Chapter Text
once upon a time, jeongin had wanted to become a pastor.
afterwards he wanted to become a singer, a trot singer, to be specific.
in reality, he ended up being a scenting specialist for a custom nest company.
but that's skipping a few steps.
one of the precious moments that jeongin remembered from growing up was the speakers jingling with the tunes of nursery rhymes, thinking that it worked like a telephone. he was a considerate child, never requesting any song after dinner, because he didn't want other children to have to come and sing for him in the night. it was only later that he understood that entering the cassette in the player wasn't the same as dialing someone.
it was a memory that made him laugh in the present, at the silly notions of a child's mind, but a part of him was also filled with warmth at the thought that he had been kind, even when he hadn't known what the word meant.
he had also became familiar with the radio, the host had this small segment in which they would take requests for birthday wishes, and one lucky person would be wished via call for everyone in the town to hear. jeongin would always try to send in requests for all his friends. he had a lot of them.
little jeongin had a large amount of love in his tiny heart, everyone was his friend, even the older kid he played with while on vacation with his family. his mom had already told him that the interactions had barely lasted two days while both families roomed in the same guest house. for jeongin, those two days were as long as eternity. it had been the first time that someone older - by three whole years! - had treated him with respect and also listened to his stories.
it had been a tale that drew 'oooh's and 'ah's for some time from his classmates.
but then it had changed to 'that can't be real', 'you're bluffing', and his new found fame quickly devolved into teases and taunts about how he had made up a friend just to seem cool.
of course, this only led to him doing the one space he had the most faith in - announcements over the radio.
to his mom's endless surprise, he got a reply a couple of days later. a short, 'this is a message for innie from cat hyung - "nyang"'.' jeongin had burst into giggles and was stuck saying nyang like a prayer under his breath until his mother decided to reach out to the radio staff to request them to check if minho's parents would be comfortable with exchanging phone numbers.
somehow that worked. weekly calls transitioned into text messages into knocks on the door into video calls into living together for jeongin's first and minho's last year of college.
and then things changed, which brought us to the present.
it had been years since jeongin had heard from minho, longer since he'd been able to ask him to scent his clothes, pretending that he could smell the tobacco and vanilla curling through the threads.
they'd always known that he'd be an alpha, but minho hadn't been around when it finally happened.
minho also hadn't been around when jeongin came out to his family.
or when he got his first kiss.
his first job.
he had also missed jeongin getting his third job, which is where he was now.
the meeting room near the perfumery specifically created for the replication of scents that would be infused in potpourri for prolonged effect, tucked into the nests ordered by their customers.
his favourite part of the job, however, was when they had to do the giveaway nests. or well, that's what it used to be. at the moment he wasn't too sure.
they'd all sat down, the seven of them, watching as seungmin pulled up the latest batch's entries and running them through a random generator. the usual way was to run it thrice, and select the last person. they had just finalized the winner, a choi ji eun by the looks of the email, the 2707 probably their birth-date. but while the others had moved on to chatting about what a Leo might like for their nest, jeongin felt like he had been struck.
'hey seungmin hyung?' he finally managed.
'yeah?' on the screen, seungmin had already clicked out of the tab, shifting instead to the forms that needed to be sent out.
the others had also shifted their gaze to him, and jeongin did his best to not squirm in his chair.
'could you bring up the pick from the second round?'
seungmin tilted his head slightly, but did as requested.
staring back at jeongin from the blown up display was the same email he had written to hundreds of times, but what was more surprising was the beta written in the box beside it.
'jeongin?' felix's voice brought him from the edge of the spiral he was about to fall into.
'can i sponsor this one?'
it wasn't something new, sponsoring. they each had their moments where intuition compelled them to assist specific clients. it was part of why even after the giveaway winners were chosen, the list was circulated among the employees, and they had the choice to pay for any of their nests, if they wanted to. it didn't happen very often, but it did happen enough times for no one to quite blink an eye. of course, this was the first time jeongin had requested it, so some eyes did blink.
felix smiled, nodding at changbin who was in charge of the initial structure. 'of course you can. do you want to do the interview?'
he hadn't thought that far. 'uhh, no that's okay, chan hyung can do that, he's better at it anyway.'
chan tugged at his ear abashedly, but smiled at jeongin.
hyunjin coo-ed, predictably. 'aww baby innie doesn't want the beta to go without a nest.'
jeongin slipped further down his chair but didn't say anything.