Chapter Text
“Namjoon.”
“What?”
“Namjoon.”
“What?” Namjoon lifts his head off of the coffee table, staring at Seokjin, disgruntled as all hell and not caring who sees it.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed right now?” Seokjin is standing behind his couch, eating strawberry cheesecake ice cream right out of the quart container. He’s wearing a pair of fuzzy Princess Peach slippers, sweatpants, and nothing else. Doctor Seokjin Kim, Namjoon thinks. Respected medical professional. This is who delivers Brooklyn’s babies.
“You think I can sleep in this state?” Namjoon hisses. It isn’t Seokjin who he’s angry at. In fact, he isn’t angry at all, that’s far from the right word. Plainly distressed would be a better choice.
“I think you’re working three overnights in a row, you’ve got to sleep somehow,” Seokjin replies, gesticulating with his spoon as he speaks. His level of nonchalance right now is disgusting. Namjoon needs him on his knees begging every ancestor they share to take mercy on Namjoon’s very soul.
Namjoon sits up in earnest, folding his arms so tightly around his chest that he becomes acutely aware of his pulse as his blood flow is slowly cut off. “So you’re just—not fucking worried about this at all? I come to you—your baby cousin—telling you my life is basically toast, I’m in over my head, and you’re eating ice cream in your pajamas telling me to go to sleep?”
Namjoon had to tell Seokjin everything. For starters, he’s Namjoon’s best friend, the brother he never had. Secondly, Namjoon talks when he’s nervous. Thirdly, he was going to be at Seokjin’s anyways because his apartment is closer to the hospital, and when Namjoon works his trio of overnights at the end of the month, he likes to keep that commute to a bare minimum if he doesn’t have anything keeping him at home.
But Seokjin isn’t reacting nearly as much as Namjoon needs him to be right now. Where is the fist-shaking and cursing the sky? Where is the anguish?
“First of all,” Seokjin licks his spoon and raises it again to dictate. “Sleep is a good answer to many problems, for we all know a tired brain is a dysregulated brain, and we all know yours is a little dysregulated to start with.”
“I take my meds,” Namjoon mutters, lowering his chin again and hunkering down with his elbows on the tops of his knees. It was Seokjin who suggested he seek medication for his ADHD, which Namjoon sought behind the backs of both his mom and step-father when he was seventeen. He’ll admit, Seokjin was right–the change was significant once they got that dosage down to an art.
“I know you do,” Seokjin nods, and he does sound genuinely proud. “I’m just stating the facts. Secondly, I’m an OBGYN. You may think the world is imploding, but unfortunately this doesn’t even make the top ten most appalling baby daddy situations I’ve ever seen. It’s a mess every damn day, Joon. This is just Thursday for me. Thirdly, I’m sorry you found out on your birthday weekend, but I maintain there’s no way Hoseok knew or did that on purpose.”
“We’ve been bumping shoulders since high school,” Namjoon mutters. “It’s honestly more of a burn that he doesn’t know at this point.”
“Fourthly,” Seokjin continues as if Namjoon didn’t say a word, “and I know you’ll want my head on a pike for this, but I am personally cool with Yoongi Min.”
“Oh, shut up.” Namjoon rolls his eyes and drops his forehead onto his arms. His foot is tapping away on the carpet, the edge of his sneaker knocking against the coffee table every few beats. There’s too much strumming through his body, every thought a physical sensation stored somewhere in his limbs, his chest, his stomach. He can’t fathom Seokjin’s suggestion to try to sleep right now. If anything, he needs a run. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side. But my beloved boyfriend is in a band with the guy, and frankly the bad things I hear are few and far between. I’m easy as shit: if someone treats the love of my life well, I tend to like them.”
“You’re easy to trick is what you are,” Namjoon mutters into his sleeves. Yoongi’s always had a way of duping those around him, with that rocker onstage, mild-mannered offstage vibe. The quiet, introspective musician, the shaggy haircut, the expensive cigarettes, the clothes plucked from the trendiest of thrift spots. He’s so god damn performative, it irks Namjoon right down to the bone that no one else seems to see through it. If they knew the truth, they wouldn’t be so endeared to him.
Seokjin’s teeth clatter against his spoon as he goes in for another bite. “Are you trying to tell me he’s covertly evil and you’re the only one who knows it?” he asks around his ice cream.
Quite literally, yes, Namjoon thinks. Being his roommate was fucking enlightening, he’ll put it that way. The man is a walking scam in a Rolling Stones tee. “If I said yes, would you believe me?”
“Namjoon,” Seokjin sighs. “I really think you need to sleep while you still can.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he groans into his forearms. “When I wake up, I’ll still be a fucking father.”
“Or,” Seokjin offers, voice obnoxiously optimistic, “Yoongi could be a father, and it wouldn’t be your problem!”
“It’s my problem until I know.”
“If it makes you feel better, Hoseok would be, what, five weeks now? Almost? That’s a speck. Fifteen to twenty percent of pregnancies don’t make it to viability.”
Namjoon lifts his head, fixing Seokjin with a withering glare. “Why the fuck would him miscarrying a baby he wants make me feel any better?”
Seokjin looks down at his ice cream and frowns. “Yeah. That’s a good point. I kind of forgot he made up his mind about the whole thing. It’s excellent that he can just do that without you, you know? Omega rights have come so far. That’s great.”
“Seokjin,” Namjoon full-on whines. The time to be concerned about his reputation has long passed. Besides, it’s only him and Seokjin here. “Nothing you say makes me feel better.”
Seokjin jams his spoon into his ice cream carton, throwing a hand onto his hip and cocking it. “Well, shit, Namjoon, you can’t have it all. Either you don’t want the baby and you let this go, or you want it, so you chase it. No one’s telling you what to do! You’re your own hindrance or your own help.”
Namjoon shrinks back into himself. There are few things less welcome at this moment than a reminder that the choices he makes are the life he lives. He burrows his chin on top of his folded arms. “Doesn’t matter what I want. He told us both to fuck off.”
“He said that? In those words?”
“Well–”
“In those exact words?”
“No, but–”
“What did he say?” Seokjin marches around the couch, planting himself in front of Namjoon where he’s drawn into a pitiful ball on the floor between the couch and coffee table. “Read me that text again. Word for word, slowly. Let me meditate on this.”
Namjoon sighs and reaches around, fishing his phone out of his pocket and clicking into the message he has screenshotted. Screenshotted, because clicking in and out of that chat over and over again is too risky. What if he butt-dials, or accidentally sends a weird photo, or responds thinking it was a different chat? The stakes are too high; a screenshot in his camera roll is much safer. He clears his throat, shaking out the hoarse blockage trying to take root there, and reads aloud for Seokjin’s sake. Each word more or less feels like a kick in the shin, but he carries on nonetheless, altering nothing. Delivering unto Seokjin the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. When he’s finished, he sets his phone face down on the coffee table and hangs his head.
Seokjin doesn’t speak. Not immediately. He’s mulling things over, examining the problem from each angle like a true doctor, before delivering his verdict. A diagnosis of the situation, if you will. When Namjoon looks up again, Seokjin sets his ice cream down and steeples his fingertips together, submerging himself deeper into thought if anything.
“See. I don’t think he told you to fuck off at all, actually.”
Namjoon raises a brow. “Did we read the same text?”
“Yes, your vocal rendition of it was great, that’s not the point.” Seokjin lifts a humble hand to his chest and holds it there. “I consider myself…well, you know Jimin. He can be a little coy. He has a way about him, maybe it’s an omega thing. Something us alphas are too thickheaded to understand, but I’ve tried to become fluent for him. Sometimes he asks for stuff without actually asking at all, you know? But your job is to read that between the lines and figure it out so they don’t have to ask you outright.”
Namjoon blinks. Seokjin’s right: he is too thickheaded for this. Unlike Seokjin, who has been dating Jimin for the last two years, Namjoon doesn’t do long term relationships. He doesn’t do fluency in emotional languages, and he certainly doesn’t read between the lines to predict the future. He has good sex with mostly-good people and calls it a night. Or a day, depending on his hours. “I don’t get it.”
Seokjin sighs. “Namjoon, he said you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to do that. He never said absolutely don’t do this or I’ll cut your head off.”
“Well, he did say none of this involves you starting now.”
“Dude. Please. That was a throwaway comment at the end. He’s probably waiting for you to text him right now.”
Namjoon scratches the back of his head. Seokjin must be thinking of someone else. Hoseok Jung doesn’t wait for anybody; he just does whatever it is that he’s going to do.
“Namjoon.”
Namjoon looks up. Seokjin’s head is cocked, that brotherly sympathy coloring his face. “What?”
“You know what I really think? He wouldn’t have texted either of you at all if he never wanted to hear from you again. He would have blocked your number. But he texted. Make of that what you will.”
Namjoon drops his chin onto his knees again, swallowing a groan. This is much too much to think about before a twelve-hour shift. And if he did, say, text back, what does he want with Hoseok? And what would Hoseok want with him? They’ve known one another since high school, and Namjoon never has figured out what makes Hoseok tick. Never went deeper than the surface, though with the frequency that he hangs around in Namjoon’s consciousness, you’d think they long since would have.
And now Hoseok’s pregnant. Maybe with Namjoon’s baby.
It’s a frightening, fragile thing to consider how easy it is for one to change their entire life. To grab their future by the horns and steer it in a wildly different direction than the one they had planned.
Namjoon looks up again, sharper this time. “Do you think I could do it?”
Seokjin reaches for his ice cream. “What, text him back? Probably.”
“No, I mean, like—“ Namjoon pauses, winding his thumbs together, index fingers too, knotting them and tugging just to give them something to do. “Like, involve myself. Be…a father.”
Seokjin throws another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. “Who cares what I think? Do you think you could do it?”
“I care what you think,” Namjoon mutters. “That’s why I asked.”
Namjoon hasn’t spoken to his parents in more months than he can count, going on years now. He thinks of that number as infrequently as he can, but it still ticks by with each passing day. As far as family goes, Seokjin is his surest bet for reasonably sane advice.
Seokjin must see the apprehension on Namjoon’s face, because his own expression softens. He comes around the table and crouches by Namjoon’s side, ice cream planted firmly in hand. “I think you can do anything you put your mind to. You’ve already proven that. But you have to want it too, otherwise, you’re just cooking up problems for everyone down the line. So,” Seokjin pauses and shoves the remaining pint into Namjoon’s hold, “eat this ice cream. Take a nap. Go to work, then tell me: do you want it?”
“Yoongi. Close Instagram.”
Yoongi turns his phone away, hastily concealing the screen from Jeongguk’s view. “I’m not on Instagram.”
“You are. I just saw it, and I can tell when you’re lying because you gesticulate when you do it. You have lying hands.”
“Lying–? I do not have lying hands!” Yoongi replies, almost indignant enough to sit up, but not quite. The floor is very nice. They’re well-off enough as a band now that they can afford to rent a legitimate unit to both practice and record in, which means their days slumming it in basements and garages are over. And Yoongi likes to come hang out here when he can to make the most of the rent on it. Not because it’s wholly soundproofed. That has little to do with it.
“You do have lying hands,” Jimin murmurs from the corner where he’s absentmindedly picking out a little ditty on his keyboard. He sounds a little apologetic over having to admit it at all. “But it’s okay to keep looking at his Instagram.”
Yoongi turns and shoots Jeongguk a look, flicking his tongue out at his dongsaeng. “Jimin said it was okay.”
Jeongguk crosses his arms and shakes that flop of a bang that wants to be emo so badly out of his eyes. “So you admit it, you’re stalking his Instagram.”
" ‘Stalking’ is a very strong word,” Yoongi murmurs. He learned it in English from a thriller movie, so he imagines it isn’t usually received kindly. “I’m more like…perusing.”
He’s keeping tabs on Hoseok, that’s what he’s doing. He isn’t proud of it, but it’s true. And it isn’t in a creepy way. After all, all of this is material Hoseok puts out on the internet anyways, it isn’t like Yoongi has gone to any great lengths to obtain it. He just–he really can’t believe how normal Hoseok is being. His Instagram story is cluttered with little white bars, a dozen different uploads in the last twenty-four hours. A PR box with an ugly pair of sneakers, and Hoseok’s caption thanking the even uglier brand. A photo of his matcha (yuzu cream). A shot of a bakery case, followed by an overstuffed bagel in his hand and an animated gif shouting BREKKY! in the corner. A photo of his mat at the Pilates studio, followed by a mouthwatering still of him in front of a mirror in those shorts and a compression tee. For someone so petite, he’s all legs, Yoongi thinks. He has a way of framing himself long and lanky like a supermodel. The next few stories are reposted reels, mostly behind-the-scenes content from a brand shoot that appears to be selling perfume, but is also kind of just selling Hoseok with wet hair and dew all over his golden skin.
It’s fucking working on Yoongi.
And look, he’s not an idiot, he knows half of this is pre-shot, and the rest is curated to hell and back. But he can’t shake his disbelief at how cool and collected Hoseok appears. Not a single one of his followers, not a single person in general, would ever know he’s carrying an unplanned pregnancy with an unknown sire. It’s either Yoongi, or a knothead with a glasses prescription so severe Yoongi isn’t sure he’s legally allowed to drive. That’s probably why he lives in New York City.
“Oh, hyung,” Jeongguk sighs. “What do you get by just watching him? Why don’t you go talk to him?”
“Because,” Yoongi grunts.
“Because why?”
“Because he said not to.”
“I read the text,” Jimin interjects, raising a hand, but continuing to flutter over the keys in front of him with the other. “He never said that.”
“Jesus,” Yoongi groans. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours?” Jimin’s voice goes up at the end, as if it’s a question. “Duh?”
“You don’t sound too sure about it.”
“I’m team ‘everybody-is-happy-in-the-end.’”
Yoongi clicks his phone off and sets it down at his side. “Well, isn’t that just fucking romantic?”
“If you want it to be!” Jeongguk replies cheerfully, nose crinkling into that twitchy bunny smile.
Yoongi only shakes his head. These two don’t get it at all. They’re all smitten, everything is sunshine and daisies and true love to them. What do they say here? ‘Wearing roses on your glasses?’
Yoongi has glasses, but none of the roses. In a way, Jimin and Jeongguk lead lives much more charmed than Yoongi, who has always felt like there’s some sort of ticking time bomb slapped over his life in this city. This country as a whole. His parents still think he’s experiencing a run-of-the-mill youngest child reckless phase: fucking off to America, starting a band, burning off his wild spirit so he can return home a better son and a better businessman.
That’s what waits for Yoongi in March–his brother’s wedding, and a conversation about the future. He’s twenty-six now. His parents’ patience must be wearing thin. They’ll want him to move back. They’ll have a job offer ready for him—some performative placement that gives him a nice title and a nicer salary. He’ll spend his best years, then the rest of his life beyond that, sitting in an office signing papers and doing absolutely fucking nothing else. Just a figurehead, and not even the favored one. That would be Kyungsu. All Yoongi is, is the spare.
He finds the whole image of it all so suffocating that even just thinking about it makes it harder to breathe. It’s as if the very air grows denser in his lungs, bogging him down where he lies. He likes New York and all of its freedoms. He likes the excess of bagels with countless toppings, he likes the warmth of brownstone buildings with their flower-potted front steps. He likes the parks hiding around every corner, lush with greenery in the summer and sparkling with snow in the winter. He likes his band, his people, likes music and art flowing through the very veins of the city day and night. He may have been born in Daegu, but this place is the only one that feels like home. How could he let it go?
He’d need a damn good reason to grit his teeth, dig his heels in, and let his parents know once and for all that he plans to stay here. Min Enterprises be damned.
A life-changing reason.
A reason like—
A baby.
No. That would be fucking stupid.
But effective, an unwanted voice whispers, like a devil on Yoongi’s shoulder, breathing into his ear. Nothing says “goodbye” like “I can’t go back, I have a baby here.”
An American baby. An American omega. It would be grounds for disownment without blowing up his life. Sure, Yoongi could have started snorting coke in clubs and making so much noise in the city that the South Korean media noticed and broadcasted his name alongside generational curses. Chaebol Heir Shames Family In Public Spectacle. It would work, in theory, and it would be a fast-track to being disinherited. But it would come with attention, too, and Yoongi doesn’t want that. Not from those people. He wants to be known for what he’s made with his own two hands. The music he writes, the instruments he plays. It’s why, to this day, almost nobody in this country knows the truth of his background: the youngest son of one of South Korea’s most financially influential families. Media moguls with stacks piled so high in their bank accounts that they sway national politics, make or break elections, ruin lives, and platform entire careers. A hurricane that Yoongi was born into. And he wanted none of it.
It isn’t like they wanted him either. It was clear very early on that Yoongi was not like his family. While they spoke of profit margins and campaign budgets, Yoongi liked to lay under the coffee table with headphones on, and seven or eight blankets stacked over him because the weight of them all piled up gave him a calm that he couldn’t find anywhere else. Under his parents' disapproving eyes, the reign of many a nanny who tried to discipline some sense into him, and perpetually in his older brother’s shadow, Yoongi spent a childhood assuming he was irrevocably broken. And in some ways, he is–at least, by his family’s standards. Two years of bouncing from psychiatrist to psychiatrist seeking–something. Anything. An explanation, a medication that could fix him, a procedure to make him right, Yoongi finally got a couple of labels slapped over his forehead: major depressive disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Two things that did, in fact, mean nothing to Yoongi because there was no treatment to fix them, just ways to live alongside them. He was deemed neurologically unfit to serve in the military—something else for his parents to find heinously embarrassing after his brother garnered special soldier medals like they were a dime a dozen. They suggested—as a way of concealing the great shame of being rejected from a rite of passage that all good young men endure—that he lay low for a while. Try not to draw attention to the fact that he had let them down once again.
Shit, it isn’t like Yoongi needed an excuse to disappear. He’d been fantasizing about it for years. America, doubtless, was not his parents’ first choice. But Cornell accepted him, and who was he to turn down opportunities thousands of miles out of reach? Free at last from a cage built to suffocate him. And it isn’t as if life is perfect here. It’s just that Yoongi doesn’t feel so alien in this state. Many people, as it turns out, are weird the way he’s weird. He studied music for four years, found Jimin and Jeongguk in the process, and threw spaghetti at the wall until Amygdala was born. Graduated, moved to Manhattan, never left. Those are the broad strokes. A few things happened in between all of that. Hoseok happened in between all of that.
And clearly, he happened again.
And what Yoongi initially accepted as rotten luck is suddenly starting to look strangely silver-lined at the edges.
A baby. A quiet departure. His family would be too ashamed to alert the press, and unless the press in question are taking great measures to stalk him, there’s no real reason they’d ever find out. But that’s assuming Hoseok would even have him. He has these…intense standards. Standards Yoongi never fit. And their college fling didn’t end in flames, but it could have been better. Yoongi’s penchant for avoiding dating comes both from the fact that he tries to limit the number of people who know who his family is, which makes one-night stands ideal, and from the fact that, while he occasionally gets horny enough not to mind it, he’s not great at being touched. And given that he’s never taken a serious lover, he’s never had a reason to learn.
He could have done better by Hoseok years ago. But Yoongi was still finding his footing in the country, and he was more skittish about making connections then than he is now. And it isn’t like Hoseok was a perfect angel all the time either. But…they had good times. And god, they had good sex.
Too good. Fucking clearly. It’s always the damn encore. Several years late, in their case, but refusing to be lost to time. If it’s even Yoongi’s baby, that is. Shit, maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s his. A baby is a baby, right? If he raises it, it’s his. If Hoseok will have him, then–it’s theirs. And what will his parents do? Nothing. Nothing Yoongi will have to listen to, anyways. He’ll have a family of his own to shove in their faces. Maybe say fuck you alongside his goodbye.
“Hyung, what are you thinking about?”
Yoongi startles so hard his elbow hits the wall he’s lying beside. He forgot he wasn’t alone in his room. “Nothing,” he lies quickly, snapping his mouth shut and switching the daydream off like it’s a TV screen.
Jeongguk tips his head to the side, floppy, shaggy, mulleted hair that he refuses to trim falling into his eyes like a pair of curtains. “I said it’s romantic if you wanted it to be, and you got quiet for like…five entire minutes.”
“Shh,” Jimin hushes from his corner. “Let him meditate on this.”
“I am not meditating,” Yoongi says, pushing up on one elbow so he can sit.
“Are you thinking about calling Hoseok?”
“No.”
Yes.
“Idiot!” Jeongguk reaches over, grabs a guitar pick and flings it at Yoongi. It bounces off of his jean-clad knee and lands on the floor with zero damage inflicted. “You should be!”
“That’s no way to talk to your elder,” Yoongi scolds. Jeongguk has the grace to coil back and look ashamed.
“I just wanna be an uncle,” he murmurs, peeking at Yoongi from under his bangs with those big puppy dog eyes that had Yoongi taking him under his wing in the first place. Just a little eighteen-year-old kid with a Busan accent so thick that his every word had to swim through it, and an audacious streak a mile wide. He swore to Yoongi he could read music and play the drums better than any other band recruit he could hope for, and that if Yoongi just heard him out for a moment, he could prove it. And like hell, he did. “I like babies,” he adds after a moment. “Taehyung says we aren’t ready to have one.”
“You’re not,” Yoongi and Jimin reply in firm tandem. This, they can agree on, though Yoongi isn’t sure if their reasoning is hinged on anything more than viewing Jeongguk as a perpetual baby himself. The curse of being the youngest in a group—he'll never grow up in their loving eyes.
A sly grin warps Jeongguk’s face. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be a dad yet. But you know who totally could be?” He plunks down at his drumming stool, grabbing for his sticks and hammering out a little one-two snare like a mic drop. “Yoongi-hyung.”
Hoseok is out cold when the doorbell rings. In fact, he’s pretty sure it rings several times, because he hears a sort of insistent buzzing in his dreams, corrupting whatever the main storyline was and slowly pulling him up until—
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
“Taehyung.” Hoseok groans and flips onto his side, dragging his pillow with him. Apparently having good bloodwork doesn’t prevent the first trimester urge to climb into bed and hibernate. All Hoseok ever wants to do after work is to go to sleep.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
God, they just keep fucking pressing it, don’t they? Why can’t they try another button and make one of the neighbors let them up?
“Taehyung!” Hoseok calls, louder this time. When no response comes, he sits up and looks at the clock on his side table. Taehyung isn’t here. He went out to get dinner with Jeongguk and Jeongguk’s parents at 5:00. Hoseok must have snored right through his departure.
Whining softly under his breath, Hoseok kicks his feet off the side of the bed and stands. He didn’t even shower after class, he’s filthy. Just unwashed and musty all over the place. Still wearing his pink shorts and the matching quarter-zip top. Nevertheless, he shuffles down the hall to the front door and buzzes the oh-so-needy visitor up. Come to think of it, he isn’t expecting anyone. Whoever is down there is probably someone else’s problem. and he’s the neighbor letting them into the building.
He turns the corner, heading for the kitchen in the hopes that Taehyung won’t mind if Hoseok raids his snack stash. It’s their snack stash really, but lately Taehyung has been the one taking charge of filling it. Filling all the groceries, actually–Hoseok owes him a Venmo or two. He makes it as far as the threshold when he hears a quick rap, the sound of knuckles on the front door.
He stops, and rotates on his heel.
It’s not Taehyung, that’s for sure. And it’s not Jeongguk. They both have keys, and they’re probably halfway through their entrées at some Italian restaurant right now. Apart from that, no one else really visits. Hoseok and Taehyung tend to get their fill of interactions between one another and the amount of socializing they both have to navigate for work. After Taehyung sends thirty emails on Hoseok’s behalf, then sits through four Zoom meetings, and Hoseok smiles on a set for six hours straight or teaches three back-to-back classes, they both tend to want to come home and slump side by side on the couch in silence with a good movie running in the background to fill up their brains.
Hoseok shuffles to the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob, glancing down. He’s not the best dressed he’s ever been, but not the worst. Hopefully there’s no one important standing on the other side of the door. He yanks it open and peers around.
Fuck.
Namjoon is on the other side of the door, in scrubs that he makes look like the latest pieces hot off the runway with those long, lean limbs. He has an industrial sized thermal bag over his shoulder, no doubt packed with meals for the next twelve hours. Or the last twelve. How is Hoseok possibly supposed to know his schedule? The point is that he shouldn’t be here.
“Oh. No, thank you.” Hoseok says automatically, beginning to nudge the door closed again before it’s even completely open.
The toe of Namjoon’s black orthopedic sneaker jumps in front of the door before it can hit the jamb, blocking Hoseok from shutting it in his face. “Wait. Hoseok, please. Can we talk?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hoseok replies. Namjoon’s scent might as well be an impending storm by the way it’s closing around him from all sides. And it does smell a little like a storm, summer petrichor, clouds over hot pavement, slowly wet by a downpour. Salt. Dew. Cotton. All things clean and…fresh, and…things Hoseok wants to sink into and stay inside.
He blinks. No. No. That’s not him, that’s the fucking voices. That’s the cluster in his belly talking, and it’s strong. Very nearly stronger than Hoseok, but he battles it out and regains his composure just before he breaks. “Why did you have me buzz you up? You live here.”
Namjoon shifts a guilty look to the hardwood floors. “I didn’t know if you were home. And I didn’t want to bang on your door like some knothead.”
Jesus Christ. His mind is a maze, and one Hoseok isn’t up to poking through and solving. Not now, and not any time soon. “I have a meeting,” he lies through his teeth. “In ten minutes.”
He feels Namjoon’s eyes travel the length of his body, all the way down, then back up again.
“At the studio,” he adds, a touch of defensiveness creeping into his voice. He is, in fact, not telling the truth. But for all Namjoon knows, these are his meeting clothes.
The corners of Namjoon’s mouth turn towards the ground. “The studio closed an hour ago.”
Hoseok bristles. He folds his arms across his chest, wound so tight he can only hope it looks hostile. “How do you know that?”
“I checked the website for the instructor schedule to make sure you’d be home right now.”
“Oh! So you’re stalking me?” Hoseok lets his voice go up a little, both in pitch and volume just to watch Namjoon flounder. “That’s just great, that’s what every fucking omega in the city wants: an alpha who memorizes their schedule to circle like a vulture when they’re home, alone, in their apartment.”
Namjoon goes pale so quickly that Hoseok is almost surprised he doesn’t drop to the ground in a dead faint. He blinks several frantic times behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “Hoseok. No. That’s not–I have work, I’m on my way to the hospital, I only have a few minutes so I just wanted to make sure you were in. That’s all. How was I supposed to know you were alone?”
“For all I know, you were sitting outside waiting for Taehyung to leave.”
“Look, I can go.” Namjoon’s throat bobs when he swallows, nervous eyes flicking left then right. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” There’s a disappointment in that anxious frown of his that strikes Hoseok somewhere that isn’t used to being stirred by anything. Six feet of alpha standing right in front of him, but with a jangling hand gripping the strap on his lunch bag and the slump in his worried posture, he looks like a little kid coming to Hoseok’s door and hoping for a scrap of attention.
For reasons far beyond him, Hoseok finds that comparison so utterly sad all of the sudden that he’s a little nauseated by it. Reluctantly, he unwinds his arms and lays a hand on the door, opening it a few inches further and rolling his eyes. “Just tell me whatever it is you needed to tell me so badly that you stalked me for it.”
“Now I really feel like I should come back,” Namjoon murmurs, gaze fixed on his scuffed sneakers.
“When you come back I’ll be in a worse mood,” Hoseok promises him. “Best to say it now, honestly.”
Namjoon looks up slowly, careful eyes peeking over his glasses’ frames. He draws in a breath that takes its sweet time. It’s like he’s dreading the next time he has to open his mouth. As if he didn’t show up here unannounced. His left hand tightens on the strap of his bag, knuckles turning white with the quiet force of his grip. “I wanted to ask you….if you would consider…letting me take you on a date?”
Hoseok freezes halfway through taking a breath of his own. It just–stops. Right there in his throat, lodged like a piece of food snagging on the way down and requiring a hasty Heimlich maneuver. For a second, he thinks he’ll gag on it. He forces out a cough. “No.”
What hope had returned to Namjoon’s posture wilts again, twice as deflated as he was a moment ago. “No? Why?”
What a stupid question. What a stupid fucking question. Why? More like why would he ever say yes? When have he and Namjoon ever spent two minutes next to each other without bickering? The only reason Hoseok ever fucked him in the first place was to annoy Yoongi. And—yes, it happened a few more times after that, and Hoseok can’t honestly say Yoongi was on his mind for any of the subsequent flings, but the point is still the same: since high school, Hoseok has inarguably not gotten along with Namjoon Kim. They can’t go on a date. They can’t even amicably share an apartment building half the time.
“Because,” Hoseok flounders, grasping at the many straws indicating places where he could begin, or where this could end, but none of them are coming to him in simple words. Namjoon’s scent is still too thick, too appealing, and it’s clouding Hoseok’s brain. “Because I–I said no.”
Namjoon shifts all of his weight to his left hip, then back again, repeating the motion while staying planted in place. “Can I just say my piece before you throw an answer at me? Please?”
Hoseok glares out at him. His arm must be instinctively shutting the door, because where there was a good foot-wide gap a moment ago, there’s now only a few inches to peer at Namjoon through. The expression on his face feels sour and twisted, but each breath he takes is sweet. Dewy, salty, warm, like an experimental Michelin-starred dessert. It would be served by a naked Namjoon Kim, exclusively in Hoseok’s bedroom.
No, god, no. That’s not him. He has got to get a handle on this.
Hoseok clears his throat, narrowing the gap even further. “Fine,” he mutters. Guarded is an understatement. “Say it.”
“Look.” Namjoon lifts the hand that isn’t on his bag to his hair, scratching just over his ear like a sullen puppy. “I didn’t prepare a written speech or anything, I just—I was doing some reflecting. I’ve been working night shifts, and it’s kind of, you know, on my floor there’s usually less to do at night, it’s quiet, and—point is, I have more time to think than-than I usually do. And I started to realize I think–I know I would regret it if I didn’t tell you that…” Namjoon trails off, then shakes his head. “This isn’t how, or when I saw myself having a kid. But I’m in a good spot, objectively speaking. I got through school with minimal debt—beat the odds there. I have a good job, a secure job, my bills are covered, I budget pretty well, and I know how to cook. I take care of myself. I try to read a lot and stay updated on current affairs. I balance education and entertainment.” Namjoon winces. “Sorry. I’m not selling myself here. I just want you to know that if you want someone in your life I…will. Do it. Step up. For you and…” he rolls a hand, gesturing vaguely at Hoseok’s stomach, though with the air of someone not sure if he’s allowed to address that elephant in the room directly just yet. His Adam’s apple bobs. “The baby. If you want that.”
If he wants it. If he wants it. Does he want it?
No. No, obviously no. No for a million reasons. The first one being he said he would do this alone, and he fucking meant it. It’s easier to start alone and end alone than start with someone else and get kicked to the curb. He knows that, he’s seen it.
The feeling rising in his throat doesn’t back down even when he swallows. “You should go.” He has no idea why his voice is so quiet all of the sudden, barely a whisper.
Namjoon’s brows crease. “Hoseok–”
“No, really,” Hoseok shakes his head, his grip on the door locking tighter. Why does he feel this way? Hot and angry and miserable all at once. It’s a rush of emotion with no root and nowhere to go, piling up in excess, pushing at the dam in his chest. “I have my–my meeting.”
“Please.” Namjoon’s foot is still wedged in the door. It could be threatening, but with that look in his eyes it seems more desperate than anything else. “Can we talk about it? Can you think about it?”
“You said you have work,” Hoseok says. His words are coming out all weird, distorted like his throat is closing up. “I’m sure they’re missing you at the hospital.”
“They don’t need me for thirty more minutes—Hoseok.” Namjoon’s hand darts out and closes around Hoseok’s wrist. He doesn’t squeeze. It doesn’t hurt. He just…holds. Like he can’t bring himself to let go yet, it isn’t an option he can face. It’s like begging.
He’s begging. People don’t beg for Hoseok.
“I know we haven’t exactly been peanut butter and jelly to each other,” Namjoon says. It’s such a stupid metaphor for how serious his eyes are, framed behind those lenses, dark as a storm cloud and just as intense. “But I can be better. I mean—I think we can try. Right?”
Hoseok is all too aware of his pulse thumping away in his wrist and the fact that Namjoon is sure to feel it. It’s a tell. A heartbeat never hides how affected a person is; it’s annoyingly out of anyone’s control. If Hoseok could rule it, he’d tell it to chill the fuck out right now. But he can’t, so it keeps on hammering away under his skin like a bird beating its wings inside a cage. He’s hot. He’s cold. He wants to shut the door, and yet, he thinks that when Namjoon leaves and his scent goes with him, it’s going to drive Hoseok straight up the fucking wall.
“You didn’t even read my text, did you?” he says finally. He still can’t speak above a whisper, for whatever god damn reason. “I told you not to show up.”
“I did read it,” Namjoon says. He lifts a helpless shoulder, then drops it just as quickly. “You didn’t say not to show up, you just said I didn’t have to. And—I know I don’t have to. I wanted to.”
Want. That’s just the word that haunts Hoseok, isn’t it? Alphas always want to, until they don’t. Omegas aren’t like that. Omegas stick around. Just like his mother sticks around, and Taehyung sticks around. Omegas are loyal. Alphas want someone warm in their bed, but only until the novelty wears off. Namjoon Kim is not above that. He’s actually below it. He is, in fact, one of the worst offenders of novelty sex in the entire city of New York. He’d sleep with the fucking Pope if he could. He’d find a way to do numbers in a nunnery.
And Hoseok is supposed to think he’s special, in the midst of all of that?
Namjoon releases his wrist. Hoseok is horrified by the fleeting urge to reach out and pull him back. “I wasn’t expecting an answer tonight,” he says softly, returning his hand to the strap of his bag and dropping his gaze to his shoes again. “Just think about it. Please. Because I’ve been thinking about you. I was supposed to stay at Seokjin’s last night, it’s closer to my hospital, but I came back because I wanted to talk to you, and…” He shakes his head. “I have to go. If you want to talk, you know where I live. Or—or you can text me. That’s fine. And—I’m sorry you thought I was stalking you. I’m not. Promise. Sorry. Sorry. I’m…going now. Bye.”
It’s almost reassuring, the way Namjoon consistently never knows when to shut up. He pulls his foot from where it’s wedged between the door and the jamb, turning on his heel and heading for the elevators, wilted like an unwatered window box.
Something rumbles in Hoseok’s throat. For a second, he thinks he’s going to throw up again. Braces for it, in fact. But what comes out is only words, a surprise even to him. “And what?”
Namjoon turns, brows knitting together. “What?”
Hoseok refuses to open the door further to stick his head all the way out. This gap is all he can manage. He feels naked enough as he is. “You said you were thinking about me. “I wanted to talk to you, and…?”
“Oh.” Namjoon has a pretty mouth. It’s folding now, probably considering his next sentence, but all Hoseok can think about is how sweetly he kisses, the way Namjoon’s lips feel on his. His throat, his stomach, the insides of his thighs. “Just that,” he says finally. Even in the silent hallway, Hoseok has to strain to hear him. “Wanting. You won’t let me do anything more.”
Hoseok’s never been very good at more.
He peels away from the door, but he doesn’t shut it. Not yet.
“You were right,” he says after a long moment. “I’m not giving you an answer tonight. But I’ll…think about thinking about it. That’s all. Don’t hold your breath.”
Hoseok swears he sees the faintest of smiles lift the corners of Namjoon’s mouth. “I might. But if I pass out, I’ll be at the hospital anyway."
For two days, Hoseok thinks about it. It’s on him like a virus, some sort of sickness where the only way out is through.
When Taehyung came home from dinner, Hoseok said nothing about his uninvited visitor. He sat on the couch and they watched The Great British Baking Show while Taehyung replied to emails and edited a few Reels and TikToks for Hoseok, and Hoseok thought about it.
He went to bed thinking about it. He—with a dose of embarrassment that went bitter on his tongue the moment he woke—dreamt about it. He went to work the next morning thinking about it, same as he did today. There was a dreary edge to the sky at dawn when Hoseok left his apartment, and it’s only gotten worse. In the middle of his second class, the clouds darkened and rain came tumbling down. By the end of the third one, the sky was all but black from the storm front rolling in, and though the rain broke, it’d been replaced by a thunder rumbling on some not-too-distant front, promising more rain to come.
Hoseok just hopes it waits until he gets home. Or at least off the damn train.
“Bye, Lou!” he calls out on his way to the door. Behind him, the only other teacher left in the building hums a somewhat distracted goodbye while eyeing the bulb he’s changing on the lobby lights. Hoseok takes it as his cue to leave and heads for the exit. His duffel bag is digging into his shoulder, leaving him with an aching kind of sensation as if his joints are slowly being unplugged from their sockets. When he complained to Taehyung about his unending soreness a few days ago, Taehyung whipped out his phone and did some quick Googling, which subsequently revealed something about hormonal shifts expanding ligaments, only the visual irked Hoseok out so terribly that he made Taehyung close the tab and drop the subject.
Maybe he should buy a smaller bag. Or allot a bigger cab budget so he doesn’t have to schlep everywhere with his shit.
The moment the door shuts behind him, a fat drop of water lands on the tip of Hoseok’s nose, and he groans. The sidewalk smells steeped in petrichor. He has two minutes to the nearest station, the sky better not dunk him right now. He grits his teeth and hoists his bag a little higher, turning to head toward his train.
“Hoseok.”
Hoseok’s chin snaps up so fast he feels whiplash rattling down through his neck. There’s a bench in front of the coffee shop next door. Sitting on it now. as if he just appeared with the rain, and looking at Hoseok through a pair of strikingly feline eyes, is Yoongi Min.
A groan slips out before Hoseok can hope to stifle it. “Why are you people following me?”
“Following you?” Yoongi’s brows jump up toward his hairline. He gets to his feet, the wide-legged hems of his jeans scratching the tops of his scuffed Converse. “Who is following you?”
“You’re following me,” Hoseok rumbles. Thunder rolls overhead, matching his tone exactly. The droplets are falling in earnest now, splattering on Hoseok’s hair with a promise to worsen. Quickly.
“I’m not following you,” Yoongi murmurs. He’s shuffling closer. “I was already over here.”
“Like hell you were,” Hoseok shoots back. He tugs his bag up again and begins to walk. He’s getting to his train one way or another, and he isn’t getting waterboarded while he does so.
“I was, we were scoping out a gig over here. And I was pretty sure this was the studio you worked at, so I thought I would—“
“Wait outside until I come out?” Hoseok asks, picking up his pace, but not so much that he can’t pause to shoot Yoongi a withering look. “Do you hear how that sounds?”
Yoongi’s brow furrows as he falls into step with Hoseok uninvited. “I feel like you always assume I have the worst of intentions, all the time.”
“And don’t you?” Hoseok fires back. He’s too tired for patience. Too bristly now, slowly wetted, chilled by the wind picking up. He has enough on his plate, on his mind, without Yoongi sidling up to him like an alley cat looking for attention. When has Yoongi ever had good intentions with Hoseok? All roads with him have only ever led to disappointment.
“Believe it or not, Hoseok, no.”
“Well, I’ll believe that when I see it,” Hoseok scoffs.
“Do you want me to carry your bag?”
“No.”
A beat of silence. It’s broken only by the soles of their shoes on the pavement and the sound of rain splattering hard on every available surface.
Yoongi clears his throat. “So you want me to be nice to you, but you won’t…let me be nice to you?”
“When did I ever say I want you to be nice to me?”
Another pause. Yoongi is staring straight ahead, fixing his usual habit of avoiding eye contact like a vampire to sunlight. “Fine. What if I want to be nice to you?”
“Please,” Hoseok mutters. “You don’t.”
Sophomore year, he could have been plenty fucking nice to Hoseok, but that curdled like milk.
“What if I do?”
“You don’t.”
“You never told me who was following you in the first place.”
Great. An avoidant change of subject. Hoseok can play like that. “You never told me why you were following me.”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Yoongi says, blinking heavily against the rain. Those enormous droplets have begun to cling to his eyelashes, ripening there before splitting and dropping.
“What could you possibly have to say to me?”
Yoongi stops in his tracks. Against his better judgement, Hoseok grinds to a halt beside him. “A lot, Hoseok,” Yoongi says, turning and meeting Hoseok’s eyes for the first time since they began to walk. “You texted me and told me you might be pregnant with my child. What don’t I have to say?”
Much to Hoseok’s annoyance, he has no snappy response for that. This has been a thought bubbling in the back of his mind since he sent that text, only stoked and prodded by Namjoon showing up unannounced and offering his presence in the lives of Hoseok and the baby. The idea that, despite Hoseok’s plans, despite his grand vision for how this plays out, either of these alphas could insist on being present anyways.
If he says no, they could get lawyers involved. Petition to courts. Omegas are usually favored in these sorts of rulings, but how can he be sure he’d win? The thought of having a baby only to lose it after a miserable legal battle strikes Hoseok so hard and fast it might as well be a baseball bat to the shins, what with the way his knees want to give out and sink to the ground.
He must look disturbed, because Yoongi’s expression softens almost imperceptibly behind the slippery sheen of rain now slicking his face. Such pale skin, so easily turned pink by anything it comes into contact with. Heat, cold, friction. He does look like a cat, a wet, worried cat. “No, Hoseok, I—I’m not here to intimidate you. At all. I read your text, I heard what you have to say, but I also…was hoping you’d listen if I asked you to consider.”
Hoseok narrows his eyes. His heart has only slowed a little upon realizing Yoongi probably isn’t here with threats to challenge him for custody. Probably. “Consider what?”
“I’d like…to be involved,” Yoongi says. His voice is remarkably soft, dampened by the rain now hammering down, filling potholes and running through the many crevices in the sidewalk. “Please. With the baby, and with…you.”
Hoseok’s heart drops. Him, him, him, why him? Don’t these bullheaded alphas see he has enough on his plate already? He looked at this entire situation, he sat with it, and being courted on either side was not in the plans.
He sent out a whole fucking text for nothing, apparently.
“You—can’t,” he says after a sharp, staggered pause. The rain seems to be increasing in ferocity. Water is starting to puddle on top of his duffel bag, only increasing the weight on his shoulder. As much as he didn’t want to have this conversation with Namjoon, he wants to have it with Yoongi right here, right now, even less. “You’re—too late.”
“Too late?” Yoongi’s mouth pops open, shocked and pink. “What do you mean…too late?”
Hoseok swallows over the lump that seems to have a perpetual home in the back of his throat. He shouldn’t say this. He really shouldn’t. But there’s a part of him, still, just like there was a part of him in sophomore year that wanted to turn Yoongi inside out and ply every inch of his skin with all the jealousy he could possibly inflict.
Maybe that was cruel.
Maybe it still is.
But Yoongi’s no angel.
“Namjoon already asked me.”
Hoseok doesn’t wait for Yoongi to reply. He picks up again and starts to walk. The station is two blocks up, and his clothing might be soaked now, but he’s going to squish onto that damn train sopping wet and go home. He’s not waiting around for Yoongi Min. He learned the hard way that it isn’t worth the effort.
“Namjoon?” Yoongi demands from over Hoseok’s shoulder. He’s jogging to catch up, growing closer with every step. “When did that happen?”
“Why is it your business?”
“Because—Hoseok, come on. That isn’t fair. For all we know, it could be my kid. You didn’t—you didn’t even give me a chance!”
“No, I did give you a chance!” Hoseok stops again, heat flaring in his chest despite the downpour. He spins on his heel so sharply, with such a force, that he can feel the rubbery sole of his shoe grating against the pavement and reverberating up his leg. “I gave you a fucking chance, years ago. Don’t act like that didn’t happen.”
“No, it did. I know it did.” Yoongi’s head bobs in acknowledgment, rain running from the tip of his nose, over his lips and down to his throat. “But that wasn’t the same thing. We weren’t really…Hoseok, we weren’t dating.”
The flush rising in Hoseok’s cheeks could evaporate the storm if it gets any hotter. This is a fruitless, humiliating conversation to have. “No, I guess you had it right,” he replies, teeth grated around every word, “I was the fucking idiot who didn’t have a clue what was going on.”
“Hoseok…please. I didn’t know—“
“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t ready for anything serious then,” Yoongi insists. Hoseok wishes the earnestness in his eyes was harder to buy. “I thought you knew that.”
“And now you are?”
“I—don’t know.” Again. That disarming honesty. Most alphas would lie. They’d say yes, yes of course I am. Yes, anything to get between your legs. “I’m ready to try. If you’ll have me. We’re older now. A little more sane, I hope.”
Hoseok doubts it. He’s never felt less sane than he does now. Baby in his belly and two alphas sparring for a crumb of his time. Hoseok had a plan, and this wasn’t on any of the pages.
“Say something,” Yoongi breathes after a minute passes, filled only with the city’s noisy backdrop and the rain’s persistence. “Please.”
“I can’t,” Hoseok says finally. “I want to be alone. I don’t make decisions like this.”
Yoongi’s shoulders seem to wilt, but he nods. “I understand.”
“I told Namjoon, and I’ll tell you too: don’t call me about this. Don’t text me. Don’t show up at my work. If I have something to say, I’ll find you. Otherwise, just…don’t. Don’t bother me. I have enough going on.”
Without really meaning to, Hoseok’s palm finds its way to his belly and settles there. No matter what Yoongi or Namjoon do, Hoseok won’t lose sight of the only true commitment he’s made so far: there’s a baby. And regardless of any alpha, Hoseok knows it’s his. It will grow inside him, be born from him, suckle from him, sit with him. And when, if, Hoseok dates, he isn’t just choosing his alpha. He’s choosing their alpha.
An alpha is optional.
And Hoseok won’t be thinking about it here, now, rain-soaked at the mouth of the sopping staircase leading toward the Metro turnstiles.
Yoongi nods again. His eyes have slipped back down to Hoseok’s shoulder, eyeing his bag. “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry that?”
“I’m sure,” Hoseok replies, waspish. “Go home, Yoongi.”
In Yoongi’s defense, he doesn’t argue. He just blinks at Hoseok a couple times with his feline confusion, before turning away and peeling off in the direction he came from.
When Hoseok gets to the train, the only available seats are puddled with rain water, and the strap of his bag digs into his shoulder the entire way home.
The rain hasn’t let up by the time Hoseok rounds the corner to his building. If anything, it got worse. At least he never saw any lightning, and it isn’t particularly cold, just achingly wet. There isn’t a dry square inch of his clothing anymore. He needs a towel, a shower, his couch and Taehyung’s sympathetic ear to spill double tales of woe to.
Out of habit, he glances up at their unit window. It looks into their living room, which isn’t dressed in bright light, but the storm has rendered the world so dark that the window appears to glow. Two people are silhouetted against the warmth of the backdrop. Taehyung must have just returned home too, Jeongguk in tow, because they’re toweling one another off with grins that Hoseok can make out even from the ground floor across the street. Jeongguk tosses his towel over his shoulder and grabs for Taehyung, tugging his laughing form closer and peppering him with kisses. The effort of drying off is forgotten by them both in an instant.
It isn’t perversion that keeps Hoseok locked in place, staring up at them. More like loneliness with a hand snaking up his throat, choking him out slow and soft. A quiet death of hope.
Hoseok can’t remember the last time he was kissed just to be kissed’ it’s always in pursuit of something else. A finish line for them both so they can wash their hands and part ways. It isn’t often something he even thinks to miss, but when he does…
Hoseok sniffs. He tells himself it’s only water running down his face, wetting his already sodden collar.
He crosses the street and lets himself up. The elevator seems miles long this time around. When he rattles himself into the apartment, there’s no noise apart from Taehyung’s favored French cafe playlist floating from the kitchen speaker, and the sound of the shower running down the hall.
They beat him to it.
Hoseok plods to his room, sneakers squelching water out with each step. He peels off every unwanted layer and uses an oversized T-shirt to do a shit job of toweling himself dry. Or, less wet, at least. He hauls his used clothes down the hall to the dryer and throws them in. He might have to run it twice, but it’s better than letting them mildew on a hanger somewhere.
When he returns to his room and sinks down on his bed, his phone pings with a calendar notification. He flips it and glances at the screen. Glossier event promotion post.
There’s little he wants to do less than type out a glowing caption and post a bunch of pictures from an event he didn’t want to be at as if it was a life changing night of joy. But his job is his job. He was lucky to be there at all.
He digs through his text thread with Taehyung in search of the folder he assembled for Hoseok, the best picks from both Taehyung’s personal haul and the material the event photographer sent out. They’re good pictures, Hoseok will give them that. He managed to pull together a believable impression of happiness, even though it was a four-hour event that he only stayed ninety minutes for. Newly pregnant, swimming in a bout of nausea he told no one but Taehyung about. And yet, he managed to shimmy into something nice and smile for the cameras.
He selects his top ten and assembles them into a carousel for Instagram. A night straight out of my pinkest dreams. Thank you @glossier. Let’s do it again soon.
Generic, but it’s the best he can come up with right now. He has all the guilt of a red-handed liar as he clicks post. Hoseok’s followers look at him and they see a life worth striving for. A shining beacon of potential, something, someone to look up to. They’d never guess he’s unmated and pregnant. They’d never guess he doesn’t even know who the sire is.
They’d never guess he’s alone in his bed with wet hair and tears prickling in his eyes, refusing to subside without being let out like a faucet leaking under pressure.
No matter what impression he might give off, Hoseok’s dream was never to be alone. He built this big empty house because he needed someplace that would keep him safe. Sturdy walls and a fierce independent streak that his eomma would approve of. A sharp-edged outlook that he learned to imitate by watching her move through a world that scorned her.
But it gets quiet in here all by himself.
Hoseok rolls, reaching out to set his phone on his nightstand. There’s a stack of paper sitting there, several pages clipped together and left alone for lack of anything better to do with them. The lab results he snatched from Namjoon after his botched appointment. With one side of his face squished into his pillow and lacking the strength to lift his head, Hoseok can only make out one word printed in bold near the top: Pregnant.
He shifts his right hand, slipping it under the hem of his pajama T-shirt, worn thin as it is by time and use. His belly is warmer than the rest of his body, and he settles his palm there, cupping something he can’t feet yet.
Alone together, he thinks.
His bed feels a little softer, and a little more inviting than it did a moment ago.
When Hoseok wakes, a September sun has burned away the storm, leaving a sparkling city scrubbed clean in its wake. Or, as clean as New York lets itself get.
And Hoseok sits up with a strange sense of resolve simmering in his chest. It could be the calm after the storm, or maybe the fact that he just slept fourteen hours straight for some inconceivable reason. Or maybe it’s just a budding hunger from having gone to bed instead of getting dinner, but there’s something under his skin, and it’s fucking decisive.
Plenty impulsive too, he thinks. These are things he’d usually run by his council (Taehyung), but that insistent something has decided to bypass that step this morning. Taehyung will still be asleep at this hour, wound around Jeongguk, and this is Hoseok’s life. As helpful as Taehyung will try to be, Hoseok can only live his own days when all is said and done, and Taehyung will do the same.
And Hoseok won’t lie. There’s a little bit of a fuck it, I’m pregnant logic possessing him right now. Can’t he do whatever he wants under these conditions, as a little treat?
The better question is: who is going to stop him at 6 AM?
He reaches for his phone and unlocks it before common sense can snatch away hot-headed impulse and throw it out the window.
Hoseok Jung created a group
Hoseok Jung added Yoongi Min
Hoseok Jung added Namjoon Kim
Hoseok Jung named the group Yellow Flags
Hoseok Jung
Hi
Not even ten seconds passes before Namjoon’s typing bubble pops up.
Namjoon Kim
Hi
Namjoon Kim
Did you mean to send this to a group-?
Hoseok Jung
No, my finger slipped and I accidentally renamed the entire chat
Hoseok Jung
Yes. I meant to send it to a group
Namjoon Kim
Okay
Namjoon Kim
Just a question
A lengthy pause. Hoseok lets it run its course.
Namjoon Kim
What’s up?
Hoseok’s thumb pauses to hover over the keypad. He can always take it back if he changes his mind. Delete the messages. Block their numbers. Pretend it didn’t happen and move on with his life.
He taps the dimming screen to reawaken it.
Hoseok Jung
Let’s get lunch