feverfew

The day is warm and the hour late when they arrive, but the breeze greets them so that the drawn curtains ruffle and Namjoon may glimpse the visage of him for a brief moment. He can appreciate the effort put into this moment. Namjoon recognizes it is constructed entirely for him. His mother understands him well, and the appearance of Kim Seokjin into his life is worthy of a gallery of paintings.

His bow is as perfect as his face. Namjoon welcomes him, and Seokjin says nothing at all but a crooked smile. It matches the crooked fingers on his hand, a detail Namjoon appreciates more than the fineness of the fabric, although he surely notes that as well.

They begin with a tea ceremony in the late afternoon, the two of them seated elevated above all guests with an empty raised platform above him should a member of the royal family make an appearance. Here Namjoon might take in the delicacies of pattern sewn into the edges of Seokjin’s sleeves and the way the hem of his robe matches the intricacies of the room, as if he was sent a painting of it to be known beforehand, and Namjoon may marvel in his beauty and easy companionship.

He prepares the tea for him.

“Are you a contrarian?” Seokjin asks, although he does not stop Namjoon from his work. When he hands him the cup, their fingers brush. Seokjin’s hands are chilled despite the warm day.

“I fear the answer depends on who you ask.” He means nothing by it other than the way of friendliness, but Seokjin does not look particularly charmed by his answer, humming before he sips, brows briefly furrowed, but from his answer or the tea, he will never know.

In the evening, after they are served heavier meals in a great hall, Namjoon sees some of the facade slip. There is no air to move between bodies, and the scents of many mingle together in a way that perhaps their guests are unaccustomed to when combined with the stifling heat of summer in the country of their court. Accompanied by a small group of his companions, Seokjin sits before Namjoon and by extension, their welcome party, now including parts of the royal family, armed with a wolgeum and a voice to match his looks.

Perhaps it is this moment others would decry as the moment it all goes wrong. What they see is when the song is over, Seokjin stands to bow, but he never returns to height. Instead, he crumples to the ground in a faint, and Namjoon is not the one who goes to his side.

“Take him to the eastern most guestroom under the princess pines,” Jeongguk commands, and Namjoon might feel something being taken from him in the family ornament hung around his neck, sent before Kim Seokjin’s arrival when their mating was agreed upon, but as the royal family commands, they move the omega and all of his things to a different room, and the grand prince goes with them.

The crown prince finds Namjoon. “My, what an entrance,” he teases, and those who might mistake Jimin’s smile for sweet would not sleep through the night. As such, Namjoon stays quiet in his presence. “His pretty song might be enough to tempt my brother, but what about you?”

Namjoon grew up close to the royal family; his family resides within palace walls and he will be given either his father’s title, or should his wishes come true, then he will campaign to become minister of public works. Perhaps one day he may even live where he wants, in a home on a street designed by his own intention.

He still plays his part as of now, and Namjoon, no great schemer of romance, purses his lips hard enough that Jimin walks away in laughter. They are not known to each other well enough for Namjoon to call at Seokjin’s quarters this evening, nor is he a grand prince, so Namjoon stays in the hall and waits long enough that he may politely retire.

One of Seokjin’s group sits by himself, strumming at a peculiar looking harp, the shape of which Namjoon has yet seen. “What is it?” he asks of the musician, and at first, the smile he gives back is teasing, full of jest.

It falls out of the mouth when he realizes who asks. “A sogonghu, your excel-”

“That is not necessary. You may speak comfortably.”

“Well, then.” The grin is a unique shape, the likes of which are unknown to Namjoon on a face. “It’s a harp. Care to try?”

From his belt, he plucks out a hand sized instrument to strike the strings with, small and as delicate as the sogonghu itself, but it is the fingers that press it to Namjoon’s hand then mold it around that strike a chord of memory to him.

“You have an ear for music,” he says, although Namjoon hardly plucks more than a few strings. He looks up at him, to tell him how exceedingly kind he is when Namjoon is unsure of his ability to hum a tune, but then man turns his face just so, stretching his neck, and then Namjoon smells chamomile.

His father used to tell him that you cannot smell chamomile, but Namjoon’s mother always agreed with her son when he insisted one could. It was a flower, of course it had a scent. They kept it in their home for tea, in jars that were transparent. Delicate, perhaps more nuanced than his father could ever fully appreciate, but the chamomile scent of this evening belongs to the musician hailing from Kim Seokjin’s arrival party, and for the first time, Namjoon wonders upon the subgender of another. He eyes the robes he wears and suspects his suspicions to be only the truth.

“Give me your name?” he asks. Perhaps it comes out more as a demand. Namjoon hopes not.

“Kim Taehyung.” He bows, but with the same sanguine and lovely grin. It does not reek of the kind of upbringing he is now sure Taehyung had.

“Ah, you are the sibling.”

“Of your intended, yes.” Taehyung looks away, straining his long neck more and more from the high neckline that must surely stifle him the same as other omegan company. Namjoon procures a fan.

In doing so, he fans the scent away from him, but it does not save him the curious looks from others in the room. “Do you have siblings?”

“No longer.” Namjoon smiles through the disappearing smile from Taehyung. Before any kind of solemn platitude may come, he adds, “So it is entirely on me to carry the family name.”

Taehyung’s eyebrows jump at that, smile back, but smaller, with ill ease. There is a comfort between them as he plucks at the instrument held in his arm more similar to a bow than a traditional harp. Sweat clings hair to the side of his face, but it does not seem to bother him greatly. “You make a grand match with my brother then.” The pluck to the harp goes into his belt, and then he leaves with a bow.

It is only much later when Taehyung departs with the rest of his party that Namjoon realizes the hour, and that Seokjin never returned. Come morning, he calls with a fresh arrangement of flowers and the tea he complimented the day before, but is sent away by a weary handmaiden. He sees no signs of any of that Kim party until two days after when they take a short picnic under the shade, Seokjin looking more than recovered and pretty in his pale colored hanbok.

Namjoon holds open an umbrella for an extra level of protection for him. “How attentive you are,” the omega remarks to him. Unsure of what to say, he is saved as Seokjin calls for Taehyung, drawing him near by his hand when within reach.

“He tells me you rescued him last night,” Seokjin says, with the most emotion Namjoon has yet seen from his betrothed. The omega siblings lean into each other, for today Taehyung wears a more casual hanbok than Seokjin, one that requires he wear a proper neck adornment to note and protect his sex.

“I only marvel that I did not turn you to stone from my fumbling musical inquiries.” Namjoon notes that Taehyung seems to prefer to wear shades of blue. It was blue upon reception, a dark indigo on chance meeting in the palace halls, and a lighter shade today that complimented Seokjin’s hue of pink. The embroidery on their sleeves the same; today, waves from the ocean, or great swirling designs that Namjoon could follow for hours.

Taehyung folds into their company at Seokjin’s invitation. “With a little practice, you could easily surpass my skills, hyung.”

“Hyung?” Seokjin asks, eyebrows close to his hairline. Taehyung smiles sweetly, squeezing his sibling’s arm before amicably strolling to leave them be. Namjoon steps closer to him to offer his arm. Seokjin’s scent is another soft floral, although sweeter than his sibling. When a bee flies closer to them, Namjoon can hardly blame it. Seokjin waves it away with a nonchalance, but it is later that Namjoon notices Taehyung attempting to sway a bee to land on the tip of his finger.

They end the day with a private dinner prepared for them outdoors where there is the most breeze, although attendants linger to fan the omega. The color in his cheeks remains and looks hardly natural if not surely lovely.

“You don’t eat much,” Namjoon notes when he arranges another bite to put on Seokjin’s plate.

“Forgive me, everything made here has been delicious.” He makes no other concessions though, nor does he attempt to stomach more.

Namjoon would like to ask if Seokjin expected their union. Did he accept? Or did his parents accept only?

Namjoon puts down the utensils to pick up a morsel by hand, leaning forward slowly, eyes on Seokjin’s face. He will not push it should Seokjin express any discomfort, but he accepts the food by hand.

Namjoon does not try for a second bite, and they end the meal with a chaste scenting, wrist to wrist. His mother calls upon him immediately after dinner, full of inquiry but few words for it. He has not been so under his parents’ thumb in years, but mating always calls for intervention, and she comes to collect.

“You will call for the run soon?” she asks, or rather commands. Namjoon cannot be sure which. He nods. “We look forward to celebrating with you and your mate near harvest, then.” She does not scent him, undoubtedly to leave the subtle trace of Seokjin on Namjoon intact. It matters little. It won’t last through the night.

In the morning, Namjoon wakes up, throat caught in a growl and a restlessness under his skin. The day is warm, of course, but it does not excuse him of curious eyes. His attendant politely asks if he should decline any forthcoming obligations, but Namjoon requests only to take his morning tea alone.

The lower gardens on his side of the palace are rarely shown to guests, which is why he becomes startled to find himself in company. “Oh, hyung.” Kim Taehyung stands from where he sits near the pond. “Your fever has come for you?”

He asks at the same time as he reaches for him. Namjoon swelters, the scent of chamomile thicker than any could imagine. “Was it my sibling?” Taehyung teases. “His scent so sweet?” He laughs, but Namjoon mumbles that he has become lightheaded, and suddenly it is a race to see him seated.

The younger omega crouches before him. “Please accept my apologies. I only tease in jest. Should I fetch someone?”

“No.” Here, Namjoon notes that the kind of ornamental collar Taehyung dons differs from Seokjin as well. “Do you ever wear jewels on your neck?” Blame it on his fever, he reaches to touch the silk fabric. They both flush when his hand lingers on his neck.

“I prefer to be able to move as much as possible.” Taehyung ducks into the safety of the collar on his robe as much as possible. Namjoon will throw himself in the water for forgiveness and respite.

“Not because you are disallowed fine jewelry?”

Taehyung’s natural grin comes back out. “Hyung would love to personally gift me a collar wardrobe.” It makes it easier to breathe hearing that his soon to be mate is not so determined by familial hierarchy, then.

“Forgive my impertinence. I should have stayed in my own quarters,” Namjoon says, blood as thick as porridge, and yet, he dare not move away. Taehyung’s eyelashes flutter, and the ends of his hair stick to his nape from the early morning. Namjoon longs for chamomile tea, thick with honey at the bottom. They should not be together, not because neither is allowed companionship, but Namjoon’s coming fever can no longer be denied.

“It is only natural,” Taehyung replies quietly. His hand slips further out from the sleeve of his robe, and surely, it is warm, but he reaches for the water for no other reason than to skim across it, exposing more and more of his bare arm. Namjoon can hardly stand to look at it, it is safer to look at the reflection in the water. It reminds him something of a painted star in the night sky.

Namjoon has never spoken of his rut to anyone outside an attendant or immediate family member. He never wanted to touch another for it either.

Taehyung’s hair falls from his shoulder to his front, and Namjoon can perfectly imagine the buds under that strand, falling perfectly over the nipple. He imagines a figure with their robe open and exposing their chest, hair completely undone and free, and tells himself to imagine Seokjin’s face. It should not be difficult if not for the fact they know each other hardly at all.

The omega before him leans forward to dip his fingers in and flick water at him. Namjoon sputters in shock, then laughs at the ridiculousness. He digs his hand in only to hesitate. It is Taehyung’s cocked eyebrow and mischievous grin that encourages him.

They flick water at each other with laughter until a throat is cleared. “Your highness.” Taehyung dives into a flustered bow before Jimin, Namjoon following suit.

“If you would like to use the pools, there are some more privately located,” he says to Taehyung, eyeing the front of his damp robes and then Namjoon. His grin disappears and his eyes enlarge.

Namjoon will rue the day. “Your highness -”

“What are you doing here? Off to your rooms!” It is the first time he has ever seen the crown prince flustered, or genuinely angry. “Do you wish to showcase your desire to the entire kingdom?”

Namjoon falls to the ground, forehead meeting stone still cool from morning. “May I beg your forgiveness?”

“It is not my forgiveness you need!” Jimin claps his hands at him until Namjoon flees, and from the staircase on the other end of the garden, he hears Jimin’s sudden laughter and Taehyung’s deeper voice.

Namjoon falls away into the next few days; the court physician visits him on the second day, frowning as he always does when he’s with Namjoon. “I don’t understand why you have not used anything to assist the fever,” Hoseok remarks. “I provided you with custom furnishings even to accommodate your knot size.”

Let it be known that Namjoon never asked for any such thing, rather it was insisted upon by Hoseok's research partner who observed Namjoon during his presentation despite not being much older in years than he. Min Yoongi was a beta with a known interest in knots. He and Hoseok had something of a reputation, but in part curried by Jimin’s favor, they were kept on staff.

“I used them.” Namjoon’s fever eats him up so there is no room for modesty any longer. Blindly, he searches for the vase-like sculpture used to knot into; his attendant only just cleaned it out before Hoseok’s arrival.

Hoseok takes it from his hand and sniffs it. Namjoon groans. “Not enough,” Hoseok deduces. “Now tell me, when will you begin mating rites?”

“Are you asking as my physician or court gossip?”

Hoseok pinches him for that, and Namjoon growls. Then Hoseok swats at the back of his head. “Next time, I will send Yoongi hyung. Let him loose on your knot.”

He sees them both upon return to police society; Namjoon makes his apologies to the visitors, Seokjin and his dam both flushed despite surely already being told that immediately after Seokjin’s arrival, Namjoon went into a rut. They don’t even know that it’s been more than a year since his last one, information that he keeps to himself, or Yoongi keeps for him until he reminds Namjoon later in private.

In the hall, the visiting Kim family plays music for them and Seokjin alternates between singing and his wolgeum. “What an exceptional voice,” many remark. “To match his exceptional beauty, hm?” the crown prince says, between Namjoon and the grand prince. Jeongguk sits closer than any other with eyes that remind Namjoon of courtyard gossip from when they were younger. It was well said that the grand prince could not hide his simplest desires nor his heart’s truest wishes, they were known all the same as foretold in those big eyes.

“None could match your beauty, your highness.” A reply that comes from all sides, even Namjoon’s own lips, although he knows Jimin well enough to understand he cares little for niceties. The gentle fanning on him from behind barely moves a hair out of perfect place.

Jeongguk, without moving a single muscle from otherwise pristine posture, reaches over with one hand to flick at his sibling. Jimin seizes the hand with the speed of a viper. “Wouldn’t you agree, Ggukie? Won’t you comment on how fair Kim Seokjin looks this evening?”

Strangely, Namjoon knows less of the grand prince than he does their crown prince, but the easy affection between them could not be more apparent to even the most casual eye. He might be able to boast that he once shared one of the most prestigious tutors in the country with his majesty, but Namjoon cannot claim any of Jeongguk’s proficiencies in national athleticism or military precision. Unfortunately, Hoseok’s sire deemed Namjoon unfit to make any coordinated effort into feats of physical strength after an archery lesson gone awry. Fortunately, there were no royal court members in the vicinity at that time.

Jeongguk’s arm drops and he goes silent. His expression might be mistaken for anger most of the time if not for some of their shared history; Namjoon understands the alpha to be shy and quiet now, especially in the wake of his older sibling’s pointed jest.

Jimin extends a hand. “Take me to the younger Kim omega,” he says to Namjoon, so they leave Jeongguk and their younger siblings.

This evening, Taehyung’s attire is so dark that it could be the night sky. “You have a constellation across your face,” Namjoon says to him as they exchange their bows. Taehyung looks surprised only for a second, musical instrument in hand until Namjoon takes it for him.

“Never mistake him for anything less than a tender hearted poet,” Jimin remarks from the side of his mouth.

“If you can build streets I suppose you must be able to bridge words,” Taehyung replies, voice softer in present company but no less impactful.

For a moment, Namjoon feels lightheaded, like his fever returned or never ended. It is only because Taehyung refuses to look up that Namjoon can recall they are not the only two people in the room. He thinks, perhaps if that were true, Taehyung would look at him and see Namjoon.

Jimin excuses himself, no doubt on the hunt for his greatest love, the newest or loosest lips to set upon gossip, so they are truly alone in a room full of others. Taehyung takes back the harp and plucks at it idly while they watch the company before them. “Will you tell me about them?” Taehyung asks, inclining his head towards one mated couple, the minister of war and his beta.

“Caused an uproar,” Namjoon replies. “Refused to mate anyone else, even if they would not have heirs.”

“Biological heirs.”

Namjoon smiles. “Precisely. They have two children now.”

“Although I certainly wonder by what means a man of war might obtain children,” Taehyung says so quietly and forlornly that Namjoon turns his back to the room to look at him, seizing his hand.

The omega jerks to look up at him, mouth parting. Namjoon squeezes, then lets go. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean -”

Taehyung takes to squeeze back. Their wrists are sealed together long enough that when he lets go, Namjoon will carry him on his skin if he does not immediately perspire through it.

“I know what you meant, and I think you know what I mean too,” Taehyung says, then his eyes look at something over his shoulder. When Namjoon turns, he sees Seokjin standing alone, watching them. His face remains poised and beautiful, but rather than meet Namjoon’s gaze, he turns to a foreign minister to reply to some conversation.

The next day they begin their tour of the city, a request made by Seokjin to see some of the temples and pagodas. Namjoon arranged it before his fever after Seokjin’s passing mention of an interest in them, and it is an easy excuse for them to have time together under the still watchful chaperones and attendants. “This one is a favorite of mine,” Namjoon remarks as he helps Seokjin climb the stairs.

“Of course, it has the royal coloring,” Seokjin remarks of the jade roofs. He carries his own jiusan today despite Namjoon’s offers, and if he were a painter, Namjoon would certainly aim to render a likeness of him, standing on the steps in front of this pagoda. Today, it is a butterfly that greets him, landing on one shoulder and fluttering its wings. Seokjin ignores it, either out of upbringing or disinterest, Namjoon wonders.

He accepts Namjoon’s arm when offered on the way down, the day drawing long and his clothing pulled up tight with fabric pulled through the ornate collar around his neck, as is the fashion of the court. Right under his jawbone, Namjoon sees this pulse thud.

“Are you feeling well? Perhaps we should continue another day.”

“Another day we’ll be mated. Please.” Seokjin smiles at him. “Let us enjoy this now, as we are.”

He takes his hesitancy for something more. “Please. What an accommodating mate you will make.” This almost makes Namjoon smile, but it works the trick. He helps Seokjin into the palanquin and they travel on as the day grows warmer yet. Seokjin momentarily covers his nose standing under the shade of the next temple, so Namjoon understands he prespires enough that his scent may be bothersome.

The later hour does not suit Seokjin. Visibly, he trembles under the strain of the sun. “I must insist.” Namjoon no only offers his arm rather than holds him up.

Seokjin’s hand catches his where it uselessly hovers. “What does your excellency think of nature bound instincts?” he asks, in such a hurried tone that Namjoon stands straighter to look at their shared company of attendants. It is not such a delicate topic, but unexpected, particularly for an omega born to a family where arranged mating was only the expectation.

“Instincts pertaining to what, my lord?” Namjoon steadies him best as he can. Seated on the steps in front of the temple is not the best place for them. Namjoon does not fear the common man so much as he worries for the Kim family reputation.

“The stories of your intellect are what drew my family in,” Seokjin replies, lips thin. “Do not play coy.”

The frankness of such a comment blinds Namjoon momentarily. Unsure of what to say, he stares long enough at Seokjin’s face that the red creeping up his neck from under the collar of his clothing and collar of his gender could be tenderly traced.

“I think people feel instinctual pulls near daily,” Namjoon replies steadily. “For everything. What do you call your will to heat, or drink, after all?”

Seokjin meets his gaze, lips pulling.

“Perhaps I am not as accommodating as you hoped, then.”

Seokjin looks away to the palanquin. “Perhaps it is not me who calls you to be so.” He stands before Namjoon can reply or aid him. Seokjin sways as he descends the steps.

Returned safely behind court walls, Namjoon allows space between them to observe his omega betrothed. It would matter not if he wished to stay close, because no sooner than the covered vehicle stops does the sudden arrival on foot of the grand prince occur.

Jeongguk bows to Seokjin, and Seokjin, already flustered by the heat of the day, looks near faint once more.

“What is the arm of a lowly to-be minister in comparison?” he ponders to himself, mostly, although Yoongi, in the court for some task, blinks heavily as he swivels his head back and forth. Jeongguk, not only supporting half of Seokjin, so boldly reaches for his face that Yoongi gasps, and looking rather embarrassed, pulls Namjoon away with him.

“Does he think himself a physician now?” he remarks. “What, the back of his hand has the training to detect any illness that might become an omega?”

His old friend at least makes him laugh, but the question of instincts remains though their conversation for it long ended. It carries Namjoon through the evening into his quarters where he looks over his book collection. The deep blue dye of a cover calls to him, and the words inside quell something he cannot name.

No one from the Kim party accepts visitors the following day, although an attendant assures Namjoon that Seokjin is merely resting. The feeling of unease from the day prior returns, and with it, Namjoon makes himself available in the upper court rooms in case he were to catch sight of certain lodgers, but to no avail.

“Are your suspicions aroused?” Hoseok asks. Namjoon found the physician on his way back from Seokjin’s rooms.

“And what might you say I should be suspicious of?”

Hoseok does not answer, but he stops in his tracks to face him for a moment before shaking his head and murmuring away.

Seokjin takes dinner in the general company of a hall full of people, Namjoon included, that evening, but says little, hands drawn to himself while he gazes steadfastly into his lap. Namjoon prepares a second plate for him of different offerings, but his betrothed declines it the same as the first plate.

“I worry for you,” he says quietly, through the side of his mouth. Seokjin’s face disappears entirely into his chest.

“For me or for duty?”

Namjoon risks taking his hand briefly to touch together their wrists; to do so, he must weasel his hand down into the sleeve of the omega’s ornate dressings. Between two in their situation, it is not scandal, but a delighted gasp from the crown prince sounds at the same time as a low growl from the grand prince. That by itself could only be heard by few, and they are fortunate for who those ears belong to lest gossip warm their departure from the hall, but not even the crown prince would casually let slip that his own royal brother growled.

When Namjoon escorts Seokjin back to his room at the end of the night, he takes one side while Taehyung supports the other. “You have many admirers in court,” Namjoon comments. Taehyung’s eyes find his, and his hands cautiously take his brother from Namjoon to cross the thresholds of the outer room.

He left the table without eating a single thing.

“Thank you for your help.” Taehyung closes the outer sliding doors quietly, footsteps a harmonious welcome to his ear. Namjoon will not walk back alone.

“Where is your blue today?” Namjoon asks, for he wears green this night. The other tilts his head at Namjoon with an accessing look before stepping closer, untying the front of his outermost robe.

Namjoon steps away, averting his eyes, but Taehyung waits for him to look up. Underneath, there are embroidered birds in deep blue across the green, for no one’s eyes but his own, and now, Namjoon.

“My family called my brother the song bird and I the free bird while we were still children.” Taehyung steps closer, close enough they share body heat. “I sewed them myself, picked out exactly where they’d fly.”

If Namjoon were a different man, he would follow impulse to trace that flight, but he is the sort of alpha who stands by quietly. Taehyung reties his garb, then takes his hand.

“Will you sing? Rather than play your instrument?” He had previously heard Taehyung singing to himself, his voice a surprise to Namjoon, but he’d like to hear it and not overhear it.

“No, I want to catch fireflies.” Taehyung lets go of his hand to break from their returning path to everyone they left, and helpless, Namjoon must follow.

“It would be better to look for them near the trees,” he comments.

“But it will be more magical to see them in the water’s reflection!” Taehyung removes his light shoes to run more easily. Namjoon can only wonder if chasing insects is what Taehyung would do if he had no other responsibilities. Would he even play an instrument? Or sew? If he had the option to eschew omegan sensibilities, what would he do?

The lit lanterns are the only thing aglow near water’s edge, but it doesn’t stop Taehyung from stepping up onto the narrow lip, hips swaying to keep his balance. Namjoon wonders if he has ever danced before.

Taehyung’s feet are wet and bare when he comes down. Namjoon isn’t sure he’s ever seen the bare feet of an omega since childhood.

In following days, despite Seokjin’s limited appearances, both of his parents push for Namjoon to instigate the run. While an acquaintance period is allowed for them in their circumstances, his mother insists it does not do well to let it linger, and he supposes she is right. He feels a current in the late summer air, something so thick and tangible on his skin that his bones feel heavier.

“Your canines.” Yoongi happily looks at his mouth. “Your canines are dropping in.” He pats at his cheeks with a smile, like Namjoon is his prized stud at the fair.

Namjoon feels them with the tip of his tongue as the day grows on and he exits to the high gardens. He finds Seokjin there after his absence in the morning, and in the presence of none other than the grand prince. Seokjin sits with perfect posture, attentive if not flushed in the heat, and Jeongguk reclines on his side, facing only Namjoon’s betrothed.

He feeds Seokjin rice cakes, pastel colored ones that match the omega’s attire. Namjoon has no need to be any closer to know there would be flowers stamped to the tops of them to match the roses sewn into the his sleeves. Near them, their crown prince lounges in similar fashion while picking through fresh fruit, eyes cast between Namjoon and his own brother.

“He learned of my sibling’s fondness for anything chewy,” Taehyung remarks, appearing from nowhere at his side. Namjoon notes that Taehyung does not look surprised nor alarmed at Jeongguk’s nearness to his intended.

“I am pleased to see him eating,” Namjoon replies.

Jeongguk’s fingers pull apart one rice cake to feed it to Seokjin. His fingers linger in the space between them while Seokjin chews, cheeks pink.

One of the minister’s mates makes an audible noise, but a pointed look from Jimin quiets her. His mother is not there, fortunately, but Namjoon’s father is. He always takes his morning tea anywhere he might be seen, and this morning, he sees more than is seen. Namjoon has no doubt his mother will soon call on him.

“You should eat as well.” Taehyung draws his attention away with a small tug at the back of one sleeve. Namjoon glances at him. Is it a look of pity on his face? “You look handsome deep in thought, but just as handsome with your cheeks full.”

Struck speechless, Namjoon does not recall being given the plate, nor does he think about a single thing off it that he eats. There are no decadent rice cakes for breakfast, but Taehyung whisks together his tea and bows as he presents it. For a time, he forgets about anyone else, including Seokjin whose eyes find his when he excuses himself.

It isn’t the first time someone has called him handsome. Did Seokjin call him such? Namjoon forgets. Surely he told the omega how beautiful he is, or did he completely forget his manners and duty all in one? He reflects that perhaps their limited closeness is none other than his own fault, for while Seokjin has never acted cold towards him, Namjoon cannot be sure he detects warmth either.

It is Jeongguk who takes Seokjin down to dinner. Namjoon arrived only a few minutes too late, the lingering scent of jasmine giving them away. “I’m sorry,” Taehyung apologizes, coming out of the neighboring room and closing the doors behind him. His feet are hardly tucked into their shoes. “He is a prince. He could not refuse.”

“No.” Namjoon smiles. “Why would he?”

That evening meal not only marks a feast, a pointed commentary on the alphas in the room who are running this season to call for the start, but also, a packed theatre of spectators who watch the deliberatism of their second prince.

Namjoon sits apart from their majesties, but Seokjin, with them. “He looks like he belongs up there.” Taehyung does not reply, but one of his younger siblings throws herself into his lap, and Taehyung hushes her despite the general din of the hall, the whispers, both hushed and not.

“Hyung.”

Namjoon breathes in chamomile, the epitome of comfort. When the little girl whirls away, Namjoon focuses on Taehyung’s empty hands and wonders if his feet are properly shoed. A beauty mark rests between two fingers on his left hand. Already, the mark under the omega’s eye captures his attention. There are few places for him to notice such delicacies of another, they are all hidden away from each other under clothing and proprietary. Taehyung has given him much, perhaps too much.

“What do you think of instincts?” Namjoon asks him in a conspiratory whisper. He thinks of Seokjin asking him, and how Seokjin never said a word of his own feelings on the matter. Perhaps Taehyung will shed illumination of how his betrothed might feel.

“Hyung!” With a flourish, Taehyung flips out a fan and wafts air over himself. His sticky hair does not move from his nape, disappearing into the high collar, tucked in like every other beauty mark he’ll never see.

He can’t recall noticing any on Seokjin.

“Didn’t you know?” Taehyung chuckles lowly. “Only alphas are allowed instincts. Anything else that anyone could possibly feel is merely hysteria.”

It is a hushed sentiment Namjoon has heard before from few others brave enough to say it in front of an alpha, but it is neither quiet acceptance nor accepted logic that he hears on this omega’s lips.

“My father told me you couldn’t smell chamomile.”

Taehyung’s lips look puzzled, then slowly grin. He looks down and away from him, a flush to his cheeks. Seokjin flushes from the outside of his face inwards, but Taehyung, from the inside out.

With full bellies, his companion for the evening pulls from his side the pluck for his missing harp and strums it with one finger. “You wish to be the minister of public works.”

Namjoon hums because his tongue feels heavy, his fingers tremble. They’ve shared the same air for too long. “It would give my life meaning to work on a great equalizer.”

“And the walls around this palace are a great equalizer?”

“I make few excuses for them, but some things,” he glances up, “are kept safer.”

Taehyung stares back. Even if it is not the right response, it is an honest one. His fan remains at an angle, still in the air, and the still air cannot hide a single thing.

Namjoon feels it on his teeth.

Their separation is a quiet one. “I do not think we should-” Taehyung looks unsure about leaving with him. Namjoon understands, bowing his head. It is only then that he realizes Seokjin is there, waiting on him.

“Were you able to stomach anything?” Anything other than rice cakes or crushed ice sweetened with ripe fruit, he means.

Seokjin looks carefully. “I found that I had to.”

“Of course. His highness would hardly allow you to go without.” The barely there grip on Namjoon’s arm ceases to be at all, and Seokjin stops.

“We do not have the luxury of choice.”

“And what of instincts?” Namjoon replies, voice strained in a way that surprises himself. Seokjin smells like sweet fruit. He smells like sweetness whether fed by hand or ill in bed. “Do you or do you not abide by them the same as any other creature?”

The face of his betrothed shutters, closing off without moving a muscle. It is a skill that those of background and expectation, people without the luxury of choice as Seokjin surmised, gain if they are fortunate enough. Seokjin makes it look effortless.

“I wonder why you continue to visit my quarters, your excellency,” he says, words quiet. Chilled. “For I make no mistake in thinking it is your instincts that compel you to I.”

“Or I to you.”

They part ways a little before the hall that runs to Seokjin’s quarters. On his part, the omega does not look at him but remains still enough for Namjoon to bow with a kiss to the back of his hand. Seokjin neither reacts or reciprocates in any custom.

It is perhaps foreseeable that he is too unwell to take visitors or leave his rooms the following day. Namjoon does not need the warning from Hoseok, nor the exemplary look from his mother while he attempts to take his breakfast.

Taehyung flits into the hall like the nervous sparrow Namjoon caught in his room mere weeks ago. He never used a net, only his bare hands, and outside, wide open to the sky, he wondered if he hurt the poor thing when he sat in his palms a moment too long when opened. Namjoon hopes to do no harm when he corners Taehyung.

“I did not mean to offend anyone.” He would lie himself prostrate across the floor in front of their audience if he thought it would help, but never have either Taehyung or he named anything between them. There are no letters or even inconsequential notes. Everything between them was merely a glance or the fleeting touch of hand.

Taehyung lowers his hands and looks up. “You could not offend me should you try.” As early the hour, it is sticky, and rain will soon come. Taehyung’s cheeks are golden and his eyes warmer than the sun at high noon.

“I am sorry then that I took too much of your attention.”

“Hyung.”

He is one of the few who calls him such. Namjoon has few same aged peers, and the closest among them he cannot call a friend for the sake of impropriety. Hearing an informality from someone he wishes he could be informal with will be enough. It has to be enough.

“I hope my intended feels better soon.” Namjoon bows his head, stepping backwards to release him.

“Namjoon.” He says it softly enough none other will hear. Namjoon would catch that word and hang it as a chime for the wind if he could hear it ring over and over again. “Namjoon-ah.”

As is, it is a thing he can carry.

What is the nature of instincts? Is it instinct to want the thing he can’t have? Some might argue. Is it instinctual to fight against the expectation set before him? How genuine can any circumstance be, Namjoon wonders. How much can he really know that he wants a person, just as they are for no other reason?

Kim Namjoon will mate Kim Seokjin as orchestrated for them by their families and blessed by the upper courts. That afternoon he informs his mother he is ready to call for the run to begin. Elated, she takes him by hand into her room. “Yil’s alpha son will also be participating in this run. That’s how we know the places in this palace are full up. Can you imagine? And some of the omegas that are the background players, have you seen them?”

Namjoon wonders - will Taehyung be there on the day? Will he line up amongst the omegas offered to able alphas?

In the palace, it is only a dance. Those in arrangements mate, and the other eligible alphas and omegas support in the background to pay a homage to their ancestors, to the more barbaric mating runs when any alpha could claim any omega they caught. In other places, there is no such elaborate ruse; couples mate by other ceremony. Some might say, runs are instinctual.

In a bid to do one thing on his own, Namjoon intends to deliver a gift to his betrothed that night, wrapped in silk to weave into their nest one day.

He does not make it to the door.

The passage to Seokjin’s rooms is open. From afar, Namjoon can see that they are open, and it isn’t the full bright of the lanterns lit inside despite the late hour that alerts him, nor the noise. The voices and labored breathing are, after all, quiet. No, it is the air itself, a sickening smell, the scent that lingered in the quarters of his sister after she passed and longer yet on his parents.

There is no doubt where it comes from, but the sight of Seokjin sighting upright, partially undressed so his robes are completely pulled down to his waist, and behind him, Hoseok, an alpha, using his bare hands to press at his spine, still shocks Namjoon deeply to a primitive core.

There is a pitiful cry when Hoseok touches the top of his spine, close to the main scent gland where he will be bitten and claimed, a choked whine that breaks way to a cough. Even from afar, Namjoon sees easily how Seokjin trembles, pure quaking that might move the earth beneath him.

“What’s wrong?” Namjoon asks. The night is so quiet there. Anyone could hear if they were nearby. “You are more ill than you let on. What is it?”

Hoseok sits back with a deferring nod. He will not speak for Seokjin, Namjoon realizes, but Seokjin remains silent, chest heaving, staring back at him. Namjoon averts his eyes from his nudity, but he needs to know. He thinks, perhaps, he is owed some knowledge of his future.

“You arrived ill.”

“It is not contagious, do not fret. I have not brought plague to your palace.” Seokjin pulls his robe on one shoulder slowly, then the other shoulder. Just this tires him.

“Then you have been sick for some time.”

“All my life.” Seokjin laughs, but his breathing stutters. He is unable to laugh without losing his breath.

“You entered into this arrangement under false pretenses then.” It would be one of the first stipulations his parents arranged for - a mate of good health and good position to bear children. Seokjin does not deny it, nor does he finish tying up his robe, perhaps it fatigues him too greatly. He sways where he sits like a reed, but there is nothing. No wind, hardly any air. All this time in their brief courtship, the afternoons Seokjin was too ill to see him, it was not merely the heat or some passing fatigue.

“So you understand then,” he says. He sounds neither remorseful nor upset.

“I believe I understand many things, suddenly.” Namjoon lowers himself to the floor, on the same level as Seokjin.

“Namjoon-ah,” Hoseok calls quietly. He cannot be sure which of them his friend and physician wishes to defend.

“You came here to be mated to someone whose profession would care for you,” Namjoon says. He gestures to Hoseok. “Provide you with a physician.”

Seokjin’s face colors. Some of the splotchy red from his cheeks appears on his neck too, likely further along his body. “Do not worry yourself excessively,” he says, voice the coldest he’s yet heard. “More than likely, I will not live long enough for you to entirely hate me.”

Namjoon reels back, glancing at Hoseok who watches Seokjin with an open mouth. “Seokjin-ssi -” His voice remains placating when Namjoon cannot.

“Did you not agree with my original physician? That my lifespan is likely to be reduced?” Seated in their den of confession and lack of decorum, Seokjin angrily wretches the ribbon behind his head so his hair comes unspooled as well. Even mated, some omegas would not allow any but their attendants to see them like this, let alone a doctor or an unmated alpha. “I will not cry over it, nor will I allow those who cannot possibly understand the position of my family or I to judge us.”

He lets Namjoon see him like this as if to taunt him, because Namjoon cannot do anything about their circumstances. They will mate, but any last hope for a future in which they might fall in love buries itself deep inground. Seokjin’s ire is great. Namjoon does not do himself the injustice to believe it is entirely his fault.

“You will not bear children,” he says, guessing. Seokjin does not verbally reply, instead pursing his lips and turning his back to him. “It is alright not to bear me any children, but you could not stand to bear him no children.”

The turn of Hoseok’s head is so sharp that it creates a current in the room.

“Watch your tongue.” Seokjin’s eyes shimmer in the scant moment of time Namjoon can see them. The omega wobbles to a stand, using clumsy hands to push himself up.

“The royal family cannot continue without heirs, even if he is not first in line-”

“I said watch your tongue!” Seokjin hisses, falling back to his knees with a painful thud that shakes the walls. Hoseok hastens to his side.

“To bed with you!” he says. He shoots daggers at Namjoon with his gaze. “You cannot work yourself up like this.”

“But you would deny my family any potential lineage.” Namjoon does not think his voice betrays a single emotion, even if all involved understand his emotion perfectly well.

“Namjoon.” Hoseok warns him easily enough with a look, he does not need to call him as such. The physician assists Seokjin, pulling him towards the bed, but Seokjin rises to his full height over Namjoon, seated on the ground.

The omega pushes Hoseok away despite the visible tremor of his legs. “He cannot mate me,” Seokjin says. He could claim his lips tremble for the same reason as his legs, but Namjoon would not believe him. “Please. Forgive me, and allow me to try and love you as best I can with what time I have.”

“With what time you have, you ought to love exactly who you want.”

“I know there is another you would rather have as well,” Seokjin says, and the shock of how easily he says it stuns Namjoon still.

Namjoon would not allow himself to think of it, let alone dwell on it long enough to let it become a dream, a fantasy wild enough to haunt his waking thoughts. “I don’t know what-”

“I told you before,” Seokjin hisses through clenched teeth. As distant as he feels from Seokjin, Namjoon feels the instinct to reach for the omega, support him where he barely stands on his own. “You cannot act so foolish with me.”

They stand at an impasse until Namjoon tells him, “I’ll call to start the run tomorrow.”

“Perfect.” Seokjin wobbles enough that Hoseok lunges to grab him. “I’ll just - I’ll rest now.”

The scent of rotting fruit pierces through the room, his skin.

“I have to pretend to give you a chase, don’t I?” The words sound as hollow as they feel. Seokjin can hardly stand, he will not be able to run.

“You’ll have to act interested, yes,” Namjoon says to himself, for they are gone, disappeared into the innermost room where Seokjin would have some form of a bed, perhaps even a nest. How strange it is to think that his parents, for his mating gift, prepared a room for them somewhere in these halls, unknown to even Namjoon. His omegan mother prepares a nest for her only child to consummate their bond and by extension, she shows her favor of the mating by allowing them such a favor.

He steps back out into the immediate hall leading to the larger and more traversed passages of this building and finds none other than their grand prince. “Your majesty.” Namjoon bows. He and Jeongguk do not have the same jabbing friendship as he maintains with his crown prince despite the previous years of shared tutelage at times.

On his part, Jeongguk does nothing to acknowledge Namjoon, his presence coming out of the private rooms of an unmated omega, intended or not, and on Namjoon’s part, he does not question why the grand prince is there either.

“This is the reason he refuses me,” Jeongguk says quietly. There is no chance of Seokjin overhearing where he is now, but it appears that Jeongguk heard every word, or at least, the most important ones, perfectly well when they were just inside.

“It was never for my sake,” Namjoon replies, unsure if Jeongguk can hear them or rationalize them. He does not hold disdain for Seokjin; it is of no use to either of them when they will enter upon their mating regardless of their personal interest in each other. It was always that way, and just because Namjoon bore the unfortunate circumstance of being there at the precise moment that his betrothed fell in love with someone else, it doesn’t mean a thing. It can’t mean a thing. To expect that either party would enter into such an union completely unblemished of previous interest is absurd.

So Namjoon does not hold grudge. Not toward Seokjin, nor towards Jeongguk. Instincts, some might call them. He knows Seokjin would call it so, whether or not he believes it. To Namjoon, instincts are a convenient excuse. Why disallow oneself from admitting the most miraculous truth of them all, that love at first sight is just as natural as taking one’s first breath?

If he allows himself the time, he might feel pity for them both, but Namjoon walks to the stairs of their king with the comfort of an understanding. As Seokjin pleaded, they will do their best to love each other, no matter the circumstances.

He can do that.

If the alpha king knows anything of his second son’s interest in the omega he is about to give chase, he does nothing but bestow his blessings on Namjoon, lighting the torch that he carries out of the grand hall to the temple where attendants will continue to light the path, one at a time, to where they will begin their run the following day.

“Namjoon.” His name, whispered, like a chime. Namjoon recognizes the voice easily now, and hopes to forget.

“Tae-yah.” Why allow himself this? Namjoon stands below the steps of the temple, the fire lit behind them.

“Hyung.” His voice sounds strained, and this night, the winds are violent enough to rip at his attire, his hair coming undone. “I-”

“Best not to say it.” Namjoon may be committed, he may be sure of his conviction to duty, but he is not a masochist.

“Won’t you listen to me?” Taehyung cries out in the dark, following Namjoon down the stone path. There, the gardens are well tended, but everything is kept low to the ground. There is nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape the sweltering heat of summer and the flames roar to line down the path, following their very footsteps.

“It would be easier to not.”

“That doesn’t make it easier!” Taehyung cries, and the pain of it forces Namjoon to turn and confront him. “It does not make it easier for me to always wonder.”

Namjoon stands still for the other to catch him. Taehyung’s lip wobbles as he looks at Namjoon, his arms rising and falling from his side. “I would rather know my feelings are reciprocated. I want to know it wasn’t just me. I didn’t dream it all up in my head.”

He can’t stand it. Namjoon gently takes him into his arms, but one hand ends up on the back of the omega’s neck all the same. “You know how I feel for you. I did not think I had to say it.”

Taehyung’s eyes search his face, his lips. “But you do. I need you to. There is too much to a look, but not enough to remember.”

Namjoon slides his hand from his neck to Taehyung’s chin. “I would kiss you now, if I could.”

“If you were brave enough.”

Namjoon smiles. “I am not, though.”

The set of his eyes should forewarn him. “But I am,” Taehyung says, sliding onto his toes and rocking up into Namjoon so their lips meet. “I will haunt you always,” he says when they part, and like a great mirage, Taehyung disappears into the windswept night before Namjoon’s very eyes.

He might be able to forget the entire thing, indeed if he were to lie his head down to sleep, he might wake up sure it was all a dream. Come morning, Namjoon follows his alpha parent to the bathhouse where he is scrubbed clean of skin and dirt alike, so red and raw that he flinches in steam let alone the hottest water he’s ever felt.

There is no escaping the heat all day long. In the afternoon, he emerges to bright sunny weather and a banquet feast for the alphas who will participate in the run that night. Although one alpha initiates a mating run, any eligible alpha or omega may participate, and in the palace, it is always arranged so that there will be a spectacle of choice even if there is not. Namjoon sits among five other alphas, almost none known to him save the one alpha daughter of his mother’s friend. He knows she is not expected to claim anyone, however he wonders if she wishes she could. He wonders if she will pin someone to the ground just for the sport of it.

It is not even his own first experience in a run; Namjoon was called upon before as an unmated alpha to stand in support of more than one other in court. He occupied the time by exploring areas that he rarely saw at night, giving a wide berth to everyone else, including the omegas who by and large, clustered together to gossip about the couple in question, namely how long they would make them wait in the then cold weather while they chased each other.

His experiences were all very ordinary.

It is only when his parents robe him and say goodbye at the pathway to the temple that Namjoon realizes his own run will not be ordinary at all.

He stands on the steps of the temple amongst the other alphas from the feast, but they are joined by another, a male alpha from outside court whose parents made a fortune from mining. His father works with the alpha mother closely, part of the nature of his own mother’s spurn for the family no doubt. There was no way for him to know who all could answer the call to come, but long past are the days when alphas show up without express invite.

They all quiet at a sudden arrival.

Up the path comes Jeongguk, secondborn and grand prince of the court, marching towards them and for a brief, insipid moment, Namjoon cannot fathom why, but then he takes in the open robe over a barrel chest and bare feet. Jeongguk climbs the stairs, his face perfectly smooth of any worry in the world, to stand beside Namjoon and without waiting for any other, disrobes immediately.

Around him, the others nervously but silently glance at each other. This was not part of the plan. This courts scandal. A prince should not stand among them. “Who -” one of them dares to whisper, but this mating run was called for one couple. Even if no rumor of the prince’s interest had spread, any could deduce who the alpha has come for. After all, just like the other alphas are superficial participants, so is every other omega.

The procession of omegas along the path is slow, a line up with everyone of them blindfolded with a veil that covers their entire body that ends at their ankles. Namjoon is surprised that Seokjin, at the front of the procession, cannot scent him out yet, their guest, their interloper. In the palace, omegas are blindfolded and told to find their alpha suitors first by scent alone, proving themselves to be worthy of a good run. If they can find alphas by scent alone, then they have demonstrated the skill necessary to track and evade a worthy alpha mate during a run. It is the way they accept the challenge before them.

Perhaps - if anything can be told by the shortening of Seokjin’s step, the hesitancy between one footfall and the next - perhaps he is well aware of what awaits him. Who awaits him.

Behind him, the omegas fold left and right around Seokjin, centering him silently, their scents just as sweltering in the night as they line up across from the alphas. Namjoon can pick out the sweetness of Seokjin, like a cherry tree in bloom. He wonders what they did to enhance it, to make it smell so robust and full of health, but more than anything, when he inhales as deeply as he can, all he finds is chamomile.

He turns his head to the side where he stands. Taehyung, hands clasped together and head bowed down. Ornamental to the ceremony, others would say, but as the temple attendants walk down the line from both sides, unveiling one omega after another and pulling the blindfolds as they go, their eyes meet. Taehyung has located him perfectly well for the moment they pulled his blindfold.

Taehyung’s eyes move from Namjoon to Jeongguk beside him. Namjoon’s eyes roam Taehyung.

A sharp gasp draws his attention to the omega in front of him. From a distance, the trembling in Seokjin’s body appears so great that Namjoon can make out individual locks of hair shaking around his face. He isn’t looking at him, of course. He does, eventually, glance at Namjoon, and what can he do? What is Namjoon supposed to do now?

“Forgive me,” Jeongguk requests of him, although he does not turn to meet his eyes to say so. “I hope you understand this is nothing against you.”

Namjoon promised Seokjin he would keep the promises made between them and their families; now a direct challenge threatens their understanding. “No matter the outcome, I would not hold you more responsible for your feelings than anyone else’s, your highness.”

Jeongguk laughs.

“Then may we give chase and let the omega decide who he will allow to catch him.” Jeongguk effectively wishes to let the best alpha win, and yet, there has never been a contest between them.

What does he do?

To not earnestly chase Seokjin would be disloyalty to the omega, their families, and beyond that, even the crown state. Jeongguk is not meant to be here. He stands in direct defiance not only in chasing an omega he is not arranged with, but nor is he meant to mate at all, likely not yet for some years. His older brother and crown prince will mate first. By no stretch of the imagination does Namjoon believe that anyone in the royal family understands where Jeongguk is currently.

They are not there to witness him as he crouches down into position as the attendants offer a final blessing upon their run and any subsequent unions that come out of it.

Ahead of them, Seokjin trembles.

Namjoon turns his head.

There stands Taeyhung, the same look in his eyes as the night before. It was not a dream. When he raises his hand, it is to press his fingers to his lips. Namjoon barely felt those lips. Barely has he mapped the constellation of moles across his face or counted their very existence. Aren’t men meant to navigate based on the stars?

From the pit of a roiling fire, the presiding temple attendant lights a torch from the initial spark Namjoon started the day before. Between the line of alphas and omegas, there hangs a drooping line of what will become raining fireworks. Once lit, omegas are free to run, and alphas have until the last strand sparks and falls to wait before they may give chase.

They light the first hanging rope. It sways in the wind as it sparks and lines of fire fall down, spreading along the line. Meant to look like flower fields, they said about these fireworks. Namjoon has marveled at them before, beautiful and majestic, something reversed for such a momentous occasion when a life is about to change.

One by one, omegas turn heel and flee when the sparks reach them. Namjoon watches them one by one until Seokjin, shaking and pale, startles when those same sparks land between him and Jeongguk. Crying out, he stumbles when he turns to run, and next to him, Jeongguk growls.

Namjoon looks to Taehyung and watches until he too is enveloped by molten gold rain. His eyes are steady, even as he tilts his head to size him up. After it rains gold, the smoke makes it difficult to see, so Namjoon loses sight of him, and then it’s almost over, or it’s almost begun, and Namjoon’s heart has decided even if his feet might falter. His heart never did.

The last line of spark catches, and the first tendril barely falls before Jeongguk descends the stairs as a great breeze of air. Namjoon follows - the thunder of footsteps and a howl of excitement pump rushing blood between his ears. Already his mouth waters. For as fast as his body carries him, everything else feels slow, liquid. He feels the brush of fireworks through his hair like running through stardust, he feels the same stone stairs under the pads of his bare feet that he’s felt before but now they are as light as air.

Ahead of him, Jeongguk’s rippling back is visible in the night, golden sparks falling through space and time down the paths lined with the same fireworks. There are many scents to make out and not a single one of them can be picked apart in the height of emotion, and yet, something pulls his focus to the left, his feet slowing, head turning. There isn’t anything he can see in the dark other than the vaguest outlines of walls and the few fires lit along the way. Already, alphas and omegas alike spread out. There is much ground to cover and hide in, perhaps more places under the cover of night than ever before to explore.

It’s the rustling of cosmos in his ears, not the stampede of feet. It’s the brush of melancholy foregone, not the wind. Meditation never took him this far, but it’s over in a snap.

There is a noise, a sharp cry out. Namjoon turns back to see Jeongguk break from a run to a steady walk, swinging Kim Seokjin up into his arms effortlessly and smoothly as he slows. Immediately, the omega throws his arms around the alpha’s neck, hiding his face. For him, the run was over immediately, both in his inability to run far but also the conviction of who gave chase.

It was never Namjoon.

Amusing how easily Seokjin gives into fate now. There is no struggle, the trembling gone out of his limbs. Namjoon jogs past and their eyes meet - there is no bite on his neck yet, but Namjoon will not aid him. He is claimed. Jeongguk will carry him somewhere private and make it official, and the moment passes between them. They already imagined what their future would look like if they did everything they were meant to. Now, the moment passes and they share an understanding that it’s over, and for the better.

Jeongguk will claim Seokjin and they will always remain in court with the best physicians available. Namjoon knows ultimately neither of them well, but he knows Jeongguk well enough that everything the alphas does, he does so wholeheartedly. He would not enter into a mating without every bit of assurance. Whatever backlash he faces in the wake of mating without express permission, he will take on headfirst.

And Namjoon will be no different.

If they had blindfolded him, Namjoon would be able to find him. If he had no nose left, he thinks he still could. How much does he know about Kim Taehyung? How does he know to run until the ground hardens then softens, until the presence of water can be felt under foot? His ears hear the faint trickling of water and he knows he’s close, but without grandiose imagination, it is certainly true he can also finally pick the chamomile apart from everything else.

He stands there in the water, face pulled back to the moon. There are two of him to see - the one above water and the one in the water, an image so perfect Namjoon will carry it always with him.

Taehyung lifts one foot out of the ripples and points his toes so the water runs down his ankle to the tips of his toes, dripping as he tiptoes along among the lilypads. The water is not deep, it does not even reach much past his ankles, and the inky underworld of the pond swirls in black and purples.

Namjoon stands there to listen.

The tiny droplets of water. The splosh of walking. He must know of Namjoon’s appearance at the edge of the pond, but if he does, Taehyung softly hums only to himself, looking down into the pond, then sings an old lullaby. Every step as soft and quiet as a whisper, everything about him an enticing entrapment that Namjoon knows will be his to stare at for the rest of his life.

“Taehyung-ah.”

The singing stops, and the foot, skimming over the top of the water, pauses.

“Tae-yah.”

Slowly, Taehyung lowers his foot and turns to face him, breeze sweeping back his hair over his shoulders while his lips part. What a sight he makes. What Namjoon feels that has never been felt before.

“Will you have me?” Namjoon asks, because these are not barbaric days. Namjoon will end the night mateless if Taehyung does not want him.

Once again, Namjoon is called a fool to his face, but with it, a sweet and slow smile takes over Taehyung’s face. “I envy that you are a person who might try to put morals or obligation above all else, but I didn’t think it would take you far.”

“They brought me here. Far enough, I might say.”

Taehyung’s grin transforms into something impish. “But perhaps - not far enough?” Namjoon watches in great detail the way Taehyung’s muscles move, slowly, steadily. He poises himself over the water how he stood right at the starting line.

This is where their run begins.

Namjoon lowers himself so the upper half of his reflection spreads over the pond.

The moment hangs suspended between them, their eyes connected while the hairs on the back of their necks raise and even from a distance, the black of Taehyung’s eyes deepen. The scent of pond water and everything in it, the fish and the moss and the flowers that grow on top, all of it sharpens under his nose, but most of all, Namjoon longs to fill his lungs with chamomile.

In the distance, something akin to a howl breaks the moment. Namjoon lunges, and Taehyung dashes, running through the water with little grace and full laughter now. Never once did Namjoon dream that his mating run would include such laughter, buoyant enough to make him float so his feet need not touch the water.

On the other side of the pond, Taehyung jumps out and leaves trails of condensation across the dark stones where Namjoon cannot see but feels under foot when he breaks over the same path. He gains on the omega quickly - too quickly, he decides. They weave through the garden, jumping over bushes and dodging low hanging tree branches. At one point, Namjoon feels the brush of Taehyung’s long and loose hair tickling his outstretched hand as they run, so he slows slightly.

He realizes that Taehyung matches his pace. He is an omega ready to be caught. Everything has a time and place.

Namjoon fills his lungs with the scent of tea and flowers and the water and -

His mate.

Held in his arms.

Taehyung laughs the loudest of all when Namjoon grabs him, lifting him up and spinning him around from behind. “Put me down,” he says. “Put me down so I may hold you.” Without turning in his grasp, the omega slithers his arms backwards and around him, turning his head so their lips brush.

“I promise to cherish you.”

“Cherish me as much as your books and paintings?”

“As much as you cherish your music,” Namjoon promises. “I’ll follow your lead.”

“Namjoon-ah.” How sweet, his name. “Jagiya.” There are sweeter. “Kiss me, then.”

The first time had been chaste, a scant brush of their lips, instigated by Taehyung when Namjoon could not dare dream of it. This kiss is different; Namjoon has fantasized of nothing else since the first, hungry for the way he will kiss when the instigator.

Perhaps, the omega is too hungry. Taehyung moans, breath taken away when he cranes his face back to expose his long neck for kissing. “My alpha,” he says, breathless but laughing. “Here you are.” They are all stripped down to nearly nothing for the run. Namjoon has most of Taehyung before him, tan skin and a full constellation to trace, just as he imagined. It isn’t water between his legs that he sees and feels when Taehyung spreads open his thighs. The undergarments left on his waist are satiny and white, and now soaked.

“Surely in these palace walls they taught you how to mount,” he teases him, hands cradling Namjoon’s face. It is the most loved he’s ever felt, to be cradled like this. Namjoon would stop living just to feel Taehyung’s hands on his face like this for as long as possible.

“Yes, between my history lessons and infrastructure practicums,” Namjoon replies. Taehyung laughs, pulling their lips back together. Never has Namjoon experienced kissing like it, warm down to his toes. He’s afraid - afraid to touch, afraid of how much he wants to touch Taehyung everywhere, but it seems his to-be mate grows impatient.

“I want it right here.”

Namjoon moans. “I did not take you for a traditionalist.”

“We will never have the excuse again to fuck here,” Taehyung replies. Such a common and lowly curse word sends a jolt through Namjoon. “We are nowhere near a fire. Isn’t that what this is? Lots of dark places to hide and do misdeeds, and come morning light, there is a sanctioned mating and hopeful child?”

The mention of potential conceiving with Taehyung makes Namjoon’s cock jerk. Taehyung widens his legs and lowers himself flat on his back. “I thought you wanted me to mount you.”

“I want you to claim me.” Taehyung’s lashes flutter open and closed as he cranes his neck to and fro. There is little to see him by, but Namjoon sees him perfectly.

“You are the most beautiful thing I ever did behold.”

Taehyung grins at him, eyes still closed. Namjoon hopes to be able to spend much more time gazing upon him unabashedly, when they are alone, and Taehyung has his eyes closed. It feels like the entire world is before him and the entire world is not cognizant of him at all.

Namjoon lies himself humbled on top of him, face in his neck. He wants to ask again - ask for permission, ask for forgiveness - but he won’t. For all his selfdoubt, Taehyung never displayed a moment of hesitation. “I am sorry I could not tell you before, but I think,” Namjoon pauses to lick his lips. He says nothing lightly. “I think I already love you. Quite a bit.”

He could not allow himself to think or dwell on it when Taehyung did not seem like an option, and while Namjoon does not believe in fate, he believes that he and Seokjin were originally intended for a reason. It brought him Taehyung. It brought Seokjin to Jeongguk.

Namjoon thanks the moon when he hears Taehyung sigh wistfully, longingly. “I think I love you already too, quite a bit.” The omega is the one to snatch him by the chin and force their eyes together. “I will have you, you will be mine.”

Shyness has not been known to Namjoon for quite some time, but he smothers his grin in the omega’s soft and mostly bare stomach, petting it, dipping his finger into the button of it. “I’d rather be yours than you be mine.”

“I am that too.” Taheyung brushes the hair out of his face. “You have to bite me first, jagiya.”

“I apologize now if it hurts.”

“By design it will hurt.” Taehyung nuzzles into his face. Already, their scents warp. What will their union smell like? What will the fruits of it grow into? “But I don’t mind.”

He nips at Namjoon’s earlobe, the spark of it an arrow to his groin. Grunting, Namjoon presses into him with all of their undergarments remaining between them. Taehyung leans up into him, pressing his lips to his ear when he says, “If you press hard enough between us, you will feel how much I want you.”

The throbbing between Taehyung’s legs engulfs Namjoon, and then it’s over. The omega encourages him to growl as he rids them of their last modesty. No modesty between mates, as they say. Taehyung lies himself out on the palace way as if utterly comfortable in his private quarters, and Namjoon feels gratitude the likes of which he could not fathom and will never know again.

“I love you,” he says as Taehyung spreads his legs. “I cherish you,” he says as Taehyung gives him something he’s never had before. “I obsess over you,” he says as Taehyung arches his back and points his toes.

“More, I need,” Taehyung gasps, “More!”

How much more of himself can he give? “It’s all for you.”

An alpha’s knot is not something meant to be known to them; it is meant to be known by their omegan mate, and Taehyung brings Namjoon’s knot out in short time. It feels nearly like something with a life of its own, reaching between them and tying them up. “You were meant to bite me during,” Taehyung laughs.

“Don’t they say it's possible to have a knot more than once during a mating frenzy?” He asks, skin stuck to Taehyung in more places than one and entirely delighted about it. From where he can bend himself, he attempts scenting clumsily.

“How many ruts have you had in your lifetime?” Taehyung asks suddenly.

“Well, I-” Namjoon is a palace alpha. Prior to Hoseok and Yoongi taking over his care in the past couple of years, suppressants were the standard. “I have experienced some.” He heats thinking of Taehyung’s heats.

“We’ll find out together then, just what you are capable of.” He does not sound intimidated, but never once has anyone sounded intimidated around Namjoon. “But I would rather say you claimed me at first knot. Please. Before it goes down.”

He tilts his neck where all claiming goes. Until this night, the omega would have always worn something to cover it. Some experience a loss of equilibrium during their run for no other reason than they cannot bear the nudity of their neck. Taehyung does not look lost at all when Namjoon rubs his thumb over the gland, a hardly noticeable bump under the skin, to sink his teeth in.

“Ah.” Taehyung’s hands fly to brace himself. “Harder. Harder - you haven’t - ah!”

Some might find it appalling that he thinks so, but Namjoon finds it rather like biting into an apple. He thinks he’s bitten through, only to push through harder yet. He tastes blood for the first time.

“It’s only forever now.” Taehyung’s eyes are closed as he lies back in Namjoon’s hold. “You have me only forever.”

Namjoon bows his head to his. “May forever last as long as I want it.”

In modernity, Taehyung will not mark Namjoon in the same way until he conceives of his child. To society, that is the only way an omega may keep any permanent claim on an alpha.

Namjoon will have him mark him now. It must be a credit unto their union that when Namjoon stretches his neck wordlessly, Taehyung does not ask. Namjoon does not want him to ask. There will not be permission between them. Taehyung bites through him with one try and the sting of it feels like cold water dumped over his body.

They tangle themselves together on the stairs leading up into a pavilion, then under the roof of the abandoned pavilion. During the day, someone might sit where Namjoon claims his mate, thrusting into him with earnestness as the other moans unabashedly, but on mating runs, everyone looks themselves indoors. Everything outside is for them, just for this one night.

“Take me back to the water. I want to be in the water.”

Namjoon carries him back, gently lowering his feet around the presence of lily pads and a croaking frog. “The sun will rise soon,” Namjoon remarks, but for now, he follows in the footsteps of his mate, wading through the water wearing nothing but Namjoon’s mark and the blood it was born of.

“What will happen when your family sees me in the morn?”

Their predicament is not one that worries him. “It is morning, jagiya.” Namjoon searches until he finds some discarded robes to wrap him in, then takes him to their prepared room. Inside, lanterns are lit and a modest meal has been left out. Taehyung allows Namjoon to feed him until he pulls a sheet over their heads.

“How tender this night was. I do not wish for sleep.”

All the same, they sleep, and when they wake, they take their moments to themselves, Namjoon bathing Taehyung and bowing before him. “You already told me that you love me. No need to lie yourself prostrate like that.”

Namjoon kisses the top of Taehyung’s feet.

“I fear you might find me often in this position.”

Eventually, knocking finds them at their door. When Namjoon greets his stone-faced mother, he understands that all is well known already.

He fears less for Seokjin than he does Jeongguk. Their king is not considered a tyrant, but if they are not bound by duty, then they are unbound by all. No whispers greet them as they exit, arm and arm, which means, until this moment, only scarce few knew the truth. There is nothing to be done about it when they see Taehyung. For the next year, he will wear no collar, robes cut low enough to display his neck, while Namjoon chooses a more traditional piece to cover his own for the time being.

“I will carry your children soon,” Taehyung remarks, out in the open under the shade of a familiar pavilion. “You need not hide it soon.”

For days, there are no sightings of either their grand prince nor Kim Seokjin. Namjoon wonders if they pay penance or if Jeongguk keeps the omega all to himself. Finally, their crown prince appears with news.

“My new omegan sibling by mating is in delicate condition,” he remarks sagely. “Jeongguk will not leave his side until there is improvement.”

Namjoon watches Jimin closely, but he goes about his business in such a way that he remains convinced that Seokjin’s health must not be dire, not if the way he leisurely requests a match of baduk with Taehyung suggests anything.

“I must confess how pleased I am that you will be remaining close in court,” Jimin says to Taehyung, another sure indication that they will not be cast out of ranks. Taehyung quickly grows used to such attention from the crown prince, demanding they take a tour of the city together soon, just the two of them.

After a few days turn to weeks, Jimin takes Taehyung to see Seokjin at his dogged request, and when he returns to Namjoon, he fails to smother his smirking smiles.

“Our permanent lodgings are nearly ready,” Namjoon tells him. They will miss their newlymate rooms, as comfortable as they are. However, Namjoon longs to have all of his books with him while Taehyung longs for privacy from their omegan parents, both taken to each other in the turn of events and on constant watch for any telltale secrets in Taehyung’s womb.

The weather cools suddenly as they start afresh, something new and unknown to them both, but none would ever know it the easy way Taehyung takes to the household and the city. “I have ideas,” he tells Namjoon.

“About?”

“Bridges.”

Namjoon laughs. He did not expect a mate who might share an interest in infrastructure, and according to Taehyung, he does not. “You are my interest,” Taehyung remarks. “And by extension, your interests have become my interests.”

“And if I want to move into the countryside to oversee the building of new farmlands?”

Taehyung comes from a country farm. Namjoon had not known exactly the nature of his upbringing, but it was Seokjin who befriended Taehyung as a young boy and made him his brother. Taehyung’s birth parents arrived only to the courts after the news of his sudden mating. Namjoon observes them in comparison to Seokjin’s parents who raised Taehyung but sees nothing but an earnest wish for Taehyung to live well. His mate maneuvers between them, between worlds, with an ease that suits him well to become Jimin’s confidant.

Until then, Namjoon thought of his marriage one day as a necessity, but never once did he believe it would be his most sincere vocation.

“We are invited to a special feast on the new moon,” Taehyung says when he returns one day, his stomach no longer flat. Namjoon greets them first, cradling to kiss through Taehyung’s robes to their growing child. It is only with great predictability that Taehyung pouts about his own kiss.

“And then?”

“And after that, before I grow any larger, I want to travel to disperse the coats we found.” Within palace walls, with quiet support from their crown prince, Taehyung not only found but was allowed to go through some inventory that he now directly oversees distribution into neighborhoods with need. Largely, it was through Yoongi that he became friendly with the large network of farmers who supply everything within their walls, but most recently there were the wearable items left in rooms untouched for years, including coats that many could benefit from at the end of what has been an unseasonably long winter.

If Namjoon worried Taehyung’s fast friendship with someone such as their crown prince was a danger, he vastly underestimated his mate’s new friendship with Min Yoongi. Yoongi was a man of the town and affectionately known as a beta with too many skills. Prior to his acquaintance, Namjoon would hardly think such a thing could be true, but now he is privy to his mate’s adventures, some of which he wishes might happen after a pregnancy, but he also understands that after pregnancy comes a child, and no time will ever be the best time.

In the palace, Taehyung finds his place, and Namjoon breathes easier with his neck exposed.

His familial obligations now largely secured, Namjoon’s father agrees to campaign for him to take over not his own posting, but that of public works when the mostly unlikeable appointed alpha is set to expire. “You would do excellent in taxation, but I understand how important it is for you to find your own path,” his father remarks, eyes sparking over to Taehyung, strumming nonchalantly at his harp.

Namjoon has one made to fit the hands of a small child, wrapped in silk and awaiting their birthing nest as one of Taehyung’s gifts.

On the evening of the new moon that month, they take a meal in the king’s presence with all of his children there, including Jeongguk and Seokjin. It is the grand prince Namjoon sees first, and his marked neck with robes cut specially for the occasion the very first thing he sees in the large room, no doubt by design.

He bows his head briefly at Namjoon, a moment that passes between them without spectators in a room full of them. If Jeongguk were to have worried about what he may or may not have taken from Namjoon, they share their understanding now, that everything that was meant to pass has passed. Kim Seokjin was promised to Namjoon; they were not meant for each other.

Sequestered in a place of honor and seated on a cushion nearly as large as the one their king sits on, Namjoon approaches Seokjin, head bowed. Behind him, Taehyung laughs with Jimin while Hoseok frets over his laborious belly, something his mate carries with enough ease to take Namjoon’s breath away daily.

“It seems all your worries ended in great bloom,” he remarks to Seokjin, and it is the same omega under all of the heavy ornaments after all when his ears glow red.

“I will not speak on the royal family’s matters as much.” Seokjin blinks and Namjoon grins.

“How convenient that you cannot speak on them.” They do not know each other well enough, but the omega’s lack of forthcoming information hardly surprises him. The truth that Seokjin has a whole room of physicians available to him at any time currently aids him, but the persistent circling of their grand prince around him does far more than an army of them ever could.

“I - will apologize.” From his stature and position, Seokjin cannot bend to bow to him, but his flustered continence works the same.

“Please, there is no need.”

“I entered into our courtship in every good faith-”

“I know, please.” Namjoon steps up to briefly clasp their hands together and squeeze them. He lets go before Jeongguk might take them off him. “If no one else understands our situation, may I remind you that our arranged courtship brought me the greatest gift of all. So, please, let me thank you.”

Seokjin curls up under all of his grand ceremony laid over his shoulders, but just as Namjoon takes his dismissal, Seokjin calls to him, “You will find him to be someone better than I could ever be. Please, take care of him. He was my great treasure, too.”

“Your majesty, there are no better people, only better suited to others.”

Seokjin’s face changes as he waves, rather dismissively, so Namjoon knows he has caught the end of emotional fraughtness with him. He returns to the one who he may give no end of sweet sayings, his own mate who best rivals him in earnestness.

“There will be fireworks,” Taehyung remarks. “I know where I want to watch them.”

Others might scold Namjoon for allowing his expectant mate to stand out in the cold next to water for so long, but they watch the fireworks from the reflections of the ponds in the garden and Namjoon marvels at how different their scents are from then.

“When our first child is born, I will teach them every star in the night sky,” he says solemnly, but Taehyung laughs.

“Yes, you who will stay up with them through the nights when they do not want for sleep.” Taehyung draws his arms around himself, then guides Namjoon to visit their unborn. “She enjoys the fireworks, I think.”

His mate remains sure they will have a girl. “It’s awfully loud, and it’s past her bedtime,” Namjoon comments in a clear ploy to take Taehyung home to rest. He always sees through him, and yet acquiesces to Namjoon.

In their dwelling, in their nest, Taehyung lies back. “She will be born in the beginning of summer.”

Namjoon hums, gently taking his feet to inspect them for swelling. “Before the worst of the heat comes.”

“We met only last summer.” Taehyung’s voice keeps a dreamlike quality to it. Namjoon kisses their daughter goodnight then makes himself into a comfortable place to lie. Taehyung turns over so that he more comfortably sleeps himself over him. “At this time last year, I thought of mating for the very first time.”

Namjoon smells the crown of his head. Chamomile has changed to something with a zest to it. Something that he will soon hold in his arms. Taehyung turns his face up to his. Namjoon presses his thumb gently to his favorite constellation mark.

“I did not know envy until that day,” Taehyung says so earnestly and straight forward, a far cry from what Namjoon expected. It is the kind of thing alphas would feel comfortable to say.

Namjoon never once thought of himself as something envious. He did not expect to have an envious life.

Their daughter arrives safely early one morning, plump cheeks and whisped hair smelling of lemon, and everywhere Namjoon goes, people ask him the name of the tea he keeps.

Notes:

Happy birthday, friend <3

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