks, prickling at the tips of his ears beneath the messy fall of blond hair. the radish finally comes free from the earth, the resistance giving way so suddenly that jimin’s weight tips backward and he lands square on his ass in the dirt, legs splayed out in front of him, the radish clutched against his chest like something he’s rescued from a fire.
"you're perfect, jimin-ah."
jungkook's voice echoes in his head in a certain way. like the way jungkook is certain about everything, the way he'd said it three nights ago with his forehead pressed against jimin's in the dark, thumb tracing the line of jimin's cheekbone. "you know that, right? every single part of you. perfect."
he says that every time, jimin thinks, turning the radish over in his dirt-dark fingers.
"hey—you!"
he flinches. actually flinches, shoulders jerking up toward his ears like he's been caught stealing. sooah is looking at him from the washing trough, chin propped on her wet hand, head tilted at a friendly angle. her brown eyes are wide and open and completely unsuspecting.
"do you think I have a chance with the head alpha's son?"
the ground should open up. the ground should absolutely open up right now and swallow him whole, radish and all, pull him straight down into the earth where he never has to make eye contact with another person again. his mouth opens. nothing comes out. his grey eyes dart sideways—nowhere useful, just to the carrot rows and then back to sooah's expectant face—and his lips move around syllables that aren't really words yet.
"uh— i—" he swallows. his voice comes out thin and pitchy. "i don't know."
please stop looking at me please stop looking at me please stop—
yeji straightens up from the trough, one dark eyebrow arched high. "what do you mean you don't know?" she gestures at sooah with a dripping sheet, water flicking across the stones. "can't you see how beautiful she is? look at her. she's gorgeous."
sooah flushes and swats at yeji's arm but she's clearly pleased, ducking her head so the braid swings forward again. "stop it—"
"i'm serious! jimin, tell her she's beautiful."
jimin opens his mouth again. closes it. he looks, absurdly, like a fish that someone has placed on dry land and asked to give a speech—eyes wide, jaw working, a full-body stillness that could be mistaken for calm if you didn't notice the white-knuckle grip he has on the radish.
"she's— yes— you're very—" he manages, and the word pretty gets stuck somewhere between his throat and his teeth and never actually makes it out.
yeji sighs. the exhale of someone who has decided this conversation has reached its natural conclusion. "that low-born thing," she mutters, gathering the wet linen into a basket balanced on her hip. sooah stands too, brushing water from her skirt, and they leave the washing troughs with the easy synchronized drift of two people who have been walking side by side since childhood—sooah casting one last hopeful glance in the vague direction of the main clearing, yeji already talking about something else.
jimin doesn't move for six full seconds, just stares blankly at the space where they'd been standing.
the blush hasn't faded. if anything it's worse—his whole face hot and prickling. he shakes the dirt off the radish and drops it into the basket with the others and pushes himself to his feet on stiff aching knees and walks back to where his mother is still working, her black hair tied back with a strip of undyed cloth.
she glances up when he crouches beside her. her eyes—grey like his—flick briefly toward the retreating backs of sooah and yeji.
"what did those girls want?"
jimin shrugs. reaches for the next carrot. "nothing."
nothing he can explain without the sky falling down.
i wonder if he's thinking about me right now.
his mother watches him for a half-second longer—the kind of look mothers give when they know a shrug isn't the whole story but have learned which silences to leave unbroken—and then turns back to the earth, her rough fingers closing around the next green stalk and pulling.
"these are no good," she murmurs, holding up a handful of cherries gone soft. she presses one between her fingers and the skin splits easy. "birds got to them before we did."
jimin nods, barely listening. his hands move on their own. it's muscle memory, this work. he's been doing it since he could stand, kneeling on the packed dirt beside his mother while the rest of the pack's omegas traded gossip over root vegetables and dried herbs in the open-air market three stalls down.
a small body comes barreling around the corner of the house, bare feet kicking up dust from the dry path that cuts between the vegetable rows. he nearly knocks the basket of radishes over on his way through. jimin catches it with his knee, steadying the pile—six, maybe seven, round-cheeked and dirt-smudged, one of the carpenter's sons, he thinks. the boy shoves a folded square of paper at jimin's chest without a word, then bolts before jimin can say anything.
jimin is already turning his shoulder to shield the paper from her view.
jimin unfolds it. the handwriting is terrible, slanting strokes pressed too hard into the paper, the ink feathered where the pen caught. he'd recognize it blind. he's memorized the way jungkook writes his name, the careless way he crosses his letters, the smudge he always leaves in the bottom corner from dragging his hand through wet ink.
the river.
no signature. there never is. jimin folds the note into a square the size of his thumbnail and tucks it into the waistband of his trousers, right against the bone of his hip where the fabric sits tight enough to hold it. his pulse picks up—a warm liquid rush that starts in his chest and sinks lower, pooling in his belly. he bites the inside of his cheek to keep the flush off his face.
in fifteen minutes
"eomma, i need to go collect the wild garlic," he says, standing, brushing the dirt from his knees. "the patch by the eastern trail, you said it was ready."
she waves him off without looking up. "take the small knife. and don't wander."
he grabs the knife from the hook on the post, slides it into his belt for show, and walks not too fast, not too eager, just an omega running an errand on a warm afternoon, nothing to see.
the packed dirt turns to grass. the grass turns to undergrowth. the canopy closes overhead and the light goes dappled, green-gold, and the noise of the village falls away behind him like something he dreamed
the woods smell different in summer. wet bark and moss and the faintly sweet rot of last year's leaves composting into the forest floor. pine sap so sharp it stings the back of his throat. and beneath it, threaded through everything, the clean mineral scent of the river.
jimin finds the clearing by sound first. then by smell.
jungkook is already there when jimin rounds the bend in the trail, leaning against the wide trunk of an oak with two threadbare towels slung over one shoulder. his dark hair falls past his ears in loose, wavy layers. the sleeves of his linen shirt are rolled to the elbows, forearms bare and corded with lean muscle that comes from training with the pack's warriors since he could hold a blade.
jimin's chest does that stupid fluttering thing. his mouth splits into something ridiculous. the kind of smile that takes up his whole face, pushes his cheeks up until his eyes nearly disappear, and suddenly the root-knotted path beneath his feet becomes an afterthought.
"you're early.”
"you're earlier," jimin says, and then jungkook smiles, one side of his mouth pulling up and jimin's chest goes so tight he can't breathe.
god, i love him. i love him so much it's stupid.
jungkook pushes off the tree and closes the distance. his hands find jimin's waist first, fingers spanning the narrow curve of it, thumbs pressing into the soft hollows above his hip bones. he pulls jimin in and jimin goes willingly, tilting his face up because jungkook has four inches on him and jimin's never minded the way that difference feels.
"my beautiful flower," jungkook kisses him.
not gentle, not the way the first kiss of a reunion should be, maybe, if they were different people in a different story. his tongue drags soft against jimin's lower lip, tasting, and then presses in with a deliberateness that makes jimin's spine arch involuntarily. jungkook's hand tightens at the back of his head, fingers threading into the blond hair and pulling just enough to angle jimin's jaw up, to open him wider.
he always kisses me like we have forever.
"missed you," jungkook murmurs against jimin's mouth. just breath and proximity and the brush of his lower lip, the ghost of contact that makes jimin's stomach pull tight. "couldn't sleep last night. kept thinking about you."
jimin's fingers curl into the front of jungkook's shirt. he can feel the heartbeat under his knuckles, steady and slow the way jimin's never is when they're this close.
"you saw me yesterday," jimin whispers, and even he can hear the smile bleeding through it, the way his voice goes soft and stupid when jungkook holds him like this.
"yesterday was too long ago."
jimin makes a sound he doesn't mean to make. a small breathy thing that gets swallowed between them before it fully forms. his cheeks flush hot. jungkook swallows that too, chases it with his tongue curling against the roof of jimin's mouth, and jimin feels his thighs press together on instinct.
the wildflowers get crushed between them. neither of them cares.
jungkook pulls back just enough to tug jimin's hand, lacing their fingers, and jimin already knows. the river. their river, where the bank is soft clay instead of rocks. jungkook brings him here so often jimin could walk it blindfolded, counting steps between the rotted stump and the place where the ground dips.
they undress themselves on the bank. jungkook pulls his shirt over his head in one motion, all rolling shoulders and the ridged line of his abdomen catching gold light, the towels tossed onto a flat stone. jimin is slower, unlacing his work tunic, peeling it away from skin tacky with sweat and garden soil, the smell of turned earth and crushed herb stems still caught in the creases of his elbows. his trousers follow, folded neatly because his mother raised him that way, and then he's bare, pale and small next to jungkook's broader frame.
the water is fresh—cold enough to make jimin's breath hitch when it hits his calves, then his thighs, then the soft plane of his belly. he sinks to his chest and sighs. he scrubs at his hands, watches the water cloud brown and then clear again.
finally.
then a wall of water hits him square in the face.
jimin sputters, blinking, lashes clumped and dripping, and jungkook is standing four feet away with both palms still raised, grinning that stupid crooked grin, water streaming down his chest, catching in the dip of his collarbones.
"jungkook!" jimin whines, shoving wet hair off his forehead. "don't— you can't wet my hair, my mom's gonna ask why it's soaking. i told her i was going to collect garlic, you think garlic grows underwater?"
jungkook drops his hands. "you're right," he says and the grin softens into something almost apologetic—almost, because his eyes are still doing that thing where they go half-lidded and wolfish, tracking jimin the way a cat tracks a moth across a ceiling.
he sinks lower into the water until only his eyes and the dark wet crown of his head break the surface, and he cuts through the current without a sound, just a shadow gliding beneath the green-gold water toward jimin's bare waist.
jimin sees it coming. he absolutely sees it coming.
"jungkook. jungkook, don't you dare— jungkook—"
two big hands clamp around his hips underwater and yank.
jimin shrieks, the sound bouncing off the rocks and scattering a pair of starlings from the willow canopy. his feet leave the silty bottom and he thrashes, water erupting around them in white fans, and for one wild second he's kicking and flailing like something enormous and toothy just grabbed him from below.
jungkook surfaces right in front of him, water streaming down his face, dark hair plastered to his forehead, and he's laughing. not the quiet huff he does around other people, a real laugh, his nose scrunching.
"you— absolute—" jimin sputters, smacking the water with both palms so a wave hits jungkook square in the mouth. "i thought i was being eaten alive! by a— a giant river eel or something!"
"a river eel," jungkook repeats, wiping his eyes. his voice is wrecked with laughter, cracking at the edges. "jimin. we're in three feet of water."
"eels don't care about depth!"
jungkook lunges again and jimin squeals, dodging sideways, but the river slows him down and his feet slipping on the smooth stones and jungkook catches him easily, one arm hooking around his waist from behind, hauling him back against his chest. jimin wriggles, elbows jabbing, but he's giggling too hard to put any real force behind it, the sound high and breathless.
"let go of me, you giant fish—"
"i'm a fish now? i thought i was an eel."
"you're whatever's worst!"
jungkook presses his grin into the curve of jimin's neck, nose dragging through the wet hair at his nape, and blows a loud, wet raspberry against his skin.
jimin screams.
not a cute scream. the kind of scream that sends every bird within a half-mile radius into panicked flight, high-pitched and cracking and followed by a burst of helpless laughter that makes his whole body shake in jungkook's arms. he twists around, hands finding jungkook's face, palms squishing his cheeks together until his lips pucker like a fish—which, jimin thinks deliriously, is fitting.
"you're disgusting," jimin says, still laughing, thumbs pressing dimples into jungkook's cheeks. water drips from his blond hair onto jungkook's nose.
jungkook tries to talk through the squished cheeks. "youf lof me."
"debatable."
"liar." jungkook peels jimin's hands off his face, catches both wrists in one palm, and dips down to press his forehead against jimin's. his grin is crooked, close enough that jimin can count the water droplets on his lashes—seven on the left, five on the right.
jimin's giggles taper off into something quieter, softer. he bumps his nose against jungkook's, once, twice, the way he always does when he's run out of words but hasn't run out of feeling, and jungkook releases his wrists so both arms can circle his waist beneath the surface, big hands settling against the small of his back, thumbs tracing the shallow dimples above his hips.
jimin leans into it, he can't help it, jungkook runs warm even in cold water, but his eyes flick to the treeline. the willows hang low and thick, screening them, but the trail isn't far, and sometimes the younger wolves run this stretch to practice tracking, and if anyone saw—
"hey." jungkook's lips press against his cheek. "stop."
"what if someone sees us," jimin murmurs.
"they won't."
"but what if—"
"i’ll kill them."
jimin pulls back enough to look at his face. water laps between their chests. "no, silly. you can't do that." he giggles, nudging jungkook's jaw with his nose.
jungkook doesn't laugh.
"why not?" jungkook's thumbs have stopped their lazy circles against jimin's back. his eyes nearly black in the fading light, the kind of brown that swallows everything and they hold jimin's without blinking. "you think i’d let them? you’re mine before you’re theirs. no elder, no law, no pack vote gets to decide what happens to you.”
the giggle dies somewhere in jimin's throat.
jimin's face goes still, the playfulness draining out of it like water through fingers. he tries not to think about it—the whispers that would follow him, the elders' faces going hard and closed, his mother's quiet shame. a nobody omega from a pack so small it barely registers on territory maps, tangled up with the jeon heir.
they wouldn't just separate them.
"i— i know," jimin says quietly.
his gaze drops to where his chest presses against jungkook's, the pretty round swell of his tits flush against hard muscle. if he holds still enough he can feel their pulses knocking into each other through the thin wall of flesh and bone, merging into one uneven rhythm.
"then stop worrying." jungkook dips his head and kisses the tip of jimin's nose. “if they chase you out, i’m already packed. you don’t run alone.”
jimin's breath catches.
jungkook pulls back, “and if they do peek…” jungkook’s grin goes crooked. “lucky them. prettiest thing in the whole valley, bare as the day you were born.”
“jungkook!” jimin smacks his chest, water splashing between them. “that’s not— i don’t want anyone getting an eyeful of anything!”
jungkook catches his wrist. “why not? let them choke on it.”
jimin's cheeks flush pink. he ducks his head against jungkook's collarbone and giggles, the sound muffled against wet skin, his free hand curling around jungkook's bicep where the muscle is taut even at rest.
sometimes they let themselves pretend.
a world with no borders, no elders watching from behind drawn curtains.
just a valley and a cabin built too close to the water because jungkook likes the sound when he sleeps and jimin likes the way the morning fog makes everything look new.
they'd hang laundry in the sun and eat tomatoes straight off the vine and never once check over their shoulder for eyes in the trees.
maybe—on a good day—jimin would say i love you, loud enough for anyone to hear if they cared to listen.
but for now it's just a dream.
jimin kisses him again—can't help it, can't stop the way his mouth finds jungkook's. his arms loop around jungkook's neck and he pulls himself closer until there's nothing between them. jungkook's hands slide down to grip his waist, thumbs pressing into the soft dip above his hipbones, and then jimin feels the world tilt—
his back meets stone.
the rock is sun-warmed and smooth from centuries of river water, wide enough to hold him, and jungkook lays him across it like he's something precious and breakable, one palm cradling the back of his skull until it settles against the mossy surface. then jungkook steps between his thighs, parts them with his hips, and jimin feels the hard thick line of his cock pressing right there—right against the soft petals of his flower, the heat of jungkook's stiffening cock unmistakable against his folds.
jungkook rolls his hips. grinding the swelling ridge along jimin's slit, dragging across his clit with a pressure that makes jimin's breath hitch and his fingers scramble against jungkook's shoulders.
"h—here?" jimin manages between the kiss.
jungkook pulls back just enough to look at him. "yeah." he rocks forward again, harder this time, and jimin's lashes flutter. "unless you want me to take you on all fours."
jimin shakes his head. he spends enough time on his knees during the day—hours of them, kneeling in the dirt rows of his mother's vegetable garden, fingers cracked and soil-dark, digging into the earth to pull carrots and radishes and bitter greens from their beds. his back aches from bending. his knees ache from the ground.
here he gets to lie down. here he gets to be held.
jungkook's gaze drops. his expression shifts and he bends and takes jimin's left knee in his hand, lifting it gently, and presses his mouth to the cap of it. the skin there is latticed with bright red scratches, raw little lines from kneeling on stones and rough soil, vivid against the pale white of jimin's legs. jungkook kisses each scratch. moves to the right knee and does the same, his lips soft and warm and unbearably careful.
“i'll kill every rock in that garden,” jungkook says, jaw tightening against jimin's skin. “i'll pave the whole fucking thing in silk if i have to.”
then he rises back up and kisses jimin's mouth again and jimin feels him reach between them—feels the blunt hot head of jungkook's cock drag through his wet folds, nudging his clit once, twice, the swollen tip catching against that sensitive nub and pressing just hard enough to make jimin's hips jerk. jungkook watches him. doesn't blink. his hand angles his cock down and he pushes inside.
"alpha— ahh"
"you feel— fuck— so tight, jimin, so wet and hot and tight, made for my cock, weren't you—"
jimin can only nod, tears pricking his eyes.
the moan spills out of jimin and into jungkook's mouth. jungkook's cock stretches him open inch by thick inch, the girth of it splitting his tight wet cunt in a slow burning drag that makes his thighs tremble around jungkook's ribs. jungkook doesn't look away. not for a second. his eyes trace every shift of jimin's expression—the way his brows knit together, the way his pillowy lips part and his jaw goes slack, the way his grey eyes glaze and then squeeze shut like the pleasure is something too bright to look at directly.
jungkook sinks deeper, feeling jimin's walls clench and flutter around him.
jimin arches his back off the sun-warmed stone, spine curving, and lets himself go completely. his arms fall above his head, fingers curling loosely against the moss, blond hair fanning out across the rock in damp gold threads. he stops thinking. stops holding himself together the way he does every other hour of every other day—the careful omega, the obedient son.
here there is just jungkook's cock pistoning into him with long deep strokes that punch the breath out of his lungs.
jungkook grips one of jimin's thighs and pushes it higher, wider, changing the angle until the head of his cock drags along that spongy spot inside that makes jimin see white, and jimin's back lifts off the rock again, a high broken moan spilling from his throat.
jungkook leans down and bites the soft underside of jimin's jaw, tongue laving over the mark, hips never faltering in their rhythm as the river rushes past them and the afternoon light shifts gold through the leaves.
"you feel so good, my love." jungkook says it against the hollow of jimin's throat, lips dragging the words into his skin and jimin's chest fills with something too large for the space between his ribs. he does feel good—not just the stretch of jungkook inside him, the slow deep drag that turns his bones to warm clay, but all of it. the weight of jungkook's body above him, broad shoulders blocking the canopy so all jimin sees is him, the solid warm cage of his arms on either side of jimin's head. safe and hidden from everything that could hurt him.
the sun reaches them in patches through the leaves, warming the skin of jimin's chest and collarbone where the river water has started to dry, leaving a faint mineral tightness on his skin.
"i love you," jungkook groans into his neck, hips snapping forward hard.
"i— ah— love you too," jimin gasps and his stomach still flips like it's the very first time.
his tits bounce with every stroke—soft and heavy and flushed and jungkook watches them like he's hypnotized by the way they move under his hand when he squeezes one and lets it go again.
"nnh”, jimin breathes when jungkook rolls a nipple between his thumb and forefinger—his back arching off the moss-slicked stone with each thrust—hoping the rock won't leave marks his mother might see when he changes for bed tonight.
then the rhythm breaks.
not stops but breaks. the smooth rolling of jungkook's hips stutters, catches, resumes at an uneven pace like a cart wheel hitting a rut. jimin's brow creases. he knows jungkook's body the way he knows the rows in his garden—every pattern memorized and this isn't pleasure-loss-of-control. this is distraction. jungkook is thinking about something else.
jimin opens his eyes.
jungkook isn't looking at him. his gaze is fixed straight ahead, past jimin's head, into the treeline behind the rock. his jaw has gone tight, the muscle feathering beneath the skin, and he's lifted himself a few inches off jimin's body, enough to see over him, enough that cool air rushes into the space between their chests. his arms are locked, his balls press flush against jimin’s slick pussy lips.
inside jimin, jungkook’s cock kicks so hard jimin gasps—a fat, swollen throb that has nothing to do with the tight heat milking him and everything to do with the stranger’s gaze burning into him. being watched makes him harder. his shaft thickens against jimin’s stretched walls, cockhead grinding deeper against jimin's cervix like he wants whoever’s hiding in those trees to hear the wet, obscene squelch of his omega’s cunt struggling to take him. maybe they want to see exactly how the heal alpha's son is stuffed inside his pretty omega, how jimin’s puffy little cunt lips grip his shaft on every pull-out, pink and shiny and stretched. it makes his dick leak, a hot spurt of precum flooding jimin’s insides.
"what's going on?” there’s panic in jimin’s voice.
"shh." jungkook's eyes don't move from whatever he's looking at. his irises are nearly black.
jimin's hands press flat against jungkook's chest and he tries to twist—tries to rotate onto his front, to crane his neck, to see whatever jungkook sees. his hips shift sideways, pulling away from jungkook's pelvis, and he feels the thick girth of jungkook's cock drag backward inside him, nearly slipping free, the head catching at his entrance—
someone's there.
the realization hits jimin like a fist to the sternum. his entire body goes rigid, every muscle locking, his fingers clawing into jungkook's shoulders so hard his knuckles go white. the arousal drains from his face and floods with something icy, something close to panic, because if someone sees them—if someone reports them—jimin's family has nothing. no status, no name, no protection. the head alpha's word is law and his word has been clear: his son will mate an omega from one of the four founding families, and the park's omegas of low birth are not to be touched.
"jungkook— jungkook, stop, we have to stop, someone's — oh god, oh god—" jimin's voice cracks. he tries to pull away, to unwrap his legs but then jungkook's hands slam onto his hips.
the alpha’s fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough to leave bruises shaped like fingerprints, and jungkook pulls him back on his cock. his hips are yanked flush against jungkook's pelvis and his cock drives back inside him to the hilt in one rough shove.
"mhnn—" jimin whimpers, the sound punched out of him. his eyes sting from the sudden brutal reminder of the difference between them, the way jungkook can move him like he weighs nothing, arrange him however he wants, and jimin can only let it happen.
"shhh. look at me. jimin. look at me."
jimin does, through the blur of tears, and jungkook's face is—it's two things at once. his mouth is soft. his eyes are not. his gaze keeps flickering past jimin's head, toward the trees, and each time it does his cock throbs.
jimin's chin trembles. he hates it.
"it's okay," jungkook murmurs, pressing his lips to jimin's wet cheek, then the corner of his trembling mouth, then his jaw. his hips don't stop—that slow grind, burying himself deep and holding, circling, pressing against jimin's cervix in a way that makes his vision swim. "i've got you. no one's going to touch you. no one's going to take you from me."
"b—but if they tell— if your dad finds out— my family, jungkook, my mother—"
"they won't tell."
the certainty in his voice is like a door closing.
“how can you know that?”
jimin's thought fractures as jungkook shifts the angle and thrusts up, hitting a spot inside him that makes his entire body jolt and a raw, wrecked "aahh—!" tear from his throat before he can stop it. jungkook's hand clamps over his mouth, fingers pressing into the soft of his cheeks.
"quiet, baby. be quiet for me."
behind jungkook's head, jimin can see nothing but leaves and shadow and dappled light. he can't see the watcher. doesn't know where they are, how close, whether it's a guard or a hunter or—or one of the founding families' omegas who'd sell the information like currency. the not-knowing is worse than anything. his whole body trembles with it, every muscle taut, tears sliding into jungkook's palm.
jungkook leans down and kisses him to silence him. his lips press the words back into jimin's mouth before they can form.
"shhh. don't let them hear your voice."
the river sounds too loud. the birdsong sounds too loud. everything sounds like it's happening at a distance, behind glass, and jimin's pulse is a frantic wet drum in his ears. tears pool at the corners of his eyes and spill sideways into his hair, hot against his temples.
"they'll smell me anyway," jimin whispers, and the crack in his voice splits the sentence nearly in half. the scent of his slick is everywhere mixed with the heavier cedar-iron of jungkook's alpha musk, clinging to the humid air around them like perfume poured into still water. anyone with a wolf's nose within fifty yards would catch it.
jungkook looks down at him. his expression hasn't changed but something in his eyes softens.
"baby," he says quietly. "how many people know your scent anyway?"
oh.
he stares up at jungkook's face and feels the truth of it settle over him with a weight that is not comforting. he is nobody. a nameless omega from a nothing pack, tending a vegetable garden on the edge of jeon territory. his scent isn't pinned to any name, isn't known by anyone outside his mother's house. he could lie naked on this rock in front of half the village and they'd sooner identify the moss.
because he doesn’t matter enough to be recognized.
jimin closes his eyes. the tears slide down and he doesn't wipe them.
somewhere behind him, far enough to be the ridge trail, close enough to make his stomach clench, a branch snaps. a heavy footfall. the scrape and clatter of loose rocks shifting under weight, tumbling down a slope.
silence. just the river. just their breathing.
they're gone.
jungkook exhales through his nose and then his hips roll forward.
the first thrust after the pause is deep and unhurried, almost lazy, his cock pressing into jimin's swollen cunt like he's reclaiming territory. but the second is harder. the third harder still. and then jungkook finds his rhythm again, a relentless driving pace that rocks jimin's entire body against the stone, and the wet obscene sound of it fills the clearing—the slick click and drag of his thick thick cock splitting jimin open, the slap of his pelvis against the backs of jimin's thighs, the creak of moss tearing under shifting weight.
jimin's breasts bounce with each thrust, the soft round flesh jiggling in a rhythm that matches the snap of jungkook's hips, and stray droplets of river water that had caught in the dip of his collarbones splash upward onto his now-dry chest, cold pinpricks against sun-warmed skin.
"shit," jungkook grunts, and his right hand leaves jimin's hip, slides down between their bodies. his fingers find jimin's clit, the swollen little pearl nestled between his flushed lips and rubs. tight circles that make jimin's vision white out at the edges and his thighs clamp around jungkook's waist.
jimin comes first. his walls seize around jungkook's cock in fluttering, rippling contractions, squeezing the thick shaft so tight his body shakes with it, and he shoves his own fingers into his mouth and bites down, muffling the moan that rips through him into a strangled moab that vibrates through his hand and goes nowhere. his back arches off the rock, every muscle in his body drawn wire-tight.
jungkook follows three thrusts later, burying himself to the root and grinding deep, cock pulsing as he floods jimin's womb with thick hot cum that jimin can feel spreading inside him, filling the space jungkook carved out with his girth. jungkook's jaw clenches. a low, guttural sound tears from his throat, and his hips jerk twice more before he stills.
he pulls out. the rush of slick and cum that follows makes jimin shudder, dripping down his inner thighs and onto the stone.
then jungkook's arms are under him, scooping him off the rock, and jimin is pulled down into the river. the water hits his oversensitive skin but jungkook holds him steady, both arms locked around his waist, jimin's back pressed against the broad wall of jungkook's chest. the current laps at their ribs. jungkook's mouth finds jimin's neck, his throat, the ridge of his collarbone, pressing wet open kisses to each one in slow succession, lips dragging across the rabbiting pulse point beneath jimin's jaw.
the kisses are loud. soft wet sounds that echo off the water's surface, each one placed like jungkook is trying to soothe the fear out of jimin's bloodstream through his skin alone.
jimin is quiet for a long time. the river cools him. jungkook's arms warm him. the two sensations cancel each other out and leave him floating somewhere in between.
"you were getting off on it," jimin says.
jungkook lifts his head. water drips from his jaw onto jimin's shoulder. "what'd you say?"
his voice is muffled, half-lost under the sound of his own kissing, like he genuinely didn't hear over the noise of his mouth against jimin's skin.
"i felt it." jimin doesn't turn around. he speaks to the river, to the willow branches trailing their fingers in the current downstream. "the moment you sensed someone was there. you got harder. your cock— it was twitching. you liked it."
silence.
jungkook's arms tighten around his waist. his chin settles on jimin's shoulder, and when he speaks his lips brush jimin's ear.
"well... maybeee..." the word strtches, almost playful, almost sheepish, except for the dark undertow beneath it. "i like to claim what's mine in public."
jimin pulls away just enough to turn his head, meeting jungkook's eyes over his own shoulder. the look he gives him is not amused.
"you can't do that." his voice is quiet, the tears dried to salt on his temples.
the humor drops out of jungkook’s face. his jaw works once, twice, and he looks away, down at the water, at his own hands clasped around jimin's waist.
"you're right. i know. i'm sorry." he exhales. "blame my cock. it doesn't think."
the corner of jimin's mouth twitches. against his will, against the weight still pressing on his chest, a small grin curves his lips. "your cock is going to get me killed."
"i'll have a talk with it. serious disciplinary action."
jimin's grin widens, just barely, and then fades.
jimin stands. water cascades off his body, streaming down the pale flat of his stomach, the curve of his hips, the reddened skin of his inner thighs. he steps out of jungkook's arms and wades toward the bank, and the cold air hits his wet skin and raises gooseflesh across his chest and shoulders.
"i think i should go." he doesn't look back. his voice is small again like it always gets when he has to leave. "mom's waiting for me."
he dresses on the bank with quick movements. barely dragging one of the towels jungkook brought across his skin, a hasty swipe over his chest, a rough pass down each thigh, leaving his calves still beaded with river water that soaks into his trousers the second he pulls them up. jungkook watches him from the water, arms folded on a half-submerged stone, chin resting on his forearms, and says nothing. his eyes follow jimin the way they always do.
jimin climbs the slope through the fiddlehead ferns, pausing where the wild garlic grows along the trail. he crouches, pulls a fistful of bulbs from the loose soil, shakes the dirt off, and tucks them into the crook of his arm.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
the afternoon light has gone amber by the time jungkook finds him again.
jimin is behind his family's hut, hanging the washed linens on the rope his mother strung between two posts. he smells the lavender soap in the wet cloth and the dry, dusty scent of sun-warmed timber from the hut's back wall and then that warm musk... and his heart does something stupid and involuntary in his chest.
"hey."
jimin turns. jungkook is leaning around the corner of the hut, half-hidden, one hand braced on the wooden frame. he's changed his shirt and his hair has dried in messy waves across his forehead. he's grinning, that crooked one-sided thing that makes jimin want to climb him like a tree.
"hey," jimin whispers back, glancing toward the front of the hut. his mother's voice carries faintly from inside, talking to a neighbor about pickling brine. "you can't be here."
"i'm not here. i'm a ghost."
jungkook steps into the narrow shadow between the hut and the woodpile, and jimin meets him there, hidden from view by the hanging linens on one side and the stacked timber on the other. it's barely enough space for the two of them. jungkook's chest presses against jimin's, warm through the fabric, and jimin tilts his face up and—
stops.
there's a dark smear along the edge of jungkook's jaw. another across the back of his right hand, caught in the creases of his knuckles. it's a deep rusty brown, not quite red anymore, dried and flaking at the edges, and it looks like—
"you have something on your— is that blood?"
jungkook blinks. his eyes drop to his hand and something passes across his face and then he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.
"oh— that. yeah, no, it's paint. the red-brown stuff, you know the kind halmeoni uses? she's repainting the shutters on her cottage and roped me into helping." he holds up his hand, wiggling his stained fingers. "she's seventy-three and she still bosses me around like i'm five."
"that's so sweet," jimin says, and means it. he takes jungkook's hand and rubs his thumb over the dried stain on his knuckle, and jungkook watches him do it with an expression jimin can't quite read.
"you're sweet," jungkook says, and kisses him.
it's quick and light and tastes like mint. jimin smiles against his mouth. jungkook's clean hand comes up to cup the side of his neck, thumb resting over his pulse.
"i have to go," jungkook murmurs. "dinner gathering tonight. father's orders. the whole pack."
"i know. we got the summons too."
jungkook's thumb traces a circle over jimin's pulse. "i'll see you there. even if i can't sit with you."
"i know."
one more kiss and jungkook is gone, slipping around the corner of the hut and disappearing like he was never there at all. jimin stands in the shadow for a long moment, pressing his fingers to his mouth, the taste of mint dissolving on his tongue.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
the great hall smells like roasted venison and woodsmoke and tallow candles and too many bodies in too small a space.
the entire pack is here. two hundred and thirty-seven wolves by last count, crammed into the long timber hall at the center of the village, seated on rough-hewn benches at tables that stretch the length of the room. the founding families sit at the head table on the raised platform—the jeons, the kims, the lees, the chois—dressed in their finer clothes, fur-trimmed and clean. the rest of the pack fills the lower tables in rough order of status, which means jimin and his mother are near the back, pressed between the tanner's family and a group of unmated omegas who smell like cheap soap and anxiety.
the noise is enormous. wooden cups thudding against tables, children shrieking, the clatter of serving bowls being passed hand to hand. someone near the middle is telling a story loud enough to carry—something about a fox that got into the chicken run last night and the mess it left behind, feathers and blood and one traumatized rooster that won't come down from the rafters. laughter rolls through the nearest tables in a greasy wave. a child drops a bowl and wails.
the venison is overcooked, gristly at the edges, seasoned with rosemary and not much else. jimin chews slowly, jaw working, eyes on his plate. the bread is better, he tears it into small pieces and dips them into the drippings pooled in the wooden trencher because it's the only way to make the meat bearable. his mother eats beside him with the careful economy of someone who has learned not to waste—every scrap consumed, every bone sucked clean, the heel of bread saved for tomorrow's breakfast soaked in water.
the tallow candles throw uneven light across the hall, yellow and guttering, casting long shadows that jump when someone passes too close.
jimin's gaze lifts.
he doesn't mean for it to. it just—goes, drawn north across the crowded hall like a compass needle finding true, past the rows of hunched shoulders and reaching arms and bobbing heads until it lands on the raised platform at the far end.
jungkook sits at the head table between his father and his uncle. he's changed into nice clothes, a fitted tunic of deep charcoal wool, laced tight at the throat, the kind of clothes his mother probably laid out for him. his jaw is clean. his dark hair falls past his ears in loose, wavy layers, not quite to his jawline but long enough that the ends curl against his neck. it parts naturally off-center, thick strands sweeping across his forehead and into his eyes. he looks like a different person up there—spine straight, shoulders squared, the easy crooked grin nowhere in sight. the firelight catches the hard planes of his face, the line of his nose, the heavy brow, and from this distance he looks colder than the boy who splashed jimin in the river four hours ago.
jungkook's father stands.
the hall doesn't go quiet all at once. it takes time—the head alpha rises from his chair at the center of the platform, both palms flat on the table, and the silence spreads outward from the front.
the storyteller in the middle cuts off mid-sentence. the children are shushed, gathered onto laps, hands clamped gently over small mouths. the clatter of cups and bowls thins to nothing. even the fire seems to pull its breath in.
head alpha jeon is a big man. not tall the way jungkook is tall. Broader, thicker, gone heavy around the middle in the way of men who were once all muscle and have since traded training grounds for council seats. his hair is iron-grey, cropped close to his skull, and his face is a weathered slab of hard angles—deep-set eyes the same near-black as his son's, a jaw like the flat of an axe, a mouth that jimin has never once seen smile. he wears a wolf pelt across his shoulders, silver-tipped, the mark of his rank, and when he speaks his voice fills the hall the way smoke fills a room—everywhere at once.
"a body was found this afternoon."
the silence changes texture. it was expectant before. now it's the kind of quiet that presses against the ears.
"in the eastern woods, near the river bend. one of our perimeter scouts—" the head alpha pauses with a sigh, "—daehyun. twenty-eight years old. son of the second hunt captain.”
jimin knows the name. not well—a face at the periphery, a beta who ran the eastern patrol route. jimin has seen him passing through the market at odd hours, bow slung across his back.
a murmur rolls through the hall. someone at the middle tables lets out a choked sound. a mother, maybe, or a mate. the head alpha raises one hand and the murmur dies.
"his throat was opened. the kill was clean. this was not a rogue wolf. this was not an accident." his dark eyes sweep the room, row by row, and jimin feels the gaze pass over him like the shadow of a hawk—there and gone. "whoever did this knew what they were doing. we will find them."
the hall erupts into noise, the contained panic of a village that has just learned it is not safe. jimin's mother leans toward the tanner's wife, murmuring something jimin can't catch, her face drawn tight. the unmated omegas at the end of the bench clutch at each other's sleeves. someone is crying, three tables up.
jimin's hands are in his lap. his fingers have gone very still around the piece of bread he was holding.
the thoughts come slow. not because he's stupid—because his mind is doing that thing it does when something is too dangerous to look at directly.
daehyun ran the eastern patrol route.
the eastern woods. near the river bend.
our river.
"oh— that. yeah, no, it's paint."
his throat was opened. the kill was clean.
"they won't tell."
jimin's stomach drops. not violently—not the lurching, nauseating plunge of shock.
he doesn't feel sick. he waits for the sickness—for the revulsion, the horror, the crawling-skin wrongness that should come with the understanding that the boy who kissed him behind his mother's hut today, who fucked him on the rocks, who called him my beautiful flower—
it doesn't come.
his gaze lifts again. across the hall, over the sea of bent heads and frightened whispers, past the guttering candles and the haze of smoke.
jungkook is already looking at him.
he's sitting exactly as he was—straight-backed, composed, his face arranged in the same appropriate solemnity as every other wolf at the head table. his father is still speaking, something about doubled patrols and a curfew and no one traveling alone past dark. jungkook isn't listening. his eyes are fixed on jimin across the entire length of the great hall, like the two hundred bodies between them don’t exist.
and he smiles.
barely perceptible, a smile meant for exactly one person in a room full of hundreds.
the bread in his lap has been crushed into nothing. his fingers are dusted with flour and his pulse is calm against the thin skin of his wrists.
across the hall jungkook holds his gaze for three seconds, four, five, and then looks away, turning to his uncle, nodding at something, his expression resettling into the mask of the dutiful heir.
jimin's mother touches his arm. "are you alright sweetie? you've gone pale."
"i'm fine, eomma." he picks up his cup and takes a sip of the weak ale, tasting nothing. "just the news. it's scary."
she pats his hand. "stay close to me on the walk home."
"yes, eomma."
i don't need to, he thinks. i've never needed to.