Chapter Text
1
Taehyung wonders, as he often does in the hours before dawn, what could have possessed his great-grandparents to carve out a life in such an untamed place, where the trees grow too thick and the earth never truly sleeps, where the wind howls like a living thing against the brittle panes of his window. He pictures them, grim, resolute figures, their bodies whittled into austerity by the passage of years, faces worn by the ceaseless trials of making a home in a place that did not want to be tamed.
He thinks of the ones who had chosen differently, who had settled in cities where laughter spilled from the windows of restaurants and the streets glowed warmly beneath the electric lamps. Did they think his great-grandparents mad for choosing solitude? Did they pity them, out here where the nights stretched on without the distraction of neon and noise?
And yet, for all his questioning, there is a selfish, unshakable gratitude within him. The woods, the streams, the little pockets of wildness that still belong to no one, they are his inheritance, his tether to a world unbothered by men. When he rushes through the trees, feeling the wind against his skin, he imagines he is escaping, though from what, he cannot quite say.
The town itself is a contradiction. It sits, an odd little island, nestled between the wilderness like a stubborn relic, resisting the tide of time. The houses, their red bricks worn but standing firm, form a single unbroken line through the heart of the settlement, an accidental monument to symmetry and caution. Every brick, every windowpane, seems placed with a deliberation that speaks to something deeper than aesthetics, a need for order, perhaps, or the desperate desire to mark their presence in a world that might forget them otherwise.
"You know, our town has a shape," Taehyung’s mother tells him once, her hands kneading dough with slow, steady movements. "A spine. A single road. Like a back so straight and rigid it refuses to bow. It holds us together, see? Even when the rest of the world moves on."
He does see. He sees it in the way his people move, in the way their lives unfold with a particular rhythm, as if dictated by something older than law, older than reason itself. He sees it in the way they glance, just for a second too long, when a woman wears her hair too short or a man lingers outside past dusk with someone he ought not to.
The town is a chorus of whispers, a place where even the silence carries weight. "People have their ways," his older brother tells him once, watching through the window as their neighbour, a widow of sixty, stands at her gate, receiving a basket from the unmarried man two doors down. "It doesn’t matter what you do. They’ll always have their ways."
"But times are changing," Taehyung argues, the words tasting strange on his tongue, as if he isn’t sure whether he believes them himself. His brother only laughs, a sound without humour. "Not here, they’re not. Here, time is just another one of us. And it knows better than to stray."
It isn’t the law that dictates the way things must be, Taehyung understands this now. The law is an absent thing, a faraway notion belonging to places that live by clocks and signatures. Here, it is the people who decide what is permissible, what is tolerable, and what must be shunned into silence. He remembers once, as a child, watching from the window as a boy no older than himself walked through town with his shoulders curled inwards, the back of his mother’s dress gripped in his small hands as though bracing himself.
No one spoke to them. No one looked at them. It was as if they had already disappeared. "His father left," his mother murmured as she drew the curtains, her voice low, as if speaking the words too loudly would invite the same fate upon their own home. "People will talk. They always do."
And yet, Taehyung wonders, is there a part of them that longs for something else? Something outside of this fragile, insistent sameness? He imagines them, his people, his town, standing at the threshold of change, hesitating. Not because they do not want to step forward, but because they have never had to. Perhaps, he thinks, that is the cruellest thing about tradition. Not that it demands to be followed, but that it makes rebellion feel like betrayal.
Taehyung watches as Park Bogum floats, his body suspended in the deep blue water like something untethered, a creature that belongs more to the liquid abyss than to the hard, unyielding ground of their town. "Wolves in the city don’t have to hunt," Bogum says, his voice drifting like the ripple of water around him. Taehyung waits, knowing Bogum well enough to sense the weight of the unspoken. He does not have to prompt him; Bogum always speaks his thoughts eventually.
“I wish I could go there,” Bogum continues, stretching his arms wide as if to embrace the sky. “Start a new life. Wear those suits.” His voice carries something wistful, something restless, something that gnaws at him in a way Taehyung cannot quite understand.
For as long as he has known Bogum, since they were boys chasing shadows through the woods, their feet swift over damp earth, he has spoken of the city dwellers, the life they lead, the seamless way they seem to slip into the world’s rhythm. Taehyung has always found it strange, this longing. He has never wanted for anything in his life. He has only ever been curious, but never truly wanting. Never greedy. "You should be happy with what you have," he tells Bogum. "After all, city dwellers must have their own problems, too."
Bogum just smirks, his teeth flashing white, his body rolling in the water like a beast stretching out of its skin. “That’s the difference between you and me, Taehyung. You’ve never wanted anything badly enough to chase after it. I have.” There is something almost cruel in his tone, but Taehyung does not take offense. He only looks at Bogum, broader, stronger, the years having carved him into something formidable, while Taehyung has remained lean, almost untouched by time, as though boyhood has lingered in his frame, refusing to let go. They are both Alphas, both filled with energy, both reckless and hungry in their own ways, but Taehyung wonders if, in the end, Bogum’s hunger has always been greater.
Taehyung considers the shifting sky, the way it bruises violet at the edges. He wonders if they will still be like this, hunting together, swimming after their kill, wrestling in the thick grass, once Bogum gets married. The thought unsettles him. Bogum is set to marry Sooyoung in three weeks, and Taehyung isn’t sure why, but it feels as though something vital is being stolen from him. Boyhood, perhaps. Or maybe something else he cannot name.
"Do you love her?" The words escape him before he can think better of them. Bogum turns his head, water slicked back from his face, and for a moment, he is silent. Then he laughs, not unkindly, but with the sort of humour that cuts deep.
“Love her?” Bogum repeats, as if trying the words on his tongue for the first time. “Sooyoung is a good girl. Sweet, proper, everything a man like me should want. My father says she will make a fine wife, and he would know, wouldn’t he?” There is something bitter in his voice, something weary. He turns back to the sky. “Besides, love isn’t the point, is it? It’s about doing what’s right. About making a future. You wouldn’t understand, Taehyung. You, with your endless freedom.”
Taehyung frowns, something unsettled curling in his chest. He wants to argue, to say that freedom is not what Bogum thinks it is, that he is just as much a prisoner to expectation as anyone else. But the words die in his throat. Instead, he watches as Bogum floats, as the water carries him further, as if already pulling him toward another life, one Taehyung will not be part of.
…
Taehyung swims, slow and unhurried, letting the water hold him in its steady arms, the sunlight pressing warm against his skin. There is a drowsy pleasure in it, in the way the currents seem to whisper against his body, lulling him toward something soft and fleeting. He wonders, absently, if this is what it would feel like to let go entirely, to dissolve into the water, to become part of the endless blue. The thought is neither comforting nor frightening, just there, floating somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.
The silence is interrupted, shattered by the abrupt, cutting splash of water against his face. It hits him sharp as a slap, sending droplets flying through the air like shards of glass catching the light. Bogum, ever impatient, ever restless, grins at him with a wildness in his eyes, a challenge unspoken. Taehyung exhales slowly, running his fingers through his dripping hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He glares, but there’s no real bite to it. The annoyance is fleeting, replaced by something quieter, something bordering on affection.
Bogum only smirks, jerking his chin toward the bank. “Look.”
Taehyung follows his gaze, catching sight of a group approaching the water, their laughter lilting like the chime of silver bells. It reaches him first, that sound, high, sweet, unrestrained. Then comes the scent, cloying, unmistakable. Omegas. The air thickens with it, something syrupy and soft that makes his senses sharpen. He straightens instinctively, not out of fear, but out of something deeper, something ingrained. They are not meant to linger here. They are not meant to share this space. Proximity is a silent language their kind understands well. He had learned young that some things are simply not done.
No matter how the cool water soothes his body, no matter how comfortable he is, he knows better. With an effortless stroke, he swims to the bank, emerging with the ease of someone born to the movement. His black half-pants cling wetly to his legs, and he exhales sharply, grateful for the thickness of the fabric. Their kind does not wear light clothing for a reason.
He pulls his t-shirt over his damp skin, the material pressing against his ribs as he ties the laces of his shoes together and slings them around his neck. Socks, damp and useless, are stuffed into his pockets, forgotten. Beside him, Bogum has already laced up his own boots, their thick soles squelching against the earth with every step. There is something unbothered about the way he moves, like he has never once had to make himself smaller for anyone’s comfort. As they walk, he shoves a hand into his pocket and unceremoniously hands Taehyung his archery equipment, along with his own rifle, which Taehyung takes without question, their practiced ease speaking to years of unspoken understanding.
“Was Sooyoung with them?” Taehyung asks, his voice light, teasing.
Bogum barely hesitates before nodding, though his expression betrays nothing. There is something unyielding about the way he carries himself whenever Sooyoung’s name is mentioned, as if he is bracing for something. Taehyung picks up on it easily, like the way one picks up the scent of rain before it falls. He tilts his head, watching his friend as they walk. "You should go greet her," he suggests, grinning as he elbows Bogum in the ribs. "Wouldn’t want your future wife thinking you’ve run off with me."
Bogum snorts, shaking his head as he adjusts the weight of the rifle against his shoulder. “And you think that’s better? That’s rich, coming from you.”
Taehyung hums, pretending to think. “You wound me.”
Bogum scoffs, rolling his shoulders as if to shake off something unseen. “What’s truly wounding is that you haven’t once looked at someone and thought, ‘There. That’s the one.’” He tosses a knowing glance his way, his smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Makes a man wonder, you know.”
Taehyung merely shrugs, as if the conversation bores him. In truth, he doesn’t know how to answer. The idea of romance has always felt distant, like a painting admired from afar but never quite understood. He has never wanted anything, not in the way Bogum does, not in the way others seem to. He is not restless, not eager. He is simply moving, existing.
Bogum, perhaps sensing the end of the conversation, exhales loudly before bending down to pick up the wild boar they had hunted earlier, slinging it over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The animal’s weight does not slow him, does not make him stagger. He carries it as easily as one carries fate, heavy but inevitable.
“Well,” he says, shifting his stance under the weight. “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be alone forever at this rate.”
Taehyung only laughs, stepping in stride beside him as they make their way home, the scent of the lake still clinging to their skin. In the distance, the Omegas’ laughter still lingers in the air, the sound delicate, ephemeral, already fading.