Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The moment before a tear falls down his face, that’s when he resembles a broken angel more than ever. It’s no different than breaking a porcelain into million pieces, and without even collecting them from the dust, crushing the pieces again and again with the back of his foot so that they could never be fixed again. All turn into dust; a dust that will be smeared all around their household to remind him where he belongs. 

Dust: the omega always flutters his petite eyelashes when the alpha takes him. Teardrops hold onto those pearly, beautiful doe-eyes, but eventually they all lose their tiny fight and fall from the cold, beautiful and pinkish face to the dewlap of the sweet skin with broken hiccups. 

The omega closes his doe-like, pearly eyes; chapped lips forming a broken ‘o’ with the fullness crushing his insides; the assault keeps coming and he has no strength to stop this.

It’s easy to memorize the crying face. So easy. His face is a sculpture. A heaven sent love; the most beautiful eyes that one can look into, the most beautiful lips that is begging to be kissed with a pout, the most beautiful nose that goes red every time he cries. His philtrum, where alpha’s craziness starts.

Taehyung takes him on the floor like some type of monster but he convinces himself that he had the kindness to let him put a pillow under his head so it would hurt less. 

The captive’s shaking hands hold onto his shoulders –it used to be an attempt to push before but now it turned into trying to find strength and comfort to have a place in the reality. Even if it came from the monster itself, the captive wanted to hold onto something as he cried under the muscular body of the pack alpha. 

Taehyung’s sultry eyes glance every inch of his crying face as he keeps fucking the omega.

(To be honest, it doesn’t leave his mind for a second, even outside the room. Even when he goes to sleep on his comfortable bed, he thinks about him like a broken record.)

His omegan features are different from his own clan, but whenever Taehyung closes his eyes and tries to picture his face, it mixes with his own family. In the way he remembers his father’s kind, loving eyes. With one blink, it turns into broken, red almond eyes holding all the sorrow in the world. In the way his mother’s lips turn into a smile, Taehyung loses the memory to a chapped, bleeding plump lips that can’t even form words anymore. His sister’s caring touches turn into dainty, shaky hands grabbing him as in an attempt to push. His brothers’ laughters mixes with omega’s wails. 

Taehyung hasn’t slept since that day. The doomsday. Dream of a beautiful future is long gone, there is only pain and nightmares surrounding him since the start of it all. All the loving memories of his family turn into broken pieces and Taehyung has to leave with pieces on his heart. 

Taehyung didn’t want any of it to happen. He just wants his family. He misses his mother, father and sister. He misses the peace. The times when things didn’t turn to this rough path. When there was laughter around their pack. The times that they would sit by the fire in the center of the town hall and all people would chat till the sun rises. There would be dancing with some members of the clan singing; kids fooling around with the freshly baked breads and the mothers would scold them to be more quiet as the pack alpha talked about his memories in a light tone. 

It is all gone now. 

What has been done is done, and there is no turning back. Taehyung can’t crawl into the ground and pull out his family’s dead, rotten body and hug them.

So he pulls another body. He digs his nails into another body to replace the brokenness; as he keeps fucking the omega on the floor, the shaky hands fall from his shoulders and the intensity of it is enough to have Taehyung in tears, too. 

There are more tears for both of them but never words. 

Taehyung keeps thrusting into him. No matter how many times the omega denies and says he doesn’t want this he is dripping wet like a bitch in heat. Wet. No matter how many times they do it; he is still tight as ever. No matter how he cries; the aroma of his skin and the scent of his omega body; sweet as a syrup as giving response to the alpha’s pheromones. 

“Fuck,” Taehyung moans. “Oh. Fuck.”

He always feels ashamed when he is ready to reach his climax. Breaking his own oath: to take pleasure from this. (It was for revenge. Not for pleasure. It was okay when both sides hated this –but if one took pleasure in it, where would be the goodness?)

So Taehyung narrows his face to not look at those hypnotising eyes of the omega. A vixen –that’s what the innocent-looking omega is. A wolf in the clothes of a sheep. 

A sweat is falling from Taehyung’ face to the omega’s flat tummy and it drips to his lower parts, just like the previous ones. Taehyung can see where they are joined, where omega’s cunt is leaking slick along with his cum. Was it the fourth round? Fifth?

When did the omega stop responding? In third? When he just accepted his faith, closed his eyes and gritted his small teeth with tears running down his eyes? Taehyung didn’t count, but as another euphoria climbes through his veins and all the sensors rushes to his hard cock, he knows the omega climaxed even before him. (It must’ve been embarrassing for the omega. To cum from a monster assaulting him.)

He comes; so does Taehyung. All the seeds gushing out of omega’s assaulted cunt –and the tiny hands holding onto the comfort of his clothes clenches. 

Taehyung takes out his still hot and heavy cock from his cunt. His cunt is wet with omega's slick and it dirties his clothes as he pulls his boxer back. They are all dirty. He is, more than the omega.

He takes a step back, and another, and in seconds, he is getting away from the body on the floor. A two. Three. He pushes his sweaty, slicked hair back, and breathes. Deep. 

The omega is lying broken on the floor, breathing and trying to calm his senses. 

Taehyung leaves him there to collect his own pieces back. 

Bloody, almost sickly cough cuts his thoughts on the dead of the night. It’s continual; like someone is bleeding their lungs away.

Maybe it is. 

Taehyung wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the omega died.

He doesn’t know what the omega faces when he is away from here. He doesn’t care. (He won’t care.) 

The cough continues –too painful, broken, an attempt to be silent but not. Taehyung tries to ignore it so bad because he knows if he ever goes there, it would be bad for both of them. The omega is shaking like a leaf every time he has a glimpse of his face and it is irritating to see his face for Taehyung, too. Better to be ignored.

He rolls on the bed and pulls the duvet back to his head. The full moon shines from the open curtains. Taehyung used to love sleeping in the dark but now, every time darkness embraces him, he is getting anxious and suddenly having this urge to see the light and be in the open. Since then his curtains are open to welcome the moon.

The weather is breezy; leaves from the tree near his room are shaking like a limb in the loneliness of the night. 

Like the omega.

The cough.

Taehyung curses as he pushes the duvet to get up. The walls are too thin and his patient has only its limits. His steps from his room to the ground floor are hurried; like a storm carrying all the anger inside.

The omega must’ve heard him, or sense even before seeing him, from the way his sweet scent thickens.

Taehyung goes into the kitchen and turns on the light.

He looks at the omega with serious eyes and omega looks at him like a deer caught in the light. His already shaking body starts to tremble more; like the first moment he saw Taehyung in his own house, blood smeared around the alpha’s face and his eyes so fierce enough to burn the whole town. Taehyung was outraged back then, and the moment omega realized the alpha was in his house, his own family members are killed and he was the only one being left, he was just shaking then just like now.

He is still wearing his clothes back then; an earthy tone, stripped sweater falling from his shoulders; and black pants that are now too big for him. Those clothes were perfectly fit for him only a month ago.   

But now it looks like a child wearing his father’s clothes for some laughter. But when Taehyung observes the frightened omega, he can’t find the mockery in him to laugh. Who is even putting a show anyways?

“S-sorry…s-sorry.”

Even his light voice quivers when he speaks to the alpha.

“Are you sick?” Taehyung asks befor crossing his arms and leaning to the doorframe, observing the omega that is trying to hold a glass of water. “When did you get sick?”

As if they both don’t know the answer.

Omega doesn’t answer. As expected. He never speaks. 

Taehyung ordered Jungkook to make him talk: but even the cut of his skin and big knives didn’t make him turn them in. Anyone would crumble between Jungkook’s sadistic fingers –even the greatest alphas would beg to be spared from his wrath. They would speak; give in. But the omega didn’t even open his gritted teeth as Jungkook hold the knife close to his throat. 

His tears were inevitable, however. The omega cried for hours and hours and hours and hours (who was counting?) as Jungkook tortured him in that room and Taehyung watched with anger rising in his blood as the omega didn’t even utter a word about his family.

The marks of the torture are still there. On his fingers. Cut and tear open. Taehyung knows some of the scars will never fade away. On his face. The bruises from the hits had healed, but a scar was going to rest under his bottom chin for the rest of his life.

Jungkook always cuts deep.

Taehyung stops gazing at his open scars, there is nothing to erase them now.

“Why do you keep coughing?” he asks. 

Here come the tears.

The omega’s wobbling lips are enough to give in that he is going to cry. He holds onto the counter and his fingers tighten around the sink, but even the coldness of it gives him the faith he tries to have.

“S-sorry… I’m sorry…” A cough. “I’ll stop.” He closes his trembling hands to his wobbling mouth and presses. Yet he gets red every second with the way he is trying to hold the coughs back in. Tears and coughs. “I’ll stop,” he hiccups. “Sorry.” Another cough, another pathetic tear.

Taehyung sighs. “Were you looking for some medicine? It’s in the second drawer. Take them. And there is a blanket in the closet in your room. Take these and just sleep.”

He nods rapidly with his red face, not taking his hands off his mouth. He presses them so hard that it looks like he is not even breathing.

Taehyung turns his back onto him, but the minute he does, the omega starts to cough again. So much, so much that like coughing away all the pain.

A heavy thud rings in his ears; and when Taehyung looks over his shoulders, he sees the omega lying on the floor. And he is coughing blood for real. The metalic smell of it creates a past memory in Taehyung’s broken mind. Blood, red, wet, sticky. Deadly. 

“Seokjin!”

He yells. 

The omega’s eyes are blurry. The vision is gone.

And Taehyung wants to feel something. But he can’t. All he feels is how his sister died with a cut on his throat (a similar stain is on Seokjin’s neck now, deep enough to leave a mark, shallow enough to make him live) (It was Seokjin’s brother that did it to his sister, so now he did the same to Seokjin, they are even, right?)

With the tiniest humanity left in him, he runs to the omega. He drops on the floor and holds the omega’s pale wrists to check the heartbeat. It is there. Faintly, hopelessly. But it’s still there. To remind him that he is a breathing, living human-being just like him. He pulls the omega to his lap, trying to prevent more blood running from his mouth. How can he do it?

(How can he stop the blood when it was Seokjin’s family that started this first?)

“Seokjin,” he whispers. “Seokjin, open your eyes. Seokjin. Look at me. Seokjin.”

Maybe with the hazy mind, the omega obeys him like he is his alpha. His doe-eyes are focused on his monster; and it’s all blurry, yet his eyes have lights in them. 

Because no matter what happens, even in the lowest, everyone is afraid of dying alone.

Seokjin is more than anyone. It’s why he is holding so hard to the alpha. 

“He needs to rest. He needs to rest, Taehyung, for fucks sake, he needs to–”

Taehyung cuts his words. “Okay, I get it, Namjoon hyung. He needs to rest.”

“Stop. Stop whatever you are doing to him. Stop whatever the fuck torture you are all doing to him in that fucking house. He is going to die in weeks if you keep doing this to him. His lungs are infected. His body is full of scars. Don’t get me start on his privates-”

Taehyung listens to the pack doctor with his bored, unfazed eyes. He knows Namjoon’s words are only for the best –and probably, the closest thing to humanity.

But he can’t. Even Jimin standing at the door is looking at Namjoon with questioning eyes. (“Hyung, don’t you know what he did to our family? What they did to our family?” ) 

Jimin doesn’t hate anyone. If he hates this omega, everyone knows there must be a reason. And there are more than one reasons. It will not change. 

“He should be thankful I’m letting him live,” Taehyung spats with anger running through his veins. How can his Namjoon hyung blame him as if this is all his fault? 

“And for what? To show off to everyone, to other clans that you rule this region now! You are showing them who has the control and he is your toy!”

Namjoon is matching his energy which is surprising. He has always been the calm one. After their clan had been attacked by the omega’s, he had also lost his temper but still, he was quick to collect himself back. Maybe the reason why he collected himself quickly was because he didn’t see his family getting murdered in front of him, Taehyung thinks.

“You are doing this so no one would marry this omega and get the clan back," he continues to scream at Taehyung’s face. "He is just… some type of possession for you! It’s your sick way of telling everyone that you are in charge, and that you’ll always be in charge!”

“Exactly,” Taehyung’s foxy eyes have a craze look in them. It burns like the sun in the winter. Fierce. Sharp. “Exactly, Namjoon-ssi, who is in charge?” he says, taking a step closer to the alpha-doctor.

His words are enough to put Namjoon in some place. He doesn’t say anything back. Because he knows.

Everyone knows. 

Taehyung is in charge.

He is the ruler of this clan; the pack leader; the alpha of all alphas.

When his father died during an attack a month ago, along with his brothers, it was Taehyung being left to take the responsibility of this heavy position. 

He is in charge; and everyone should obey him.

Especially this omega that lying on bed unconscious.

Kim Seokjin.

At least, used to be Kim Seokjin. Before Taehyung took him as a war prize, as a slave and as a wife. 

Now, he is just something that belongs to Kim Taehyung.

Seeing your family being murdered in front of you leaves a scar. A scar deeper than the skin can handle; a scar carved into the eyelashes that everytime he closes his eyes, he wakes up with the ugliest nightmares. He hears their scream even when he has the loudest music in his ears. He sees their blood scattered all around the room every time he enters the house, even if the maids cleaned it with bleach over and over again.

Taehyung would want to save them. If he could take back time, turn back to that day, he would fight differently. He would try another solution. He would save them –save his mother, father and sister. 

But he can’t. No matter how many times he prays or begs to a god he doesn’t even believe, he just can’t turn back time to save them. 

But in the possibility of everything, there is one thing he can do.

To take revenge.

To make them pay.

He did make them pay.

At last, most of them. They all died. Taehyung killed them. He killed the Wolf Kim Clan’s pack leader; he killed his wife who didn’t even beg for a spareness. He gave her a chance; a chance to beg –and she didn’t. He killed the alpha brothers. Some fought back. Some recalled his pain and mocked him. Some welcomed death with open arms. 

After taking away the leader of the clan, all Taehyung had to do was to declare that he conquered the clan. And they obeyed their new leader. 

They are all working for him now, providing for him, making his clan get better. They all accepted Taehyung’s leadership and his decisions and his own clan.

He conquered. (Then why it doesn’t feel like a victory?)

But there was one last thing to do before conquering them. He didn’t kill omegas. Taehyung had principles; he didn’t kill omegas and he didn’t kill children. But he did take an omega; the alpha leader’s son. He took him as his slave, to show that there is no turning back from this.

He took the clan’s most beautiful omega as his slave and his wife.

He shattered them completely.

So why is he still feeling the battle? Like he is walking on the battlefield even after everything —the war had ended a month ago, yet Taehyung is still fighting monsters. The face he sees in the mirror every morning; it’s the scariest one of all of them.

So why is it still that he can’t stop seeing the omega’s broken face, as he looks at himself in the mirror? A shadow, a past, a memory, an equal. 

A slave.

The omega is mumbling things in his sleep. He had been doing it since the first night he came to this house. A prison would be more suitable to call it for him rather than a house, maybe. 

Taehyung doesn’t know what the nightmares are about, but it leaves the omega sweaty and petrified in his sleep.

He can’t wake up from them –as if he is forced to sleep through even the toughest nights out there. As he is used to it. 

Taehyung is sitting on the old chair in the room.

His room.

He took the omega here.

After all the things that happened between them, he had the courtesy to give him at least a proper, comfortable bed during his sickness.

No matter how many times he tries, he can’t let go of Namjoon’s words either. 

“His privates are also…”

Taehyung rubs his face. He knows he looks fucked up. He feels like it. He can’t sleep since that day. He forgot to eat, to take care of himself. It had been so long since he had a nightmare without sleep. He forgot when was the last time he laughed. He is fucked up, mentally and physically.

Yet, the omega is more.  

Taehyung fucked him since the day he got here. He went to his house, killed all of them –and in the monsterness he was having, he claimed the omega. He took him right on the floor, in front of his dead family’s corpses to show off. He was a monster; a bloody, sick, sick, sick monster. Yet his eyes were blinded. 

And since then, the omega didn’t even fight back. The claws were already on his chest, on his thighs, everywhere that could be marked. Taehyung knotted him right there on the floor as his father’s dead, cold eyes were open. .

He was out of mind. Even Jungkook told him that he feared Taehyung that night. He told him he looked like a monster rather than a human.

There could be many ways to and justify to reason things but all Taehyung could feel was falling from a black hole throughout the whole night. To see his family dying in front of him; he started to fall then. And to the moment claiming an attack on the Kim’s of the Wolves, he had been falling.

Lost.

Taehyung, the moment he saw his family –his brother, his younger sister, his mother and father– dead on the floor, he lost his mind. Everything happening from there was all blurry. It was lost in the pain. All, constant, reasons are unimportant. The constant sharpness killed his senses. 

And without even realizing, he was attacking back. He was arranging his wolves; his alphas; his men. He was ordering them to burn.

Burn everything. Kill everyone–

(They didn’t. Jimin ordered [ begged ]  them not to. The omega put a leash around Taehyung. Begged to spare the civilians on his feet. He was okay with killing the pack leader, but not the houses.)

The moment Taehyung got into that luxury house inside the town hall, he followed his own order. He killed every Kim of Wolves he could see. 

His hands are blooded with the dead of Seokjin’s family.

And his humanity is lost with Seokjin’s body.

Taehyung was lost; in a dream –in reality, without even realizing it. 

Now, he is at the rock bottom. And now, it’s time to look at the sky and try to reach back.

Because the broken boy on his bed is crying. Even in his sleep. Whispering, “Please don’t, please don’t…”

Please don’t, 

please don’t, please don’t–

Alpha. 

He must’ve been whispering that to Taehyung.

Alpha. Please don’t. 

Chapter Text

Before this, there used to be peace. A peace in his clan. 

His father was a cold, autocratic Alpha; head of the clan for more than twenty five years. Despite his coldness, he was a virtuous and honest alpha. He ruled their clan of 10,000 people with grace and dedication. Respected by the young, loved by the elderly, and scared by the children. It was just it. His father was a man like this –Kim Bonghwo. Seokjin, if he squints enough, can remember the wrinkles on his face, the way his lips never curled to a smile, the way every time he opened his lips how everyone in the room went silent to listen to him. 

His father brought peace to everyone in their clan. 

Not for Seokjin.

He could never. It was an impossible option –because if he did, who would be the punchbag of his precious Alpha sons? Who would take the bullets of their wrong-doings? Who would be their stress-relief, if it wasn’t the disgraceful omega son he had?

Seokjin, born into the wealth of his family, yet never got to experience it. He was the first son after his father became the head of the clan; and everyone thought Seokjin would be the four leaf clover. For the clan, for their future. The expectations were high.

And Seokjin wasn’t it.

His mother managed to birth five alpha sons, but didn’t manage to make the most-expected boy to be one of them. Was it the reason why Seokjin is a disappointment in all of his life?

Before Kim Taehyung, the ruthless alpha came, there used to be peace in their clan.

Not for Seokjin. But for others, at least. He didn’t deserve it.

Now, everyone was suffering. Was it true? 

Or was it Seokjin who only suffered?

A soft knock on the door tears away all the open notes in his mind. It’s the omega, standing behind the agape door, looking at Seokjin with an expression he can’t quite understand.

“Can I?”

Seokjin doesn’t answer. It’s not like he doesn’t speak. It’s just that every time he tries to speak, there is a heavy limp on his throat that prevents him from doing so. Every time he opens his mouth, the tears roll down his eyes before words can fall from his lips. 

There was a lot of blood. When he tried to speak that time. So much blood that he couldn’t. He is scared of it, even now. What if he tries to talk and the alpha mocks him for it? (Seokjin can’t let go of that room. Where they tortured .)

There are as many as tears enough to match with the blood now. Seokjin cries for all. And it’s okay if not everyone knows this.

“I brought you soup.”

His name is Jimin, as far as Seokjin knows. Omega brother to one alpha, middle child of three brothers. Big brother of Jungkook and cousin of Taehyung.

He should stop thinking about their names and their faces.

Stupid, stupid Seokjin.

Now, he won’t be able to speak because he’ll for sure cry if he opens his mouth. 

He flutters his eyes, and there are already tears dwelling on the corner of his eyes. 

Jimin, already inside the room and so close to the bed Seokjin is resting on, also taken aback by the omega’s sudden tears. He leaves the soup at the top of the drawer next to the bed, observing Seokjin with his thoughtful eyes. 

Seokjin has to say something before leaving him unkind. Maybe he’ll bring another one when he is healed.

“T-thank you,” he manages to utter. Barely a decibel.

Jimin smiles slightly. He looks surprised. “Your welcome.”

Seokjin doesn’t say anything back; but when takes the cup to his hands, they are shaking from the way nervous tingles him. There is a tight knot on his stomach (it isn’t similar to what Taehyung makes him have),.

Jimin observes the omega resting on the bed, doing his best to drink the warm soup omega brought. His fingers are shaking a little bit, maybe because he is feeling nervous to be around someone from the clan, and the expanses of his fingers still have cuts and scars. They are reddish; encrusted still. 

Jungkook did those only a month ago and it isn’t healed yet and probably, it just keeps bleeding every time Taehyung has his way with the omega.

From the way he holds the cup, the sleeves of his sweater are rolled up to his elbows, making his porcelain like skin visible to eyes.

And then, Jimin sees them. 

Scars on his arms; too deep and vertical. 

Jimin knows Jungkook didn’t do this. It’s whitish, something from the past. 

“Your wrists,” he asks, bewildered. “What’s those scars?”

With the mention of it, Seokjin puts the soup bowl to his lap carefully and pulls his sleeves to his fingers immediately. He is wearing long sleeves all the time, except the times Taehyung doesn’t force him to strip or tear down his clothes, and is awfully weirded by the omega’s observation.

“Jungkook didn’t do it.” Jimin raises an eyebrow. His tone is harsh. “When did you cut yourself? Do you have a knife with you? What are you planning to do? Give me the knife back or I’ll tell Taehyung.”

Seokjin’s breaths are itchy, anxiousness dipped. “N-no.. It’s –it’s an old scar– I didn’t —no it’s not new. Please don’t tell the Alpha.” Without even having a break, the tears stream down from his face. “It’s not new–don’t tell the alpha, please, please–”

If he does, he doesn’t know what Taehyung will do to him. 

“You used to…?”

Jimin stops. 

“Why did you cut yourself?” he whispers.

Seokjin is like a hamster cage up. He is gulping, trying to open his mouth and speak, but he can’t. He tries to calm himself. And Jimin gives him the time to heal a little. “For fun,” he whispers.

The omega doesn’t say anything more. He averts his eyes, and looks to the outside from the open window. The breeze is still flowing, and they can hear the birds. Chirping sounds cut their silence; and Jimin knows he will not get an answer other than fun.

And he leaves the room when the omega finishes the soup in half an hour. Yet even then, his mind thinks about the words. 

“Please don’t tell Alpha.”

Is he referring to Taehyung as an alpha?

Alpha.

Seokjin should bow instead of gazing at him. But it’s somehow irresistible. Every time he enters the room, Seokjin stops doing whatever he is doing (mostly nothing) and just waits for an order for him. He is crushing under the alpha’s presence. It’s heavy, like there is a blanket of pheromones over him every time he is met with him. 

Taehyung is a breeze; the more Seokjin tries to run the more he feels him.

Just like now. The alpha is only changing his clothes and Seokjin can’t stop gazing at him. 

Lying on his bed, under his sandal-scented duvet, resting on his comfortable pillows, Seokjin is just a guest here. 

Seokjin has his knees pulled over him, and his chin rests on them. As he looks at the alpha he can’t help but realize that Taehyung might have had all the omegas in their own clan if he wanted to; with sharp features, long nose, deep eyes, thick eyebrows with pretty moles on his face, with that smirk and long dark locks, he is the most charismatic man Seokjin had ever seen. Even in the darkness of his own house a month ago, observing the bloody intruder, he realized the second he saw him: Taehyung is a handsome alpha. His face is too beautiful. And his body is sculpted like a Greek god. He has muscles, long hands, a sturdy chest and strong arms. 

It’s not wrong that all of their genes are above average. Jimin, the alpha’s cousin, is also one of the most beautiful omega Seokjin had ever seen. Every time he smiles it lights up the room (Seokjin hadn’t seen him smile much), and he has a beautiful face with a perfect omega body.

Jungkook, Jimin’s younger brother, is not quite handsome, but has this boyish youth on his face that makes him look cute. He looks different from the other two by facial expressions. Yet, Seokjin didn’t observe the alpha much. He is scary. Seokjin doesn’t talk with him.

Maybe he stared at the alpha too long to give disturbance because now, the alpha’s bored, hazy eyes are over him again.

Seokjin averts his eyes straight away.

It had been four days since he had been sleeping on alpha’s bed, resting all day long. An alpha doctor comes from time to time to check on him and his blood pressure, giving him some meds and advice. “Don’t do heavy work, don’t be exposed to smoke, don’t stay cold. Eat healthy and drink lots of water and rest.” And after noting Seokjin’s results, he leaves with a slight smile. His words are funny to Seokjin but he never dares to laugh. Yeah, as if Seokjin is deciding to do heavy work or being exposed to smoke. 

He can’t even decide when to eat. He doesn’t even have a say in his own body. 

Rest.

It’s so funny. 

Seokjin should advise him to become a comedian some time. 

***

He doesn’t have a concept of time, or what day they are here. When he refers to one month, the month only means the day the torture stopped. He doesn’t even know how many days he had spent in that old, reeking disgusting garage. He doesn’t know how many days he was unconscious; he remembers the day he woke up again and he was in his current room, with a dark blue blanket pulled over him, resting on an old mattress on the floor.

It looked like the room was an empty space connected to a cellar before him; because the raw food like legumes, canned foods, kimchi clay crocks along was inside the cellar and it was connected to this room. That’s why at night, Seokjin has that smell of spices and wood-like tones of the different types of stored foods. It’s quite good, at least better than his previous room. 

Despite being in that room for almost every hour of the day, Seokjin realized that he never put his hand on the ingredients there. Did Alpha wait for him to eat there? Is it why he didn’t order Seokjin to eat, or was it because he truly wanted Seokjin to starve himself?

Seokjin’s lost in his own thoughts as he opens a new kimchi pot to put into the box in his hands. It’s dinner time –more like, the time to prepare the dinner.

And Seokjin doesn’t know if he loves it or hates it. Because he is happy to have something that keeps him busy instead of thinking about his last months or how he ended up here, being a servant to them. But he is also hating everything about this chorus, because he is feeling extremely nervous around these people. What if they don’t like it? Would he beat him if he doesn’t like the taste of anything?

Afterall, no matter how handsome he thinks the alpha is, Taehyung is always a threat to him. 

Jimin, quite harmless, yet has these very dark snake eyes that makes Seokjin nervous.

Seokjin can’t even talk about the other alpha. Even the sight of him makes Seokjin dizzy.

As he returns to the kitchen, realizing all three of them are sitting on the mahogany dinner table with the foods in front of them, eating and talking nonchalantly, Seokjin feels a tight node in his stomach. This side is not new to him. It was the same in his household either. He was the server to their meals if something was forgotten, he was also the one who saw the laughter, and never in one.

The cousin-brother trio looks happy. 

Jungkook, the young alpha who tortured him, in basic black shirts and laughing at something Jimin mimics. He looks fresh as if right out of a shower; maybe he was, Seokjin heard the water running some time ago.

He looks boy-ish and almost cute. If Seokjin saw him some months ago in his own clan, he would think the alpha is the cutest boy he has ever seen and would want to be friends with him. 

But Seokjin knows what those hands do; what that cute, boyish smile has a sadistic laugh behind. 

( “You won’t talk? Are you that stupid?”

Another knife cut to his already bleeding legs, Seokjin doesn’t even remember how many cuts the alpha added.

“How about now, bitch?”

The knife is close to his throat. Seokjin wants to beg but he can’t. He had never been able to talk in these kinds of situations. As if someone tied his tongue and punished him from speaking. 

He is scared. If he opens his mouth, the blood will gush out. 

“Should I do it, hyung?” Craze eyes turn towards the other alpha watching them. He is standing near the door with those empty looks in his eyes. Because deep down he knows. 

Whatever they do to him, it won’t bring his family back.

The alpha is a man who has nothing to lose. That’s why he does everything.

“Do it,” Other alpha says. “Do it, Jeongguk.”

No mercy.

So Jungkook does. Seokjin is having a hard time breathing because he thinks he’ll struggle. The smell of the blood is too much. On his throat. That’s where it’s bleeding. He coughs and struggles, not believing something like this, something that his throat– but it is. It is real because it burns.

It will always be there. A cut next to his mating bite. Both in the hands of these two alphas. Always be there.

Because Jungkook always cuts deep.

And Taehyung always bites too hard. )

Now, even when serving him dinner, Seokjin can’t look at the Alpha’s eyes.

When Jimin touches him, he gets scared.

When it’s Taehyung who touches him, he is scared and wet. 

When it’s Jungkook, his brain goes numb.

He is okay to place the dishes on Jimin and Taehyung’s side, despite Taehyung doing nothing by not getting out of Seokjin’s way as the omega tries to arrange the plates. Even though Seokjin has to lean towards him to place something on the table, he doesn’t back out and follows Seokjin’s movements. They are so close that Seokjin feels the alpha’s mingling, sweet sandal breaths on his cheek.

Jimin murmurs a basic thank you when he plates his dish. 

When it’s time for Jungkook, Seokjin isn’t sure if he can handle it. But hushing the scared part inside him, he holds onto the hot soup bowl. He can do it. It’s just a plate. He is going to serve hot soup to Alpha’s table. He can do it even though his hands shake, even though Jungkook’s smell makes him want to curl up and cry and beg for something he doesn’t even know. He can–

Then, Jungkook lifts his head and directly looks at Seokjin’s eyes.

Seokjin’s breath stops. A one second before a hurricane; a soft silence, and everything crushes him. Those dark days he got tortured by the alpha. Those days where Jungkook laughed at his pain. Those days where Jungkook caused him pain. His body goes numb, and without even realizing, the weight of the bowl is not between his hands anymore.

A scream crashes his hurricane and Seokjin feels the earthquake.

“Fuck, you burnt me-! Fuck, hyung , it hurts-”

Seokjin has no voice to scream. He can’t even fathom which moments they are. It must’ve been him who should scream those words, because Jungkook in fact put that hot metal on his skin only a month ago , but it’s–

It was an accident. He wants to yell. I didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sorry. You looked at me and I got so scared I wanted to die.

He can’t talk. He forgot how to. And even if he tried, he is not fast enough.

Because there is already a hand on his hair locks, a tight grip that hurts him and brings him to this world.

It burns. 

Taehyung’s anger is burning. Alpha is seething. Purpose , that’s what will cause Seokjin harm.

He must’ve thought Seokjin did it on purpose.

The slap lands on his right cheek, the sound of it scattered all around the room along with the worried voices of others, and Seokjin wants to fall, his body is weak enough to not handle even a slap and he wants to feel the ground to remind himself that he is still on it, he is still alive, but he can’t; Taehyung’s firm grip on his hair preventing him from even this act. 

Seokjin starts to cry with all the burns on his skin, on his soul. Everything hurts. There used to be a little shame he felt, but it’s all taken when it’s Jungkook being here.

Jimin is treating Jungkook’s burnt skin. Seokjin is paying the price of his family’s actions. 

“Hyung, I’m sorry,” Seokjin wails with broken sobs, looking at Taehyung’s darkened eyes. “Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m sorry hyung I didn’t do it on purpose, I’m sorry-” He wails and wails and wails until he can’t even remember any other words than being sorry.

Jimin feels a tight rob in his stomach. Seeing the omega cry like this is always ugly to him. He hates him, he hates what they did to his family, but there is a ting of burn in his heart when someone weeps this painfully. ”Hyung?” he whispers. Seokjin is older than Jungkook. Also from Taehyung. Who is he even calling hyung?

“Hyung,” Wails continue as the omega looks at Jungkook’s eyes for mercy this time. He can’t look directly, but his sobbing face is directed at him. “Hyung, s-s-sorry…”

And as if hearing his wobbling is a pain for them, Taehyung pushes him on the floor from his hair. “Get the fuck out of my sight before I fucking kill you,” he declares with seeth. “Get lost!”

When did being lost became an award for him, Seokjin doesn’t even remember, but with alpha’s dismissing words, he crawls away from the kitchen to hide in a room that doesn’t even belong to him, just to feel a comfort. The heavy oxford blue blanket is a shield for him.

Even though he can hide his body from them, he can’t stop his gut-wrenching sobs. 

They hear the omega’s crying like a broken record as they treat Jungkook’s burnt leg with soothing balms. 

That night, Seokjin is a heap on the mattress in the room. He didn’t eat dinner. He didn’t move from his place after being dismissed. He put the blanket over him and stayed in the fetal position for hours, looking at the beige walls of the room with his tired, baggy eyes that held nothing but blankless inside of them. 

Today, the mistake he did, was not pouring the soup. He knows. It was calling him that word.

Hyung.

Now, his memories are unlocked, and Seokjin knows if he sleeps, they are going to find him in his nightmares. 

Being an omega brother to five alpha sons is not easy.

As the moonlight shines over the curtains of the iron window of the room, he senses the alpha before even seeing him. He can smell his musky scent; and the alcohol too. It’s too much. 

The alpha is drunk.

And Seokjin knows his firm hands will not show mercy. The slap was proof of it but the shaken soul will be the final result.

He knows when the hand closes around his hair and Alpha pulls him from his position, he is pushed to the bed with his face lying on the mattress and shaking in the air. He is on him. Again.

He is silent when he takes off Seokjin’s dirty sweatpants, he is silent when he removes his own pants, he is silent when he holds omega’s hips and it burns.

“Fuck,” he grunts, words drunk and blabberish in the state of a dizzy mind. His breath tingles on Seokjin’s ears like soft furs. 

Alpha sucks on his earlobe and Seokjin has to act like it doesn’t tickle. Like he doesn’t think it’s an act to show to a lover. Why is he even doing this? They both don’t enjoy this stupid act, they both feel the forcefulness of everything. Taehyung is fucking someone who thinks he murdered of his family, and Seokjin is under someone who tortures him.

“I hate you so much. I hate you so much.” He is so angry, his tone is wrapped in poison, it’s too much that Seokjin thinks Anger is a body sitting with them in this cold, lonely room. 

“I hate you. I hate everything you do. I hate looking at your face. I hate that you fucking get to live while my whole family died. What did you think, huh? You were going to take Jungkook away from me? Was it your revenge for the things I ordered him to do to you?”

How could Seokjin tell him that even seeing the sight of Jungkook’s face makes him wet himself in fear, let alone take revenge from someone like him?

With the way he is, now?

How can Seokjin even think about avenging the alpha?

“I didn’t,” Seokjin whispers with emptiness. “I’m sorry alpha. Please don’t.”

If he knew Taehyung was in a better state, he would beg his way to forgiveness, but every word being thrown on his mouth dies even before reaching the alpha’s ears.

“I hate you so much,” Taehyung whispers again. But the continued words are a dagger on Seokjin’s skin. “...but then why am I even drawn to you? Why are you so beautiful?”

Seokjin has to endure. It’s too much for his weak body and Taehyung is more brutal tonight with the way he is thinking the omega tried to burn  his brother. 

He grabs his head and hits it to the ground.

Seokjin is happy. He is happy to feel something other than the alpha’s cock entering him with wanton. He is happy to feel the pain of something else. He is happy that instead of getting lost in the memories of his five alpha brothers, he will have this alpha. 

The sun rises, with Seokjin alone in the bed, with all the blood dried up on his skin.

The sun shines in the room, and Seokjin curses to another day to wake up.

Seokjin doesn’t have a voice in the morning. But it’s okay. He doesn’t need it much anyways. When he enters the kitchen, he realizes it’s just two of them in the big house. Taehyung must’ve ordered them to not be here to protect his cousins.

Seokjin looked at the mirror in the morning. The place on his head that the alpha banged on the floor swelled, and the harsh slap left a bruise on his cheek and lips. But he doesn’t look that awful. He looks his normal self, with all the scars from before. 

Taehyung sits on the table, waiting for his breakfast, but it looks like his mind is somewhere else. Despite observing the limping omega, he doesn’t comment on it. 

The truth is, Taehyung was so drunk yesterday he doesn’t even remember what he muttered to the omega. Everything is blurry to him. He hates being a light drinker, even two sojus can make him hazy, but yesterday, after they went to Namjoon’s side and Namjoon asked about Seokjin, again and again until he heard an answer, Taehyung couldn’t keep calm. The night he drank whatever he found at the house and then without even knowing, his feet were drawn to the omega’s room. Seokjin was a small figure in bed until Taehyung forced him. The rest is blurry, but Taehyung can see his creation.

Seokjin is bruised. More than he thought he would.

When he serves breakfast to him, without even looking at his eyes, Taehyung is the first one to initiate a talk.

“Eat with me,” he says.

It’s their first talk since last night.

Seokjin, thrown back by the offer, has the mind to shake his head as a no after seconds of silence.

“I’m not hungry, alpha,” he barely whispers. He is so tired. He just wants to lie down and sleep until it’s time to prepare dinner. He at least got six hours between them. He should clean the house today normally, but he is too tired to do that. He can do it tomorrow. They really don’t give a fuck what Seokjin does in this house. They just keep him as a hostage to torture him from time to time, and Seokjin does the chorus to keep himself sane.

“You should eat.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I told you to eat,” he snaps eventually.

And Seokjin is such a coward to have his eyes dwell for this. He doesn’t want to but it’s unstoppable. 

How can he say that? How can he say that as if he is not grabbing his hair last night and—

“I–I don’t wanna,” Seokjin hiccups heavily, face trembling. “Can I please go and sleep?” His hands are a fist between his sides, he can’t even lift his head. Taehyung looks at him after a while.

“Why did you burn Jungkook?”

Seokjin cries more with the accusing question. He didn’t. He didn’t want to. 

He doesn’t say anything back.

“I ordered him to do those tortures to you. He didn’t do them willingly. You should’ve burnt me, not him.”

But the little alpha enjoyed doing them.

“Can I just go?” Seokjin wailed, hugging his own body as his hands already itched on his skin. “I want to sleep.”

Unfortunately instead of letting go of the deer on his hold Taehyung gets up from his seat with a soft thud, making the omega shiver.

“I’m sorry. I–I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” he takes a step back and tries to make himself smaller by lifting his shoulders, another failed attempt driven by his frightened omega sides. When he is with Taehyung, alone in the big old world, his instincts are always berserk. “I’m sorry!” he weeps. “I’m sorry-!”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything back until he has the omega squished between his body and the kitchen counter. Seokjin looks at the beginning of a hysteria, crying uncontrollably, begging for the thing that he doesn’t even know what made the alpha angry.

“I’m so, so, so, so, so sorry.” His frail hands trying to become a shield between his and alpha’s body. They are trembling like him. His doe-like almond eyes are closed but the tears are wetting his eyelashes.

Taehyung knows he is going to piss in his pants in a matter of time. (He did so much when Jungkook tortured him. It smelt disgusting mixed with blood and pus. Taehyung wanted to vomit. Seokjin already did, several times.)

Taehyung grabs the omega’s chin with his big hand and forces his face to look up and Seokjin doesn’t even open his eyes as the alpha observes him. He just continues to cry shakingly as the alpha looks at the bruise on his cheek, the way his lips bursted yesterday, the swell on the left side of his forehead. Seokjin’s eyes have so many bags under them it’s sickly. He looks like someone who only had several months to live.

“If you ever hurt one of my family members again, I’ll cut you off alive and feed your body to wolves.”

Seokjin nods with heart heaving.

“Did you understand?” Taehyung is firm.

“Yes,” the omega wails. “I did, alpha.”

He opens his eyes and when he realizes Taehyung is still looking at him, he closes them immediately. There is a portal behind his eyes and everytime they come across Seokjin is drawn.

But then Taehyung leans to kiss him and Seokjin wants to die, again.

He can’t stop it. He can’t stop anything. He just needs to accept it. He has to. 

The kiss is warm and salty with his tears. Taehyung nibbles on his bottom lip for a long time and Seokjin can do nothing but open his mouth to welcome the harsh tongue. Taehyung kisses like his looks; a winter breeze that makes your eyes watery because it burns. 

It’s like a wave hitting the shore and breaking everything on its way. The water absorbs everything from the bay and pulls it back to its bosom. Being kissed by Taehyung is being absorbed. By his hands frailing on his torso, by his tongue entering his warm mouth, by his moans and groans that makes his omega side tingle.

Seokjin is wet. He doesn’t want it but he can’t help it. 

“Fuck.” He moans before pulling himself from the kiss. “I can smell your slick.” There is a slight smirk on his wet lips now. “You smell like fear but you leak like want.”

Seokjin sobs. “I can’t– I can’t stop my body…I’m sorry. I don’t wanna.”

He wants to close his legs to at least stop the running omega slicks but Taehyung is between them. The alpha’s mockings are just another heart wrenching pain for him. Taehyung, knowing this, looks at the omega’s broken eyes. 

“Seokjin,” he whispers. The name rolls from his tongue like a foreign word. There are only a few times he addressed the omega with his name, and this time, it makes the omega cry harder instead of giving him fear. If he felt fear, it would be more manageable instead of this rotten rose feeling.

When the alpha pulls away slightly, Seokjin has the chance to wrap his hands around his mouth to stop the continuous kisses. However Taehyung holds his thin, pale wrists. As soon as he removes them from his face, he closes his lips on omega’s bitten one again. He kisses him with all he has: all the ugly, poisonous feeling crappling inside him. It’s like he wants to pour all the pain to the omega with the way their lips and tongues are connected. Alpha is awfully hard in his pants, a thing that he would be ashamed to admit only two weeks ago, but now it feels natural to respond to an omega that is slicking for him.

He continues to kiss the trembling omega in his hold, caressing the tiniest waist under the clothes and bending his fingers on his skin. They are gonna leave marks, because omega always bruises easily. Sweet and salty mouth is trying to resist the kisses, the breaths are hitchy and full of urge but Taehyung doesn’t let him get away. He kisses and kisses; and he presses. The omega whines to his mouth with an undoubtedly hurt.

Maybe this is more tortuous than all those things they did to him with Jungkook.

Stripped him nothing but underwear, chained him to the ceiling with shackles and knives, belts, hands… 

All those tortures hurt the omega less than this. 

Taehyung makes out with him for almost half an hour. He kisses, presses, and bites. Seokjin tries to turn his face away in every little break between he can –left, right, up and down, all the directions are an escape from him but Taehyung doesn’t let him. He makes him cum just from his kisses and his hands. And that’s when Seokjin starts to look more like a ghost. What’s more assaulting than cumming with the soft and caring kisses of an alpha who killed your family? This is making him confused. This is breaking him apart. This is showing mercy, to a person who doesn’t even know what mercy is.

***

Jimin’s hurtful eyes are on him. 

Seokjin stands in front of the door, not even meeting Jimin’s eyes. “Alpha is resting in his room,” he mumbles as he plays with the sleeves of his long sweater. It’s reminding Jimin the cuts he saw on the pale arm, but what is more distracting is his face now. 

“Are you-” Jimin opens his mouth. What’s he gonna do? Ask are you okay when it’s his own blood hurting him.

He doesn’t continue his sentence. He walks inside after taking off his shoes, and Seokjin stands inside the room for a minute before walking away to the kitchen area again. He is limping, a clear sign of what happened in this house when Taehyung sent both him and Jungkook away yesterday night.

There is a marking bite on Seokjin’s neck. Does he want this, Jimin wonders. But he can’t ask because the answer to the question is heavier than he hopes for.

He finds his way to Taehyung’s room by himself, leaving the omega on the first floor. The door is slightly ajar, showing Taehyung’s bed. He can see Taehyung is already sleeping.

But his face shows something else.

He is having a nightmare. There are sweats falling from his face; his hands grabbing the blanket over him and little mumbles escaping from his open lips. This is the sign.

“Tae!” Jimin almost runs to him. “Taehyung, wake up, wake up!”

He shakes him by his arm. The minute Taehyung’s eyes open, he doesn’t look like he is on himself. He immediately sits up to grab Jimin’s arm, keeping it away from him, and Jimin wants to scream in pain with the way Taehyung is grabbing his wrists. 

Until he realizes it’s Jimin, Taehyung’s hand doesn’t ease its grip. “Fuck, Jimin,” he breathes, deep and hard. “I thought you were someone else.”

“No. Fuck. How strong are you?” He pulls his hand away when the alpha’s grip eases and then rubs the place he grabbed. 

“Sorry.” Taehyung rubs his face to shake the sleep off. He pushes away the sweaty hair locks too. “I had a nightmare.”

“I get it. That’s why I woke you. You were crying.” Jimin looks at Taehyung’s decayed face. “What did you see?”

There is a soft silence between them. Taehyung’s eyes drift away, resembling all the scenes from his dream. Then, he averts his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I saw them.”

“You keep seeing them,” he whispers in agony. “Taehyung, I think you should really take the medicine from Namjoon hyung. It’s not safe to see your family dying every night-”

“It’s not them.”

“Then what do you see?” Jimin asks, puzzled.

“I saw Seokjin.” Taehyung eventually confesses. “He was running.”

“Running from you?”

“No. That’s the fucking weird part. He was running towards me. When–” He stops for a second. “When I killed them that night. I was leaving the house without him, and he was running to me.”

Jimin’s doe eyes are focused on alpha’s disturbed face, trying to examine. Taehyung’s lips are swollen and bitten, a clear sign that they had been…

Remembering the cuts in Seokjin’s arms, Jimin thinks about everything thoroughly. “When you killed them that night, why didn’t you kill Seokjin?” Jimin asks with a neutral expression. 

Taehyung rubs his face, trying to remember that awful night. 

“I didn’t even see him at first. He was in the basement. If he didn’t even come to check what’s going on the stairs I wouldn’t even see him. When he saw me, those bastards were already dead. You know, I have no idea how I managed to kill those five alphas on my own, my mind was gone, I was feral. But then I came back to my senses again. And then… he was crying, and looking at his brothers’ dead body, and he was just crying and begging me with those eyes and –”

He bites the inside of his mouth and then murmurs a curse.

“Then I couldn’t kill him. I don’t know. He was standing there and looking at me so shocked that I couldn’t.”

“So you claimed him and marked him right in front of his dead father,” Jimin murmurs.

“Can you stop reminding me?” Taehyung hisses. “I don’t remember what happened that night.”

“But you keep seeing it, Taehyung.”

“And I hate it. That’s why it's a nightmare,” he snaps.  “Let me go, Jimin. I already hate that he is in this house, that we fucking have to take care of him because I fucking mated him that night! And instead of being helpful to us he didn’t even speak about what his family did. He is useless. A fucking useless bitch who is only good for a quick fuck.”

“Taehyung, language,” Jimin snaps. 

Taehyung closes his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Jimin knows he should’ve warned him more but he lets him off the hook for tonight. “Do you think he burnt Jungkook yesterday knowingly?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung is furious, again. “Fucking bitch. Don’t you see the eyes he sends Jungkook? If he could, he would kill him. That’s why I’m fucking going to chain him to bed soon, that fucking cunt–”

“No.” Jimin stops him with a grimace on his face. “He doesn’t look at Jungkook with hate, Taehyung. He looks at him with fear.”

“So what? Do you think if we hand him a dagger he wouldn’t kill him?”

“I think, if we hand him a dagger, he would kill himself, Taehyung,” he confesses. Under Taehyung’s shocked eyes, he whispers: “He cuts himself.”

“What?”

“He has cut marks. He is cutting himself. Probably since his childhood. There are so many marks on his arms. Haven’t you seen it?”

Taehyung is puzzled, his thick sandalwood scent turning sour. “I did –but I didn’t think he did that to himself. I thought Jungkook did some of those. Or someone else, I don’t know.”

There is a silence.

“Taehyung, I have this thought but…”

“What’s it? Tell me, Jimin.”

Jimin gulps. “You know, he cuts himself. He doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t try to escape. It’s like he is accepting anything we do to him.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you think… is there a chance that his family was treating him poorly?”

“Oh.” Taehyung knits his eyebrows. A sudden flow of events keep crushing him –the omega’ doe, scared eyes flare up like a candle through his brain and his gentle touches ( pushes ) tingles on his skin. 

“But if they did, don’t you think he would tell?”

“He didn’t tell you anything. Why would he tell you that he was being treated poorly by his own family? Maybe he was scared that we would’ve thought he was unloved and useless and killed him right away.”

A silence.

“Why else would he be in the basement, Taehyung?”

Taehyung grips his own hair and pulls. “Fuck, fuck, Jimin, I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him. He is like a fucking black box. He hides everything to himself. Whatever we did, he didn’t rat his family out.”

“Maybe because he truly doesn’t know anything about his family…”

Taehyung’s hurt eyes turn towards Jimin’s hesitating ones. “Jimin,” he whispers. “Don’t say that you think he is innocent.”

“I don’t know.” Jimin nibbles at his lip. “I just think he is not dirty like his family, Taehyung.”

Taehyung rubs his face again. His chest is heaving with the harsh breaths he takes. “We’ll learn when Yoongi hyung comes,” he says eventually. “I told him to search about Seokjin too. When he comes back, we’ll get to learn why he was sleeping in the basement in his house and probably why he has cuts in his arms.”

“Yeah, we will.” Jimin smiles slightly. He takes off the locks from Taehyung’s forehead. “Are you better now?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jiminie.”

“It’s okay. Let’s eat dinner. I’ll tell him to prepare dinner and retire to his room. You don’t have to see him.”

Taehyung nods. But in his heart, there is a ping. 

He does not have to see Seokjin, it’s true. 

Then why every night he ends up in the tiny room in the basement that they give to the omega?

Chapter Text

A living thing; inside a room. He can be felt because there is a smell he leaves behind like a breeze, there are tiny thud sounds of his light steps every time he moves from a room to another, there is the water running down from the bathroom as a sign it moves. There is someone. There is a person, an omega, in the house. Who doesn’t speak, who doesn’t raise his head, who doesn’t look at their eyes. A one that doesn’t question, doesn’t blame, doesn’t show tears. 

He can be felt. He can be seen. He can be heard.

But he isn’t felt.

He isn’t seen. 

He isn’t heard.

Who will even hear him?

Jeongguk sleeps with his earphones, a soft lullaby lingering in his ears. It doesn’t even take him ten seconds to fall asleep after a tiring day where they run in the woods and playfully fight with alphas in their clan. He is only twenty one with big responsibilities on his shoulders. He is ambitious. Born to be the best. A soft person when a child, but when things get rough, he doesn’t back down from showing his teeth and bite. Jeongguk bites. It’s painful. It had always been. It’s known by their whole town, by their clan, when Jeongguk stepped in with his father in that torture room one day and saw what happened to traitors. When their father died, it was Jeongguk’s responsibility to take revenge.

Jimin doesn’t know if there is a back down from this. Jeongguk enjoys what he does, he loves playing the bad cop and punishing who deserves it. He laughs at the pain; he directly looks at Death’s eyes and giggles. He plays with it; bend bodies between his fingers and presses and hurts. He does it to only who deserves it. 

A some type of Robin Hood, who only steals from the rich and gives it to the poor.

A some type of torturer who only tortures who deserves. 

And then there is Taehyung. He can't even wake up from his own nightmares, how is he going to hear anything that is not a scream? He's getting lost in his own dreams, so much that he cries. He had been having sleeping problems since that doomsday, and when he is finally be able to sleep, nothing can wake him up. Taking pills to stop the nightmare, only to wake up to another one living in their own house, own comfort place.

Taehyung. A youthful alpha, always loved and cared for by his family. Only twenty three. Who doesn’t get "no" as an answer, who didn't experience death, who didn't know what to do when things get rough. He is a strong, determined alpha –Always been raised as the future Head of the Clan. The responsibilities on his shoulders didn’t make him back down from the things he enjoyed. He laughed with children in the clan, he fought with alphas playfully, he danced with omegas and made love to them in the sweet nights. He is a good person. At least, used to be. Before Death took his whole family away. He was a good person when his Father was alive. His mother. Sweet, kind, precious mother. His sister whom he doted on too much. A blossoming rose, only seventeen when those alphas attacked her and took her life. His family, his sisters, his brothers, his friends, his blood. 

It was a massacre. What happened two months ago was a doomsday. 

Jimin can’t turn back to that day. Jimin can’t undone what has been done. No one can.

He remembers how enraged he was that day. How he got the call, how he came here and saw the dead bodies lying on the floor. How Taehyung choked back tears with his bleeding tongue and his screams. His painful, agonizing, crying screams that hurts to hear.

Alpha had gone berserk. Every one of them did. 

Unless they killed all the Kim Clan of the Wolves, the fire inside them was never going to burn out. It lived in their heart; every tear was a fire, every word was a dagger. 

Taehyung did it. He killed the Head Clan. Jimin doesn’t hate it. He loves this fact, he loves Taehyung for it. He loves how those nasty, ugly, disgusting human beings died. He loves the way Taehyung stabbed them to death, even choking some of them with his bare hands. Killing five alpha brothers; a strength. A promise. 

Jimin is happy. 

He should be.

But sometimes, deep down, he wishes things he normally wouldn't.

Like wishing that Taehyung had killed the omega either.

Instead of seeing the omega in this state, a nobody, a no thing, he would rather have him dead. 

He would rather have Seokjin dead instead of seeing his young brother torturing the omega, instead of seeing how his cousin is taking revenge from that dead family.

It’s pitying. He knows Seokjin is from their blood, he knows Seokjin lived with those monsters and probably is one of them, but he just can’t… He just can’t keep seeing that bruised face, that scared almond eyes, that trembling body. It’s draining. Jimin wants to vomit every time he sees a trace of blood and a new pain in omega’s body.

He shouldn’t pity him. He shouldn’t. But why does it feel like… Why does it feel like...

Is he really from the same blood as those monsters? Is he really brother of those disgusting alphas, is he really the son of that nasty family?

Jimin keeps questioning it. His nights are awful, his days are more miserable. Every time he sees Seokjin winces away from Taehyung, every time Seokjin cries with the even slight mention of Jeongguk, Jimin hates everything.

He hates it. He hates Seokjin so much it’s sickening. He hates how he winces away from Taehyung. How he cries with the sight of his baby brother, Jeongguk.

Seokjin doesn’t know Taehyung is merciful enough to not even kill bugs. He doesn’t know Taehyung hates alcohol because it’s too bitter for his sweet tooth because Taehyung loves sweets. He doesn’t know Taehyung soothes the tears of the children when they cry. He doesn’t know Taehyung protects their people with all he has –he doesn’t know Taehyung helps the elderly with their groceries. He doesn’t know when Jimin fell ill for a month, Taehyung came every night to check up on him and talked him to sleep with a sweet, worried smile on his pretty lips.

Seokjin doesn’t know the real Taehyung, and Jimin hates it.

Seokjin doesn’t know Jeongguk is the kindest, purest soul in the world. He doesn’t know the Alpha cries every time a character dies in a movie they watch. He doesn’t know Jeongguk plays with children and let’s them win even though he is a competitive person. He doesn’t know Jeongguk lost his mother in birth and that left a scar in his heart. 

He only knows the scars Jeongguk left on him. He only knows the blades Taehyung cut into his soul.

Jimin wants to scream at the omega’s face. Don’t look at them with hate in your eyes. They do not deserve your hate.

But… But–

But does he deserve it?

Did Seokjin deserve what Jeongguk did to him?

Does he deserve what Taehyung still does to him?

He can’t even walk some days.

He can’t even leave his room because Taehyung is that hard on him- Jimin finds him in the basemenet they give to him, a literal heap on the floor, choking back tears and an empty look on his face as he faces the wall. No movement, no noise, no sleep. 

Isn't it tiring? Isn't it sickening? How can he still manage to live? 

Now, he is in front of Jimin, washing the dishes, with an obvious pain. He has been rubbing his back between his tasks, almost like a clock, every minute, his fragile hands turn back and rubs that spot. Jimin didn’t see his face clearly because he was already in the middle of his task when he arrived, but he knows that probably his eyes are baggy and  the new scars haven’t healed yet. His beautiful face is always so bruised it looks like he was in a boxing ring. He probably was. Opponent Taehyung, winner Taehyung. 

“Go away,” Jimin manages to whisper after a second. 

The omega doesn’t respond.

“Seokjin,” he says again, fierceful this time. The omega doesn’t respond. “Seokjin!”

As he goes over to touch his arm, the omega suddenly irks and shrinks himself as if there is going to be a hit. His scared eyes turn towards Jimin with a trembling expression. He doesn’t speak. 

Jimin gets that he didn’t hear him. How is he zoning out every damn second? 

He breathes. “I said go,” he repeats. “Go to your room and take a rest. I’ll clean the dishes.”

“No…” The omega looks at the dishes, then to Jimin again. “I’m doing it. I’ll finish it soon.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “Sorry.”

“What are you saying sorry for?” Jimin leans to close the water, only to realise it’s scalding hot. “Fuck-” he mutters in pain. “How hot is this?”

He realizes the redness on the omega’s skin. “You burnt your hand! Oh my god, you are really doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“N-no… Sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry,” Jimin snaps finally. 

The omega’s lips thin out.

“Just go to sleep.” Jimin breathes tiredly. “I’ll handle it. I’m already tired today. Listen to me and just go, please.”

After a thoughtful second, Seokjin nods. “Okay.” He dries his hand with the towel. He heads out the kitchen, to return to his room –a basement- and Jimin watches him go away. But before leaving, he hears the pliant voice. “Thank you. Good night.”

Jimin doesn’t respond back.

But as he washes the dishes, the water temperature stays the same.

Slowly white skin turns red, and it burns. 

It truly burns.

How did he manage to wash the plates with this?

How did he--

How can he still, how can he still?

How can he handle all these?

Jimin grabs the kitchen sink -the one that Taehyung cornered Seokjin in the morning and forcefully had his way with him when no one was around- 

A breath, the second one. Then, Jimin starts to cry.

The kitchen stinks of rotten roses. The omega isn’t heard, but his smell is everywhere. A rotten rose. In every breath they take inside this house.

--

When Jimin gets the text from his hyung, there is a relief in every inch of his body.

It had been almost three weeks since he was away. Jimin misses his hyung so much. Before all of this, his hyung was his safe space. He would run to his arms to take a rest from the world –and his hyung would listen to him. 

The thing with Yoongi was that he wasn’t just a healer. He was a listener, a reader, and an advisor, but he wouldn’t give fake consultation. Sometimes Jimin needed to cry and Yoongi soothed him without even a word.

He was a safe space for all of them.

Taehyung would get into his hyung’s room to escape the world. He would lay in his bed just to have a piece of peace in the world. Yoongi wouldn’t question –because he would know that Taehyung took responsibilities on his shoulders more than he should. 

It has been three weeks since Taehyung sent Yoongi to Kim Clans’ territory to learn everything. Now, he is back, and Jimin can breath again.

“Yoongi hyung,” Jimin goes to hug him as soon as he opens the door. Yoongi hugs back. His spice scent sweetens and Jimin knows his big brother missed him just as much as he did. 

“Hi, Jiminie.” 

There is only a two year difference between them but Yoongi has always been the mature one. When their mother died giving birth to Jeongguk, Yoongi was barely five. He took care of them while their father worked with their uncle to provide peace for their clan. When their father died four years ago due to cancer, he continued to take care of them. 

And maybe this is why, when the attack happened two months ago, he was the one who was the most calm. He knew how to soothe the tears of children –he knew how to help the broken one. 

“Where are they?”

“They were smoking in Tae’s room.” Jimin says. “Let me get them.”

Yoongi nods. After a brief silence, he asks: “Where is he?”

He. 

A nothing in the house.

Jimin’s face falls with the reminder of the omega. “He is in the basement. He stays there.” He looks at the clock at the wall. Three am. “He must’ve already slept.”

Yoongi only nods. He only saw the omega three-four times. And the omega’s face was blooded every damn time. (He looked so scared with the sight of Yoongi that the alpha pitied him and left the room, and after his leave, it was Jeongguk turning back.)

It takes only a few minutes for four of them to meet at the table in the kitchen. There are already cigarettes between every finger. Even Jimin smokes; a secret line between his eyebrows that shows he is thinking.

“Hyung,” Taehyung asks. “Tell me.”

Yoongi leans back on the chair. “I learnt where they keep the stacks.” 

 Jungkook is the one speaking this time. “Where?”

“A cave near their clan. They had stacked every supply there. Every food, every item, every supply is there. It's a hidden place. A child led me there, I think he saw it when they were carrying it there.”

“It should’ve been in our clan,” Jungkook mutters in anger. “Those greedy bastards.”

Taehyung doesn’t even care about the supplies anymore.

He warned his father to not work with Kim Clans of the Wolves, but his father didn’t listen. And now, he isn’t alive, paying the price of working with the wrong people. Kim Clan of the Wolves was known for their generous land. Mother nature gave them every crop. Despite this, their greed grew over the years and as if what they had in their hand was not enough, they started to steal from other clans. 

Why didn’t his father listen to him?

Those wolves had a bloody hand and didn’t even blink before taking the money from their clan and not giving the supplies. And as if they were in the right, when they had argued about it, the rest was clear; they attacked, in the night, like how they did to other clans, and tore apart Taehyung’s family. 

Taehyung was out of the house, crashing into an omega’s house to spend the night. When the door had been kicked by a family friend and his name was called over and over again, Taehyung ran back home. But what had been done was done.

“Since we are ruling that region now too, I think supplies can stay there. Or we can store half of them here and let the rest stay there.” Yoongi looks at Taehyung. “What do you think, Taehyung-ah?”

Taehyung takes a deep breath. “We can do what you said Yoongi hyung,” he rubs his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping at all lately. “We have enough supplies in our hands to rest for a year. But I don’t like the idea of all of the stock to stay there.”

“Did you decide who you are going to assign to rule that side?” Yoongi asks again. “It’s a big clan Taehyung. You need to send someone to give a report to you.”

Taehyung looks at him. There is a brief silence. “I was thinking about you, hyung.” He whispers.

There is a slight shock in Yoongi’s eyes.

“Since you and Hoseok hyung are going to be a family soon, I thought maybe you would like to… rule that side of the clan. Maybe you can start a family there. Hoseok hyung would love the sea-side.”

Jimin opens his mouth. “But Taehyung, that’s a two hour ride.”

“Yeah.” Taehyung nods. “Only two hours, Jimin. What do you think, Yoongi hyung?”

Yoongi thinks for a second. “If you say it, I will, Taehyung.”

“No. Give me your real answer.”

“Taehyung, you are the head of our clan now. You need to make decisions. We are all just your servants.”

“Stop saying that.” Taehyung cringes and whines. “I hate it.”

“But you are,” Jungkook nods. “You are our Head now, Taehyung-hyung.”

“So your decision is my decision.” Yoongi continues. “I’ll rule that side of the clan. I’ll keep track of them. I’ll make sure they obey you and us. And I’ll make sure they love and respect us.”

“As we do to them, right…?” Jimin asks, uncertain. “We are going to love and respect those people too, hyung. We are talking about ten thousand people. Not all of them are wrong. You guys know it, right?”

“We know,” Jungkook grimaces. His hands move to pull out another cigarette from the package. “Stop pitying them.”

“I’m not pitying them, Jungkook. I’m just saying it’s not their fault that the head of their clan was a son of a bitch. They can’t change it. They had to obey him. To all of them.”

“I know,” Taehyung touches Jimin's arm, slightly squeezing it to show he is here. “They are going to be treated kindly, Jiminie. That’s why I’m giving this role to Yoongi hyung. He’ll be a good leader for them.”

Jimin cowers in his place again, crossing his arms. “Okay then.”

They sit in silence for a second. Jungkook serves all of them coffee as the younger and they talk about random things. What did they do today, what were they doing for the past week. They ask how does it feel to rule a clan now to Taehyung, and Taehyung just brushes them off. They talk about their old days; when everything was good and not been harmed. When there were laughter in their clan. Those amazing dancing nights and events they held and the talks they had near the burning campfire.

The kitchen is ashy and burning with the cigarettes, but it’s better to smell like this instead of the rotten roses. It’s everywhere. They had been ignoring it, but sometimes, it hits their nose.

Taehyung is the one to ask. “Did you search about him?"

The question creates a sudden crash in the room. They all stop, the actions slower, world slower, Taehyung’s eyes fierce. He is the one who can call the omega’s name without hesitating. 

There is a swift change on Yoongi’s face. He licks his lips before speaking. “Taehyung. I– I’m not sure how to speak about it.”

“Tell me.” Taehyung’s face is neutral. “Why did you learn about Seokjin, hyung? What did his people say about him?”

“Taehyung-” Yoongi tries to stop him again, only for Taehyung to raise an eyebrow.

“You won’t like it,” he whispers.

A heart break, inside Jimin’s fragile omega body. “Hyung.” He manages to choke the word. What is it that Yoongi is sad to talk about? What is it that they are all scared to hear?

Silence follows, and Taehyung’s patience has a limit. “I said tell me,” he snaps eventually.

That's a motive for his hyung. “I talked with people from the town. Some of them didn’t even want to talk about him.”

“Are they scared of him?” Jungkook asks, puzzled. “Why didn’t they?”

“No.” Yoongi is careful with his words, reading the tension in the room. “It was clear that… they pitied him.” 

“For what?” Taehyung grits his teeth. “Hyung, don’t let me pull words out of your mouth. Tell me everything.”

“He had five alpha brothers.” He looks at Taehyung briefly, then returns his eyes to the table, speaking with a neutral tone. They all know he had. Taehyung killed all five with his bare hands. 

“I heard that his brothers would strip him and push him to the river and laugh at him. They said they would see bruises on Seokjin’s face, or onh is body all the time. And if they saw him. Apparently, they didn’t let him go out of the house that much. It looks like all of his brothers would used to beat him regularly. They would kick him out the house in winter with his underwears –”

His words have a strength. It chokes Taehyung. It chokes Jimin. It chokes every one of them in the room. A heart squeezing, that’s what Taehyung feels as he tries to keep his face neutral as Yoongi talks.

Yoongi grits his teeth in anger. “And fuck, I think those fuckers had a thing for him being naked- because I heard that somedays, they would dump him into the forest at night with nothing but underwear and expect him to find his way to home. They were so cruel.They said, sometimes, it would take days. Those wolves are not known for being friendly to omegas, I knew it, but I never thought their hatred was this much enough to torture their own baby brother. They used him as a literal servant in the house. The people said that it was like… he wasn’t even part of the family. They always bullied him.”

Drop, drop, drop.

It’s Taehyung’s heart. It’s not beating. 

“What about his parents?” Jungkook manages to ask with all the information he hears, he is in the bridge of getting angry and getting hurt, to realize-- No. It can't be. “Hyung, you gotta be kidding me! Stop this nonsense! Do you think his parents let those fuckers treat him this way? To their own child? These all must be a lie!”

A reasonable reaction, that doesn't change anything. “I know,” Yoongi whispers. “That’s another thing. His father was in it too. Heard that he beat him up.”

Drop, drop, drop.

A nobody. A nothing. Not even from them, maybe. 

He continues. “They said Seokjin was alone in that household, not even his mother fancied him. And... It was five sons against one. They didn’t care.”

A skin that blooms red with the water, sad almond eyes that doesn't even hold any lights. Cut in his arms, because that's what he deserved, isn't?

“What about his heats, hyung?” Jimin’s eyes burn with tears. Since he heard the words, all he could think was bare, raw, skin and skin. A tear rolls down his face. “His heats?”

Jungkook raises eyebrows. “Do you think they..?”

“Oh. No.” Jimin starts to cry. “God. No. Please.”

“No.” Taehyung shakes his head in denial, immediately. “They couldn’t.”

“How can you know?” Jimin hiccups with breaths are hard to take.

Taehyung doesn’t back down. There is a fire in his eyes. “I know.”

“How can you know?”

“I just know, Jimin. Don’t.”

“HOW?!”

“Because I was the one who took away his virginity, that’s why!” Taehyung shouts back at Jimin with the anger running in his eyes. “I was the first one, okay? Stop questioning it, you fucking know how!”

Jimin’s eyes are blurry.

“All this time,” he chokes. “You -no, no, we tortured him and for what? He wasn’t even part of any of it! He didn’t kill your mom and dad, Taehyung! He didn’t kill your brothers and sisters! He didn’t do anything!”

He can no longer sit, the chair is already on the floor and his standing body is trembling with absolute anger. 

“And what the fuck are we doing to him, huh? YOU -you fucking threw him at the Town Hall with that state and claimed him as your bed slave in front of everyone in this town! You threw him in front of everyone when he was begging you to show mercy! You didn’t even listen to him, you didn’t even give him a chance! And for what, huh, for what? Only for everything to show us that he was innocent, all along!”

“Jimin hyung,” Jungkook gets up with him. He is worried about him. “Hyung, calm down-We didn't know. No one knew.”

“NO! Don’t you dare fucking touch me, Jungkook! You tortured him! When I begged two of you to open your eyes and search for it, you didn’t even listen to me!” He turns to Taehyung. “You were so righteous about your little revenge that you didn’t even want to search about him. You wanted him to be dirty, so you could do those things to him without feeling guilt.”

“I thought he killed my family, Jimin-” Taehyung chokes. “He is still one of them!”

“But he was innocent!” Jimin cries. “He didn’t do anything! And look what have we done? What have we done, Taehyung? When did we stoop so low that–”

“Jimin, calm down.” It’s Yoongi’s alarming tone.

“Me? I'm the one who should calm down? Are you guys have lost your minds? There is a person in our basement that got tortured by my closest family, and by me.” Jimin hiccups, looking at Yoongi’s saddened eyes. “And he is all innocent.”

He closes his hands to his face and sobs, uncontrollably. 

“We did everything, only for him to be innocent all along.”

Jungkook lowers his head. (All the nights, all the fun, all the bled he cut to an innocent being. Is it true? It can’t be.)

No one can get what Taehyung’s thinking, but alpha’s scent is as sour as burnt wood. 

“So what now?” 

It’s Jungkook asking. It’s almost minutes later.

“What do you want us to do, Jiminie hyung?”

“Don’t you dare to Jiminie me.” Jimin points a finger. “Don’t you dare.” He heaves. He looks at the bridge of a panic attack. Not realizing what’s going on inside Taehyung’s mind, he is more scared than ever. “We’ll let him go, won’t we? Taehyung is going to break the mating bite. We’ll let him walk away from this town, this clan, and we’ll send him back to his clan. Or wherever he wants.”

“No.”

Jimin looks at the alpha with the cutting words. Taehyung looks like he is scared, a clear sign of pain and shock in his eyes. It's not clear what's he is afraid of, but when he is steps away from all of them, a dim light illuminating his face, Jimin realizes Taehyung is not the alpha he used to know. He had changed. Among all of them, these two months had changed him the most. It's not his kind, sweet, innocent soulmate anymore. It's an alpha Jimin had never seen. A mature one; an angry, hurt, broken one.

“What do you mean no?” he manages to question. 

“No.” Taehyung repeats, hooded eyes focused on Jimin. “I said no, Jimin. He’ll stay here. None of you get a say in this.”

“What? Taehyung, stop talking nonsense.”

“I said my final decision,” his tone is wrapped in ink, as if a vow being written on papers. 

“No. Taehyung. Stop. Didn’t you hear what Yoongi hyung said? He is innocent. He didn’t kill our family. He didn’t do anything. He is innocent.”

Taehyung doesn’t even look at Jimin’s eyes anymore. He looks at Jungkook with burning fire inside his eyes, with Yoongi, as if letting them know –letting any alpha know- who is the head of the clan.

His latest words are a slap to Jimin’s face. “He’ll stay until I say otherwise. And if any of you disobeys my decision or tries to do something funny, there will be consequences.” Teeth seething. “Even if you are family.” 

With that being said, Taehyung turns his back and heads back to the stairs, to find a solidity in his own room.

Chapter Text

There is a ghost in the house, and it’s hurting all of them. There used to be one. But now it got into four different bodies and they are all turning into one like a flower withering away with the touch of a poisonous one. 

Two days had gone since that day. Since they learnt the truth. 

And it’s a truth they will never recover.

Jimin doesn’t talk to both of the alphas. Jungkook nibbles the inside of his mouth every time Jimin walks past him without saying anything. He calls his name –his only omega hyung. But Jimin doesn’t even look at him.

Jungkook is staying in the guest room at Taehyung’s house, and he looks at his phone or goes out to hunt something in the wild when his hyungs ignore him like this. He catched some rabbits in the wild and he even cooked it perfectly, just the way his Jimin hyung likes it, but neither Taehyung nor Jimin came to the already prepared dinner table to eat it. Only Yoongi showed up and after eating his meal he left to return to his safe place –to Hoseok hyung. 

“You need to give time to them, Jungkookie, they are paying the price of their own conscience. They need to figure it out themselves.” These were his last words as he went back to his own house that he shares with Hoseok, who is an omega so bright and cheerful. They had been together since childhood and now, at the age of twenty-five they are already trying to figure out how to live forever.

Jungkook is alone. Jimin is cross with both of them. And Taehyung doesn’t even speak to anyone.

Taehyug doesn’t need to speak because his shattered face shows everything. He doesn’t sleep, eat, or talk with anyone. There is nothing behind his gaze. He walks past them in the house when he needs to do something like they are all ghosts. He somehow looks strong –only to crumble when he thinks no one is watching him. Slightly ajar bedroom door, that’s where Jungkook hides. Taehyung holds onto the cigarette between his fingers and rubs his temples. 

Then, he cries. 

Cigarette burns, and Taehyung crumbles.

Warm, poisonous tears glow on his tanned skin, and his broad shoulders shake with the intensity of his crying. He wails so bad and so silent– So silent, not even to light a breeze.

He collects himself in some minutes but even that is a lost attempt. He keeps emptying the cigarette packages and the smoke drains all of them inside the house. Jungkook has to get away from the door before Taehyung realizes someone is watching him, but even after running away he can’t unsee the cries of his hyung and how hard his shoulders shake with every sob.

Seokjin’s innocence is still dirty. It hurts all of them.

Jungkook hasn’t seen the omega after that day, and he doesn’t know how he should react if he does. What should he say? 

Sorry.

Sorry for torturing you. Sorry for cutting your skin with knives and laughing at you. Sorry for the belts and cranes. Sorry for punching you.

Sorry, sorry, oh, he is sorry. 

Jungkook is so nervous to face him. But as if knowing what happened, the omega doesn’t leave the basement either. Or maybe he does and none of them are aware of it. He had always been silent. Jungkook doesn’t even realize there is someone in the house other than the three of them most of the time; the steps are silent and light, the smell is rotten and the mouth never speaks. 

Jungkook doesn’t care about him. Whether he goes or he stays. He doesn’t like that omega, because they are from the same blood as those monsters.

But to see Taehyungie hyung crying like that because of him…

It hurts. To see that people you love cry, hurts.

Does Seokjin have anyone to cry for him? He probably doesn’t. Afterall Taehyung killed all of his family, and he kidnapped Seokjin, and no one came for him in the past two months. If someone had loved him, they would. 

Maybe he wasn’t meant to be loved by someone. 

**

Water runs down, it’s the only thing that calms him down.

Everyone had been acting weird around the house, Seokjin had noticed it yesterday. When he came to the kitchen to prepare dinner and no one was around. House was empty. He thought about running but then he realized he had nowhere to run to. 

Even if he did, Taehyung would probably bring him back and do more awful things. 

Or maybe he would order Jungkook to do so. 

Not wantong to face a torture like that ever again, Seokjin returned to the basement, to his bed on the floor and slept. 

Two hours later he heard his voice –Jungkook– and Seokjin didn’t have the heart to go up there. He realized the young alpha was preparing the dinner instead of him, probably to spend some family time together that Seokjin had never had, so he left them to be on their own and slept throughout the whole night, hungry. 

Tonight, after realizing that no one was to eat dinner again, Seokjin couldn’t handle the hunger. 

When he didn’t prepare anything for them he also didn’t eat. But he was starving, it felt like his stomach shrinked. He cooked himself some rice in the fastest time and ate it in silence in order to not alert someone.

And benefiting from the loneliness, he got into the shower.

Seokjin doesn’t know where they are but it would be amazing if he could just shower and return to the basement again without being seen.

The water hits his cut skin, and his aching body and tight muscles loosens under the warm water. The temperature is not that hot now –it hits his skin but doesn’t burn. 

It reminds him of the reaction Jimin gave when he was watching the dishes. He didn’t even realize it was that hot. 

He looks at his hands. It’s scattered. It burned. There are scars on his pale hands. He twists his wrists to take a look.

It’s all cut. Whitish skin blooms with different and new scars. 

His body is so disgusting Seokjin doesn’t even want to look at it. He doesn’t like facing the mirror, he doesn’t like being observed. If he could, he would spend the rest of his life hidden behind a mask and only taking it off when he is alone in a room, where no one would be able to see his skin. 

He doesn’t hate himself completely. He just hates some parts of it. He hates his cut arms, he hates his bent fingers, he hates his voice and laugh, he hates his skin, he hates his bruised legs. 

His face is the only good thing about him. Or used to be. Now, there is a knife scar from Jungkook’s hands on his face. He knows they will never fade away. But they will blend on his skin and maybe wearing a cloth mask for the rest of his life doesn’t sound that awful.

Lookable. That’s what his brothers used to tell him. 

But Taehyung had called him beautiful once.

Seokjin wonders, does he really think like that? Does Taehyung really think he is beautiful? Or was it because Seokjin was a hole he could stick his dick in and give him a pleasure of five minutes? Was it from the moment itself, the heated, intense orgasm he had? Seokjin doesn’t know how he looks like when Taehyung fucks him, but it looks like Taehyung enjoys the view. Or maybe he likes to see Seokjin suffer. There could be many reasons for Taehyung to continue what he does to him, but Seokjin is only fixated on those words.

“Why am I even drawn to you?”

Why?

Seokjin caresses the mating bite on the side of his neck with his shriveled fingertips; the mark of the teeth creates a harmony between them. The mating bite is whitish like the cut of his arms; and it’s probably the only reason why Taehyung thinks he is drawn to Seokjin. 

Seokjin doesn’t feel anything towards him except fear.

Which one hurt more? The knife cuts or the teeth?

Seokjin doesn’t know. 

Lost in thoughts, the omega doesn’t realize the cracking door. It’s steamy inside the bathroom; mixed with bubblegum body wash and a white soap smell in the air. 

The alpha stands on the bathroom floor, watching the way the water droplets fall from omega’s scattered skin, finding their way on the floor following a line on his skin. The omega is rubbing his skin with bath cloth –leaving red marks all over his skin with the way he touches himself. Hard. Uncare of hurting. Like a revenge on his own; harsh.

Taehyung closes the door and rests his back on it. His head is so cloudy and there are so many thoughts waiting to be straightened but all of it dies as he observes the omega’ scattered body.

Seokjin’s back skin is so subtle and white, the traces of the past are blossoming on it. The belts, it has been two months since that day, but the marks are still visible. They didn’t even treat them. It must’ve got infected and hurt so bad. How did it even heal and let go of that pus? 

Maybe Jimin helped him without the alphas knowing it. Taehyung prays for that small possibility.  Jimin had always been kind and maybe he helped the omega when he thought no one watched. 

What Jungkook did to him was on his skin.

But what they had done was mixed with the older scars.  

I heard that his brothers would strip him and push him to the river and laugh at him. They said they would see bruises on Seokjin’s face. If they saw him. They didn’t let him go out of the house that much. Apparently, all of his brothers used to beat him regularly. They would kick him out of the house in winter with his underwear.

Taehyung looks at the omega with the sardonic in his eyes. Did they hit him? Did they beat him that much? Did they kick him out of the house in the winter breeze?

Did they strip him naked and torture him?

Just like how Taehyung did—

They used him as a literal servant in the house. The people said that it was like… he wasn’t even part of the family.

To believe or not; that’s where Taehyung’s broken soul rests. Two options with both of it hurting him.

It only takes some minutes for omega to close the running water and get out of the bath, only to flinch and tremble when he realizes he is not alone. 

He flinches so hard Taehyung is afraid that he’ll fall, but the omega manages to collect himself and makes himself smaller. (Taehyung had realized it the first time he saw the omega. As if a protection mechanism, the omega tried to make himself smaller by shrinking his shoulders and those doe eyes watering in an instant.) 

Scattered breaths, fearing eyes.

His hand doesn’t even go to grab the towel. He just stands, waiting. His sweet rose scent thickens and his nakedness is not an effect for both of them. Taehyung stripped him bare, reaching far, far inside his soul.

Was he always like that? When his brothers did those things to him? Did he stand there like this and waited for mercy–

Taehyung’s hooded eyes darken. 

And it’s another flinch on omega’s empty face. “T-taehyung alpha…”

Taehyung closes his eyes. A battle in his own heart; not knowing what to do when his name is uttered like that. 

He sighs. “Help me bathe, Seokjin.”

He takes off his trouser first, then his shirt. 

When they stand naked in the already steamy bathroom, it’s like a staring contest. Seokjin looks shocked by what he had heard, but his face hides the traces in an instant. His eyebrows are slightly frowned, but it’s a cute gesture Taehyung finds amusing.

Passing by him, the alpha goes to the shower cabinet. 

It takes some seconds for Seokjin to register what he heard. But eventually, he follows Taehyung back to the shower cabin. Taehyung has already opened the water and Seokjin grabs the shower head. He doesn’t open his mouth to say anything. Maybe he is even relieved only to be here to bathe him. Taehyung sits on the stool. 

Seokjin checks the water temperature on his skin first before starting to wash the alpha. His doe-like eyes examine the tired, drained face of the alpha as the water wets the fluffy, black hair. 

Taehyung closes his eyes as the warm water loosens his tightened muscles. He had been running in the forest all day long, escaping from the responsibilities that came with being the pack alpha. There are people relying on him and Taehyung wants to wash away that burden off his shoulders. The warm water can’t help it enough, but when Seokjin reaches out to take his hair away from his face, the dainty fingertips do. Taehyung wants to hold onto that tiny gesture but he knows the deer is too scared to fight back. 

Seokjin pulls the hair strands from his face as he keeps washing his hair and face, and Taehyung memorizes every inch on his skin that the omega lightly touched.

“Aren’t you going to use shampoo?” he mumbles after minutes later. 

“Sorry,” the omega mutters. As the alpha’s gaze is on him, Seokjin finds it hard to focus on how to bathe someone. 

Alpha reeks of earth –as if he had been in the coldness of the wood for hours. Maybe he was. Seokjin didn’t see him all day long. If he didn’t examine his own body in the shower, would he be able to return to the basement without getting caught by the alpha and be free from this mindless act they do?

He grabs the shampoo bottle and his fingertips lightly touch the alpha’s black hair locks.

Taehyung hums as the omega rubs his skin. They are so soft. His fingertips had always been so soft and supple, afraid to hurt.

Did Seokjin ever hurt anyone? In his life? Taehyung wonders. He probably didn’t. 

Then why did all of them believe he did for months?

His hot breath falls on omega’s flat tummy as the omega leans to wash the back of his hair. The omega is shivering, maybe because of the water droplets getting cold on his skin. 

Taehyung’s hands immediately go to grab his tiniest waist and that’s when Seokjin loses all the coolness. His skin burns, and his fingers stop, his breaths shatter. 

Taehyung rubs his nose at the expense of the subtle skin. Maybe it was because he had just showered, the omega doesn’t smell like rotten roses. It’s just… a sweet aroma of a rose, subtle and hidden. Taehyung wants to savor it a little more but he knows it’s washing away from his fingertips with the passing seconds. 

He’ll not be able to hold it. It’s gone.

The moment. 

That one second he touched the burnt skin and it’s all gone. It’s rotten, again. A withering flower. God. It hurts so bad Taehyung wants to scream. He just touched his tummy, and the omega is already writhing.  

But he only murmurs, “Continue,”

From the moment his hands grab the bare skin, Seokjin’s hands turn messy. He can’t do it right. He can’t hold the showerhead straight as he washes the soapy places of the alpha. The water droplets hit the tales, it hits the floor, it hits his own body. His fingers sweat because he can’t breathe. 

He keeps muttering sorry between his breaths and Taehyung wants to lash out, really. 

How can he keep saying sorry like this for everything he does? All they heard from him that day is sorry. 

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

It lost its meaning. It’s just a placeholder for every unspoken word. 

The omega bathes him for a few minutes, before asking, “Is it enough?” in that tiny, scared voice again.

Taehyung nods. 

The omega goes to grab a towel and hands it to the alpha with his gaze on the floor. He never directly looked at Taehyung’s body before –he is always keeping his gaze low and even if he looks, it’s mostly his face to read a reaction. 

Taehyung knows omega doesn’t make eye-contact. 

He grabs the towel from his hands but instead of wrapping himself, his sturdy hands reach out to the omega and he carefully puts the towel on his still shivering body.

It doesn’t stop the shivers.

Seokjin trembles and his eyes turn towards Taehyung.

For a second, his gaze burns Taehyung. For a second, the omega looks in utter shock in his eyes. It’s so brief that Taehyung has to stop time to catch it –because Seokjin immediately lowers his head back.

They stand in the hot shower facing each other. Taehyung can’t help it. It’s unstoppable. It’s unspoken. It will never ever be spoken again.

He leans to kiss the omega, knowing that it tears the omega apart. It bares his soul again.

It’s venomous. The minute he grabs him, the omega tears apart. Like a leaf falling in the autumn, can’t even handle a light breeze.

Taehyung continues to kiss him and Seokjin continues to try to run away. But he can’t. The alpha’s collecting hands are too strong to not even let him tear apart completely. He grabs Seokjin and pulls his naked body, the warm towel fluttering on the floor. And Seokjin’s salty tears are another obstacle in their deep breathings. He can taste it. Roses are rotting, saliva is salty, and touches are shaking.

Taehyung holds him close. He presses his body onto his. Afraid, because it will truly fall apart one day if they keep doing this. If Taehyung keeps doing it.

It’s not meant to help. Taehyung grabs his body by his hips and hops him on his lap, Seokjin immediately wrapping his supple legs on his back so as not to fall. His dainty, shaking hands are holding onto Alpha’s shoulders, digging his nails. Not meant to hurt but they burn Taehyung.

Taehyung continues to kiss him in every corner of the bathroom; open the door, they are in the loneliness of the corridor. 

Not even a minute passes and he has the omega in his room, lying on the bed and plushy lips wet and bleeding. 

Under him, Seokjin looks so stupidly beautiful –almost breathtaking. Even when he is crying and this scared, he is the most beautiful human being Taehyung has ever seen. Those almond, doe-eyes that get teary with light touches, those plushy, plump lips that are soft like cotton candy, that button nose turning red with the slightest tears, those reddest applecheeks that need kiss marks instead of bruises. 

His chin. Jungkook had cut so deep. 

Fucking Jungkook had cut so deep and it will never, ever, ever heal.

What they did to him for nothing –god, god, god, it will never heal. 

Taehyung observes the ethereal beauty, and finds himself kissing that cut. Not in an attempt to erase but to acknowledge. 

“Seokjin,” he says, defeated. “Seokjin.” 

The nothing. A no one, a no thing, a ghost.

“Seokjin.”

Name rolls off his lips in a deep accent and the omega drowns.

Taehyung brushes his nose against his applecheeks. Hot breath falls on his skin, and the tears are salty on his lips. He kisses Seokjin’s cheek. Then his chin, then his lower lip, then upper. Bloated breaths hit his mouth. The omega sobs. 

“Don’t you know how to kiss?” Taehyung asks softly.

Seokjin shakes his head as a no, his pretty black hairs smearing around the pillow daintily. 

“You need to open your mouth,” he whispers as he leans again to trace his lips. A soft kiss, not even tongue, mouth on mouth. “You need to let me in.”

Seokjin cries, “I–I don’t know how to kiss,” he sobs, “I’ve never done it.”

“Was I your first kiss?” Taehyung’s tone is slightly shocked.

A brief silence, then the omega nods again.

That doomsday, Taehyung grabbed him by his chin with enough force to almost break, and forcefully put his tongue down his throat. His memory of those moments are blurry but the more he kisses Seokjin, the more they turn clear in his mind as a punishment. 

“Do you want to learn?”

Omega shakes his head. “N-no..”

“You need to open your mouth,” Taehyung whispers, ignoring his words. “You need to let me in.”

“It hurts.” Seokjin sobs. His shaking hands find alpha’s sturdy chest and pushes–he pushes with so much want but so weak, Taehyung doesn’t even budge from his position. “It hurts.”

Taehyung is not even touching him –but he does what the omega says. He gets off of him and sits next to him on the bed. When his heavy body is off on him, the omega immediately goes into fetal position and turns himself smaller as much as he can. 

His sobs continue like a broken record; it creates a disgusting memory in Taehyung’s mind.

He had always cried like this, didn’t he?

Taehyung grabs the cigarette package from the drawer and lits one. With a cigarette between his lips, he watches emotionless as Seokjin goes numb in minutes –is Taehyung at his third cigarette? He didn’t count.

Then, the omega lifts his eyes again to gaze at Taehyung. They are sparkly and teary.

Taehyung looks at him back.

And the omega doesn’t escape from his eyes. 

“You are so beautiful. It’s not fair.”

Dried tears have their company. Two tears roll down Seokjin’s eyes to his temple, and they are burning hot. He looks at Taehyung and –it’s different. His eyes have anger, agony, hurt, panic, softness inside them. Beautiful tapioca pearls. Seokjin’s eyes are vixen. He is a witch sent by the devil to tempt the mind of a priest. 

He is beautiful like those witches.

But his body is scattered. It has scars everywhere. His arms, so cut that it’s hard to find a place not modified by a blade. His chest, a burnt iron, Jungkook did it to him. Belts and cranes. Some new, some old, and never gone. 

Some fresh. Like how Taehyung presses and grabbings leave a mark. His teeth sucking on the supple skin. Seokjin’s nakedness is nothing new to him. He knows the omega. He knows his skin.

“Come on,” Taehyung mumbles, putting off the cigarette. He leans again. “Kiss me.” 

“What are you trying to do?”

Ah.

Ah.

It’s the first time Taehyung heard anger from his tone. It’s surprising. It’s exciting. It’s an emotion that is not sadness nor pleas. It’s new.

“I’m not trying to do anything.”

“You are.” Seokjin’s lips tremble. “You are… y-you are a-acting d-differently.”

Taehyung closes his eyes for a second, then smiles warily. “Do you hate it?” 

“What do you think?” It’s biting. 

“Kiss me,” Taehyung says again. But he doesn’t wait for action. He grabs the omega by his sweet, thin thighs and pulls him to himself. There is an inch between their lips; but Taehyung doesn’t close it. “Kiss me. I want you to do it.”

Seokjin looks at him in utter disbelief, then he sobs. “What kind of torture is this?” His bloated breath sinks on Taehyung’s lips. “Why are you doing this?”

“Kiss me.” Taehyung presses his hands on his tiny waist. Press. Press. Press. He doesn’t want to hurt, but it’s like the only way the omega reacts.

“Kiss me.”

He doesn’t back down. Minutes go by, and he is getting lost on the pearly eyes. They hold the universe inside them. It’s sparkly. Little tapioca pearls.

“Kiss me, Seokjin” he begs . 

Seokjin’s eyes fall.

And he does.

He grabs Taehyung’s face with his frail hands and closes the small distance between them.

It’s messy.

He parts his lips, a way to let Taehyung in but he can’t continue.

Taehyung pulls himself on him again and he savours the sweet, plushy lips as his hands constantly roam around the tiny waist and on his naked back, caressing with the calloused feelings. There is a ting in Taehyung’s heart that stop ticking, it’s so fucking heavy that he is suffocated by it. He wants to curl up to a ball and cry for hours. He doesn’t deserve to cry on the omega’s arms, but he wants to. He knows the frail hands must’ve been bleeding to grab onto something for years. 

When the omega is out of breath and tries to pull himself again, Taehyung doesn’t go for it. He doesn’t push himself. He doesn’t let him fight, he doesn’t ignore his tears this time. 

For the first time, he stops. Even though he doesn’t want to. He never did. Even in that ugly, dead of the night where he first saw the omega next to the dead alpha bodies and went feral with the instincts, his alpha side didn’t want to stop. He never did. It’s such a shame that he used to think he was a good person, a good alpha. He was kind. Used to be kind. But now his kindness is the cut marks on Seokjin’s skin, it’s the way pearly eyes can’t even directly look at Taehyung’s eyes because he is just so, so, so, so scared. 

Taehyung gets up from the bed, leaving the omega confused and in despair. Seokjin’s sobbing grows with every passing second and unlike Taehyung, he has the right to curl into a ball on the bed and cry his heart out as he wishes. He just does that. His bare skin is not something new within these four walls. He makes himself smaller than he already is –tiny on the bed- and wails. 

Taehyung wipes his wet lips with the back of his hand, and without even spearing another glance at the crying omega he leaves the room. If he doesn’t, he would find himself on his legs, begging for mercy from the murderers of his family. And it’s not something he can do.

Not now.

Not yet.

**

Jungkook shouted his name thrice, but only a disturbing silence returned to his worried cries. He goes to the second floor to see his hyung, but the closed bedroom door is a barrier in front of him. “Hyung,” he calls again, because he needs Taehyung hyung. It’s getting ridiculous at this point. No one talks to him. Not Yoongi. Not Taehyung. Not Namjoon. And definitely not Jimin. 

He knocks the door but without even waiting for an answer he opens it, unaware of the sight that will welcome him.

What he sees is not something he is expecting.

For a second, his whole body goes stiff and muscles tightens. His big doe-eyes are utterly in shock with the view on the bed.

The omega. Seokjin.

He is lying on the bed on his belly, his almond-like eyes open and empty. There are tears rolling down but not like a sign of hurt. Like crying is just a reflex. His eyes don’t even have that fighting urge in them as if being naked in front of anyone is not something he cares about.

He is completely naked, pretty milky legs long and bruised all over. He is alone in Taehyung’s bedroom and god knows where Taehyung is. 

Jungkook wants to close the door. Or at least, look away. To not see the vulnerable state that the naked body is in, definitely not meant to be seen by him, but he just can’t. His whole body has gone stupid with the sight. 

Yes, he had seen Seokjin naked before. But not in bed, not when he was lying face down, not when his skin was smelling sweet and not dirt.

Seokjin’s red, puffy eyes glaze him with the same emptiness. He doesn’t cover himself, he doesn’t get up, he doesn’t yell for him to go away. He doesn’t even look surprised by the sight of Jungkook going stupid. He just waits. Waiting for something. 

How long had he been lying naked on Taehyung’s bed?

Jungkook opens his mouth to say something but not even a word comes out of his lips before he is being pushed away harshly by his arm.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

The tone is wrapped in rage.

Taehyung.

The older alpha pushes Jungkook out of the room again and closes the bedroom door in an instant. 

“Did I give you permission to get in my room, you idiot?”

Jungkook shakes his head to peel off the sight carved in his eyelids. “I- Hyung, I shouted your name and- and then you didn’t answer so I just–” He is mumbling because he has never seen that much anger in his hyung’s eyes. Not for him, at least. 

“Cut it,” Taehyung snarls. “Don’t get into my room if you don’t hear me say come in. Do you understand?”

Jungkook gulps and lowers his eyes in embarrassment. “Okay. Sorry hyung. I didn’t know he was there.”

“Then you shouldn’t have entered!”

“Okay. Sorry. You are right. I didn’t mean to see him, really. Sorry.”

His words are reassuring but Taehyung’s flarings don’t stop. The alpha is clearly biting his tongue to not break Jungkook’s heart -or any of his bones- so Jungkook has to take a step back again. “I’m sorry hyung, I’ll wait for you next time. I really didn’t think he would be there. Why is he even there? Did you two do something?”

There is a second silence.

“Jungkook, stop talking.” Taehyung sighs in frustration, eating all the anger.

It’s the first time they had been speaking since they learnt the truth and it’s not going in a good direction, apparently. 

“Why are you here?” he questions.

“Uh.” Jungkook bites his lips. “I was just here to say that the festival is within a week, you remember it right? The council wants to learn if you are still onboard with making it. They will follow your order.”

The festival. 

As a clan, they loved celebrating everything. They loved the laughter by the campfire in the town hall, they loved playing and listening to music all day long and dancing to the rhythm, they loved eating and feasting as a whole town for hours where they got wasted on the lovely chattings and with each other. They were a happy clan. They are. They will be. Still.

And this time, this festival hurts Taehyung. Because this time, it’s in the memory of the great great great Kims who had come to this place and turned this empty land into a home for all of them and extended their territory with peace. 

Before the doomsday, it was Taehyung’s father leading them, lighting the torch in the town hall and feeding everyone who came to celebrate. 

But he is not here now. And as the pack alpha now, Taehyung must be the lead. 

Jungkook realizes the uncertainty in his hyung’s broken eyes. He gets that he is scared.

“They said grief is okay, hyung, the council is okay to cancel it. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to celebrate this year.”

It had only been two months since the massacre, afterall. 

“No.” Taehyung shakes his head. “It’s okay. We should do it. Something needs to change. Everyone is already having hard days, maybe this festival will cheer them up.” His tone lowers at the end. “Maybe me too. Let’s do it.”

Jungkook nods. 

There is silence for a second.

“Jimin hyung is still not talking with us,” Jungkook whispers. “He is angry.”

Taehyung averts his eyes.He is leaning on the closed door behind him, but even that doesn’t give him much strength. He looks defeated in every way.  “I know.”

“Please, talk to him hyung. I don’t know what will help him. He is closing himself in his room. I’m afraid he’ll stop talking to us forever for what we did, he feels so sorry for what happened.”

“Don’t you?”

The question takes Jungkook out of surprise. “Uh?”

“Don’t you feel guilty?” Taehyung asks, word by word. “For what we did to him?”

Jungkook closes his open mouth. He is like a five year old kid getting scolded by his parents in front of Taehyung, looking down at his feet and mumbling something. 

“I do, but I can’t turn back what we did, so I just have to accept it.” He shrugs his shoulders. “So does he.”

There is a painful smile on Taehyung’s lips. “You scare me sometimes, Jungkook.”

“What did I do?” the alpha whines. “Hyung, I just want everything to be normal between us again. I don’t care about him! So what?”

“Nothing.” Taehyung shakes his head. “Go back to your home. I want to stay alone tonight.”

Stay alone with the omega in your bed, duh, Jungkook thinks but doesn’t voice his thoughts. “Okay hyung. I’ll let the council know.”

He leaves the house, but there is a weird feeling in his stomach that follows him even after in the darkness of the streets. After that massacre, everyone started to head home earlier than they normally would, so it’s not surprising to see the streets empty.

He thinks he is hungry, only to realize he is actually feeling horny.

Yeah, seeing a naked omega wasn’t a good thing.

He should find someone to spend the night with if he doesn’t want to jerk off to the sight of the omega lying on his Taehyung hyung’s bed. 

To his Taehyung hyung’s mate.

Chapter Text

After almost three months, it’s the first time Seokjin is outside. It’s funny that he knows what the outside looks like from the windows; just like he knows almost every item that is inside the kitchen, living room and the bathroom. He has limited access to other rooms (he is scared to go), but it’s his first time seeing what the house actually looks like outside. The cabin house is bigger than he thought. It’s not surprising since this is the pack alpha’s house. It’s a little outside from the town center but the big garden that opens up to the forest behind it makes up for it. 

Seokjin’s observing eyes never turn there. The garage. It’s like even though he knows it’s there, his mind can’t comprehend it. A void that he can never escape. 

It was the first place Taehyung threw him three months ago and when the treatment started. Seokjin’s groggy eyes shift to the entrance for just a second –and then immediately sways back. The beat on his heart; slow, like a wounded wolf. 

Taehyung doesn’t say anything despite waiting for the omega to walk behind him slowly. 

Seokjin is happy that it’s at night because being inside the house for too long, the sun would blind his eyes immediately. Seokjin is a moon lover; he loves the nights more than day time. 

Since his childhood, he had believed the night was magical. You could never know what the night would bring to you. Some days, as he tried to fall asleep, he would hear the heavy steps of his father. He would say good night to Seokjin with a subtle hair caressing. 

It was years ago, but Seokjin can still cherish them as if they are new. 

The stars; the phases of the moon; the way everything fell silent and the whole sea stopped to look at the moon. Nights were magical. 

As he gazes at the sky, he already feels a little happy today after all the months.  

Seokjin walks behind the alpha who is smoking a cigarette as he plays with his crooked fingers. They are bruised again, and Seokjin doesn’t even know why and where, but it doesn’t hurt. 

The night is truly magical because there is a moon accompanying them –and Seokjin tears his gaze away from the moon only to look at the alpha walking in front of him for the first time.

The only thing lighting the empty streets other than the moonlight was the cigarette between the alpha’s beautiful fingers. 

Taehyung looks like a handsome stranger from the back, his black hair neat for the first time and full black clothes that are fitted to his body proportions, outlining his good physic. With the way he walks, he looks like he owns the streets. Afterall, he does. He is the pack leader. Every place inside the town belongs to him. His power is no joke –Seokjin knows this, because his father was the most powerful in their town and it’s no different from other clans. 

The pack leader provides. They protect. They rule. 

As they walk the silence turns into a sour taste by seconds. Seokjin hears the laughter and sees the far silhouette of the people from afar, and he promptly realizes. 

He knows this path. He knows where the alpha is taking him tonight.

He can never forget.

Hiccups, sobs, pathetic wails. That’s what Seokjin is in front of hundreds of people in the town square. He is pushed to the floor by a tight grip on his hair despite all of his attempts to escape. If he could just die from the pain in his heart, it would be much better than being seen like this. 

But he isn’t. He is being observed. Hundreds of whispers and murmurs are circling around the surroundings, and there are more pathetic noises than he gives. It’s a title –shame: Slut.

“This is the omega of the Wolves,” the tone of the handsome alpha who tortured him is burning more than the pain in Seokjin’s heart. Everyone shushes to listen to the pack alpha talk with hatred.  “He is the only blood alive from the pack who killed my family.”

Seokjin trembles with the reminder. Dead bodies lying on the floor. Five brothers, some of them on top of each other, lifeless. Where was his mother? Seokjin couldn’t see her dead corpse for the last time -first?

Taehyung continues, “And I want it to be known –I want everyone to listen– that from now on, this omega belongs to me. He is my property. He is mine. He is my slave. He is mine to do whatever I please.” 

The crowd doesn’t say anything. They observe the omega with disgust and hate in their face, it’s too much that they reflect in their eyes.

Seokjin sobs, his frail hands wandering in the air to close his face, at least to not be seen. He wants his mother. 

But then Taehyung grabs his wrists, pulling the hands from his face. After he handcuffs the pale wrists with one hand, he grabs his black hair and lifts his face with the other one making sure that he is seeing them too.

“LOOK AT HIS FACE,” The alpha screams, and Seokjin can see hundreds of grossed out eyes focused on him. They look at him as if he is a piece of dirt, as if he is the most ugly creature their eyes land on the surface of the earth.

And it is.

Seokjin wails. “S-stop… Stop, please! I’m sorry!” his voice is barely a word, the only thing he can say is sorry. He is hyperventilating; all the eyes are daggers, and every breath is a stab on Seokjin’s already dirty body. 

It hurts. Where Taehyung took him. Where the blood and cum slowly drops to his inner thighs inside his torn clothes. Where his hair is being grabbed. Where everyone looks at him. It hurts. Seokjin wants everything to stop, but he can’t. He knows what this feeling is.

He is having a panic attack. 

He knows it’s one. Because he had it years ago, when his brothers threw him at the town square in his underwear, beaten and abused after Seokjin made a mistake. 

And it’s a reflection of years ago.

Seokjin knows it’s his destiny.

It’s who he is. It’s what he deserves. It’s what he can endure.

“Look at his face,” Alpha barks, and to make sure the words are carved inside every brain, he says again, “this is the face of my slave.”

This is the face of my slave.

Seokjin can see himself thrown under the clock tower; on the hard and cold ground. The traces of the abuse are still on his knees because he hit so hard.

He hit the ground so hard. 

The two step sounds filling the street drops to one –and Taehyung looks at his back to see the omega had stopped walking.

Seokjin’s feet betray him, there is a feeling, a type of hurt in his legs that makes. 

Taehyung knows what the omega is thinking, because the dread in his milky almond eyes is clear.

“Continue,” Taehyung says.

Seokjin opens his mouth to say something for the first time today. He shutters, and all the courage is gone in his lips as Taehyung raises an eyebrow at him. 

Taehyung takes a step back to him, and he realizes Seokjin doesn’t even take one. He is standing there, dreadful eyes focused on the street taking them to the town square –where the crowd is, where the cheers are being heard- “I’m sorry,” he whispers, closing his eyes. He doesn’t know what the alpha’s intention is but he can try escaping. Not by body, not by feet, but maybe with please. There are tears falling from his face. “I’m sorry. I’ll–” I’ll be good. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll do whatever you want. “Please,” he whispers for something he doesn’t even know. 

“Seokjin.”

The omega shutters without Taehyung can even react.

“I’m sorry alpha, please don’t-”

“Seokjin. I’m- I’m not gonna–” He takes a deep breath. “There is a celebration tonight.” He cowers over the frightened omega. “We are celebrating the foundation date. There is a feast. I'm taking you to eat with others.”

Disbelief grips the omega as he listens, his eyes narrowing with doubt. “I don’t need to eat,” he mutters. “P-please.”

“You are being stupid now.”  Taehyung scrubs his face in rage. “You’ll take your place as my wife today, okay? With town people. You can’t live inside the house for the rest of your life.” 

Or until you let me go.

Even though Seokjin doesn’t want to, alpha’s rigid stand is enough for him to take action. The steps are slower than before, as well as his cries, but it makes Taehyung angrier somehow. It’s Seokjin’s fault if he cries hard; and it’s still his fault if he cries silently. 

Apparently —Seokjin realizes— no matter what he does, it’s always his own fault. 

The town square had been carefully dressed in ribbons and decorations. Colorful streamers flutter in the wind, but there is stillness in the air.  It looks pretty. There are banners everywhere; and there are more than one campfires lighting inside the big torches so that people can be warm in the breezy night. There are town people who sell milk, corn, candy, and homemade items with a kind smile on their faces. 

It’s like a home-smelling carnival.

Seokjin sees the town people for the first time. He doesn’t know who is who, he doesn’t know anything about these people. He doesn’t even make eye-contact with them, but he knows every eye is on him. Everyone is watching him. There are hushed whispers as he walks one step behind the pack alpha, as Taehyung reaches out his hand back and grabs Seokjin’s wrist to guide him somewhere.

Seokjin is empty. He is empty -by heart, by eyes, by soul.

He doesn’t look at anyone. Head bowed, mouths thinned, eyes half closed. Not until Taehyung makes him sit somewhere in the main table that is placed like the shape of U, he doesn’t raise his head. But then Taehyung orders him to, “Sit until I come,” and Seokjin lifts his head, looking at the wintery eyes of the alpha.

Taehyung’s presence is scaring him. But his absence is somehow scarier. “W-where are you going, a-alpha?” he manages to mumble, taking Taehyung by surprise by his hand grabbing the alpha’s fingers. 

It’s so subtle -but Taehyung’s eyes kinda soften. “I need to greet the council members, they are elderly people. I will come back soon. Sit here.” 

Seokjin bows his head again. He can hear the whispers clearly when Taehyung is gone.

“Is this…”

“Yeah, it’s him. Is he still alive?”

“Such a shame. He needs to be dead like his family. They are monsters.”

“What was his name? He looks sick. Is he?” 

“Praying he is. Maybe he dies sooner and joins his family.”

These ones are respectfıl.

Seokjin can differentiate that word the most. Slut. Whore. 

Whore, whore, whore, whore, whore, 

Slut. Slut. Slut. Whore. Whore. Whore. 

Bet he opens his legs for him.

Bet he begs for it.

Breeding bitch.

Between million of insults from variety, Seokjin feels a breath near him. It’s the first time he raises his head. 

The omega looks at him with smeldered in his eyes. It clears off second laters, but in replace of it he smiles warily. “He did bring you, huh?”

“Jimin-ssi…” Seokjin mumbles.

Jimin is wearing a white shirt with same colored pants, his ash blonde messy but somehow with the way it’s standing out it makes him prettier. The omega sits next to Seokjin on the table, crossing his legs on the soft cushion they sit on. “I told him to leave you at home but he never listens, you know. He is so determined to make you seen.”

“You–” Seokjin bites his bottom lip. Bruised. “You haven’t come to the house for the past nine days.”

“Did you count?” Jimin smiles in surprise.

Seokjin nods slowly. Of course he did. Afterall, no matter what happens, Jimin is the first one to give him an ounce of kindness in that torture room. He is the one who begged Taehyung and Jeongguk to set him free from that room and do something else to him. 

“I had an argument with Taehyung, so I didn’t want to. Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Seokjin whispers, ignoring the second question. Answer doesn’t matter. 

“I’ll be here for the whole event. If Taehyung gives permission, I’ll walk with you back to the house, okay?” He looks somewhere and Seokjin follows his gaze. Taehyung, the alpha, is far away, greeting some elderly people wearing hanbok and he is talking seriously with them. “He probably won’t let me take you home now. But in a few hours, I’ll assist you home, so don’t be so sad, and just ignore people, okay?”

Seokjin observes the omega for a second. “Why are you being nice to me?” he questions. 

“Why would I be cruel to you until you’re proven guilty?” Jimin says back.

“But I’m already guilty. I’m… my family.” 

“Your family doesn’t define you,” Jimin takes a deep breath, resting his hands down the carpet on the floor as he leans back to gaze at the clear sky. There is a slow hesitancy in his words. “I’m sorry for everything, Seokjin. I wish I could change things but I can’t.”

Seokjin opens his mouth to say something; being in discomfort with what he hears.

Is something wrong? Why is everyone acting differently? For the past nine days, everyone is out of their mind. 

As he gets cloudy with what he wants to say, he doesn’t notice the younger alpha coming closer to them.

“Jimin hyung. I have been looking for you everywhere!”

Jeongguk’s presence always frightens Seokjin.

Especially since last week. Where the alpha saw him naked in Taehyung’s room. He hadn’t come across Alpha since that day and no one had talked about it. Not Taehyung, not Seokjin, not Jeongguk.

But when Jeongguk sees him, the irises darken for a second. His gaze lands on Seokjin’s body slightly like a passing breeze. 

It’s only for a second, but Seokjin feels the electricity crawling inside his blood. Dangerous, unwanted, scary.  

“What do you wanna talk about, Jungkook?” Jimin has a sharp tongue to the younger.

“Everything,” the alpha whines, turning back to his hyung. “Please can you just come for a second?”

Realizing that there is no escape from the young alpha, the omega sighs. “Okay. Let’s talk somewhere else.” 

Seokjin’s loneliness is not for long. In just half an hour, Taehyung is next to him, and almost every table is full of town people. Foods are served on the table, and a variety of dishes that Seokjin didn’t even eat before is in front of him. It is different from what they used to eat in their clan.  

Of course, just like every other pack out there, Seokjin’s clan also had their own feasts like these. It’s just that -Seokjin wouldn’t quite attend them. He would sit in the further place at the family table, and he would always have a reason to not quite feel hungry at those nights. Probably a fight with his brothers, the long scolding he would receive from his mom or even his father would be enough for him to not touch anything.

Seokjin is familiar with sitting on a feast table and not being able to feast on anything.

He can hear the sweet laughs at long tables that cover the entire street. Everyone is sitting on the floor on soft cushions, people pouring each other drinks, sharing food, feeding their children while some of the kids run in the big temple with warm bread in their hands. They are sweet; it’s nice to hear moms yelling at their kids to sit and eat, and the fathers encouraging their children to run some more and win the little races between them. The young omegas are sitting and gossiping between their circles, pretty and full-of makeup, eyeing the alphas on the other side of the table and the alphas trying to look “cool”, only to blush and get nervous as they can’t keep their eyes off the omegas. This clan –Tigers- has so many teenagers. They are full of youth, and that’s always a promising clan. These people will walk with Taehyung for a long time in his pack leader journey, and they’ll be his right hands. 

Seokjin doesn’t know he is looking at them with longing, not until he feels a slight touch on his arm. He jerks.

“Eat,” Taehyung’s hooded eyes are observing him. 

“I–I-” Seokjin mumbles with the sudden attention he feels on himself. 

Everytime he realizes that Taehyung can observe him, view him, see him, Seokjin is struck with a heavy ache. All he wants is to be unseen by the alpha but this is not something he can have, apparently. 

“Okay, alpha.”

With frail fingers, he grabs the chopsticks. He knows everyone started eating when an elderly got up and spoke, and Taehyung paid respect to the elderly by bowing slightly. It was only five minutes ago, and the eating sounds are echoing inside the town hall. 

The omega looks at the rice in front of him. He is hungry, but even eating feels like a betrayal as if he is going to choke on it. He knows this is by the hand of people from this town; they plant this rice, they harvest it, they distribute it. It’s their own hard work. 

It’s hard to eat, but it’s scary to not eat when the alpha’s one eye is crossing him.  

Seokjin starts eating while holding the small rice cup in his hand, head bowed by the unfamiliar gazes upon him. He doesn’t know how many, but he knows there are continuous whispers about him. It’s their right to talk after all, isn’t? Everyone must’ve wondered why he is here. Seokjin wonders it too, because he doesn’t even know why Taehyung had been avoidant towards him for the past week and now he wants him next to him in a festival celebrating their foundation.

He knows it’s not just Taehyung from the way Jeongguk and Jimin stopped their stay in the cabin house. No one is talking with the alpha. It must be due to the fight they had but Seokjin can’t ask about it. He doesn’t have a right to. 

Just like everyone gazing at him, Seokjin also observes his own broken, crooked fingers and why he is eating.  A slave, sitting right next to the pack alpha, with a blanket tossed over him by the alpha because he was shivering. These little actions creates bugs inside Seokjin’s stomach, making the dinners a sin. 

Seokjin lifts his head slowly but doesn’t thank the alpha.

His eyes are fixated: The dusty ground Taehyung had tossed him in the first night; the cold stones under his knees and the bruises his palm has endured is only meters away from where he eats.

In front of the clock tower; right middle of the town hall. It has been only three months since that day, but Seokjin can still hear the anger of the alpha. Claiming him as a slave right in front of everyone in that state. His clothes were torn, his face bloody with the beating, legs sticky with cum and slick— because before taking him there, Taehyung had pressed him on the floor in front of his dead father and ra— 

Seokjin irks rapidly, remembering that first moment. 

He got used to it by now. He truly did. It doesn’t hurt like the first time. And sometimes, when shame is far away from the secret of the touchings, Seokjin feels tingly between his legs with the amount of slick he produces and when alpha hammers inside him and it’s gives him things he doesn’t want to feel.

But whenever his mind wanders to that first moment, that bite he felt on his neck and the wail he poured,  the alpha stretching him open, uncaring about his pain and tearing his skin apart, it’s hard to breathe. 

The eyes are tigers; they are hunter, they are waiting to attack. Seokjin can’t breathe.

“Can –Can I?” he stutters, getting up with a flick of the rice cup in his hand. Taehyung’s intense gaze is already on him. “A-alpha, can I, toilet-”

Taehyung seals his lips. “It’s behind the candy bar you see over there. You’ll find the sign.”

Seokjin nods and rushes there. As he finds his way with the crests guiding him, Seokjin throws himself in the small cabinet. 

Breathe, Jin, breathe, Jin.

Not the first time. But never will be the last. 

He splashes some cold water from the sink to his face, the bruises on his skin and the markings getting hit by the coldness. It’s sharp. Seokjin grabs the sink and breathes, one, two, three, again, one, two, three again.

He hates it. He hates being here. He wishes he could be in his own basement. He wishes he could be in his own basement and maybe even then, the small smile his father gave him would be the biggest gift ever. 

His dead, cold eyes as the alpha–

Seokjin didn’t even get to ask his father if he was ever going to love him, ever. 

He bites his upper lip to stop the tears but he is familiar with them. They’ll fall from his face and stop in a few minutes. It’s nothing at this point. Even though he wants to hide inside the small cabinet forever, when he hears the steps he manages to collect himself and comes out. 

“We hadn’t met.”

It’s a faint smell of an omega. A girl. 

Seokjin is hard to understand that she is talking to him, trying to pass the girl only to be stopped by. He sluggishly lifts his face to look at the omega’s eyes. The moonlight and the street lamp shine half of her face. She is smaller than Seokjin of course, just like any omega, but she is not short either. She is a beautiful omega with caramel hair and chocolate warm eyes. She is wearing baggy clothes with lots of accessories. A beautiful omega. 

“S-sorry.” Seokjin whispers, trying to pass her one more time only to get blocked again. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” The girl laughs. “Do you think sorries are enough?”

Seokjin doesn’t want to do it. Not now. Not ever. Everytime someone from the town looks at him he wants to curl up and cry. It’s harder than what he feels around Taehyung.

At least Taehyung can avenge his parents in his own ways. At least he can take his grief out of Seokjin as much as he wants. Seokjin can pay a price to Taehyung -but he can’t face every person in the town and look at their eyes and remember his family’s wrongdoings. 

“Sorry.” Seokjin closes his eyes, taking a step back. 

“Your family ruined everything,” she spats. “Your family killed my friends, the people I loved! You hurted us as a whole. You should’ve died just like your bloodline!  I heard Taehyung tear down their necks with his bare hands. He should’ve done the same to you too.”

Seokjin chokes with every word. He should’ve. It’s Taehyung’s fault. 

Not killing him is Taehyung’s choice, not Seokjin’s. He would’ve chosen to be dead instead of this. All of this.

More warm tears fall down on his applecheeks but he doesn’t open his mouth. The anger is combined with everyone living here; she is talking on behalf of everyone, isn’t it clear? Isn’t this what everyone thinks about him? 

“I don’t understand why he got you here. You are good for nothing.” Her hand reaches out to push the omega by his chest. Seokjin budges a little, his back hitting the wall behind him. He doesn’t lift his face. That’s the least he can do.

“He’ll never love you. He’ll never see you as a wife. You are just a slave to him, and he’ll kill you when he is bored of you. He’ll feed you to the tigers, your bones will be a treat to the dogs.” 

As she realizes the discomfort on the omega’s trembling body, she smirks. 

“You are scared, aren’t you? You’ll pay the prices of everything you are doing. I hope Taehyung kills you in front of me so that I can see you wrenching in pain-”

“Eunae.”

Before even Seokjin can react to anything, the girl is being pushed by her arm by an alpha. Taehyung’s seething anger is lingering in the air as his grip on the girl’s arm tightens; it’s clear from his darkened face that he was here to listen to the end of the conversation. 

“Enough.”

She is in disbelief. “Fuck off, Taehyung! God, stop touching me, you are hurting me!” 

It’s clear that Taehyung’s grip eases with her last words but he doesn’t let go of the girl.

“You are protecting this piece of shit? Am I seeing right?” She yells with red in her eyes. 

Taehyung isn’t fazed by her screams. As the girl tries to save her arm from him, Taehyung doesn’t budge. “Get lost before I break your heart,” he says coldly. 

“You already did that,” she spats again. “You already did that when you brought this stupid whore to our clan and claimed him as if he was some type of possession for you!” 

Her eyes hold anger more than Taehyung now, and Seokjin is just a third party in their fight as he watches them with his apprehensive eyes. 

“You were possessive of me too in those nights; but I think you found yourself a better cunt to fuck, is that it? How is he? Better than me? Is fucking the killer of your family is giving you satisfaction?”

“This is not the time to talk about it.” Taehyung’s grip hardens again. He pulls the omega to himself slightly, directly looking at her eyes. His words are gritted. “I order you to turn back to your table before I do something we both will regret.”

She hisses, but with a last curse on her lips, she pushes the alpha. Her orgling eyes bites Seokjin -”Fuck you too,” she hisses before getting lost by the corner. 

Seokjin watches her leave. But it’s harder to stay here now, when he is in the presence of the alpha. They are alone in this corner –the only accompaniment is the light of the moon and street lamp. It highlights both of their faces, but Taehyung’s simulated anger doesn’t illuminate towards Seokjin.

“Did she do something to you?” he asks. 

Seokjin doesn’t open his mouth, trying to comprehend everything he just heard. Millions of words pound in his ears. So she was… Taehyung’s ex-girlfriend? Or is she? Still? Or until Seokjin came here? Or did he fuck her while he was also doing those things to Seokjin? 

Which one is scarier -which one creates salty waves inside Seokjin’s already wounded heart more?

“Seokjin, did she do something to you?!” Taehyung repeats. “Answer me, god damn it!” 

Seokjin irks. “N-no. Sorry.”

“Then speak the first time I ask you,” he taunts. “And stop fucking saying sorry!” He angrily kicks a trash bin near them, irking Seokjin more. The alpha looks like a winter breeze in the warmness of the feast night. Anger is directed to Seokjin, despite not the cause. 

“S-sorry. I’ll stop. I’m sorry. I’ll stop. S-sorry-”

“Stop it!” He smothers, briskly grabbing the omega by his arms and pushing him to the wall. “I’m forbidding you to use that word from now on, got it?”

He is too close. Seokjin can feel his body on his, and it’s creating tidal wave in his stomach. 

He nods with tears dwelling on his eyes. He is sorry. Truly sorry. But he can’t utter the word. 

What’s he for if he can’t even say sorry?

“I hate when you keep saying sorry. I hate when you are this small even next to girls. I hate when you don’t resist. I hate when you don’t speak. I hate when you don’t eat, when you get scared, when you make yourself smaller like this when someone shouts at you!”

Seokjin doesn’t even realize he is making himself smaller. He wants to fix himself but it’s impossible when the alpha is caging him to the wall behind, and Seokjin just needs to endure it. Like how he did everything. 

Two hands on his face, hiccuping at this point. Tears never stop. He doesn’t understand it. Why does Taehyung keep saying he hates him when both of them know it from the start? It’s absurd. They both didn’t expect anything else. 

He is probably reminding Seokjin that hatred is sheer as the first day. What can Seokjin do order than to just-

“Sor-” He bites his mouth to stop. Now, his only word is taken away from him.

What will he say to stop the torture?

He has nothing now.

“Alpha…” he wails. “A-alpha, I- I - I don’t k-know what - what else to d-do!”

If it isn’t Taehyung’s hands on the wall cornering him, he would already fall. But the alpha’s body is a barrier for him.

Taehyung’s one hand goes to the omega’s face to pull the hands off, and Seokjin has to try to hide his face by lowering in order to not be seen crying this hard.

“Look at me.” Taehyung sighs. “Seokjin. Look at me.”

Seokjin flutters his eyelashes as he commits to the order. Taehyung’s face is in the dark, but tan skin still glows. Taehyung is handsome up close, and Seokjin gets why that Eunae girl got angry thinking Seokjin stole him from her. But it’s not like that –Seokjin can’t even fight with those beautiful omegas. Taehyung is too handsome to look at someone like Seokjin. Rotten, used, abused -unwanted. 

You keep saying to look at you, but when I do, you won’t say anything. Seokjin thinks. 

The alpha’s eyes don’t have much emotion behind them, that’s why Seokjin is able to see his own reflection. He looks broken in alpha’s eyes. Scared, hurt, angry, defeated. He is defeated, afterall. Taehyung is the puppeteer.

Then, the alpha sighs, taking a step back. “Let’s turn back to the feast. People will question where we are.”

Taehyung observes him under his dark eyes. How Seokjin looks like he wants to cry harder.

“We’ll only stay for an hour. Then we’ll walk home, okay?”

Seokjin doesn’t want to stay for an hour. Nevertheless, he nods. 

“C’mon. Walk.” The alpha orders with his chin, so Seokjin has to dry away the tears with the back of his palm before walking where the crowd is. As they walk towards the table people watch them over and over, but no one does anything, their eyes are the gossip itself; their mouth is the dirty words itself. Seokjin’s head is bowed all the time and it will never rise, in front of these people.

Seokjin’s tears are not new, but it’s the alpha doctor who approaches to stop them. The omega cries silently but his reddish eyes show that he never stops crying.

“Hey,” his thick voice is light in order to not hurt the omega. “Seokjin.”

Seokjin lifts his head to look at the handsome, tall and dimpled alpha. Namjoon. His name is Namjoon. He remembers him from the time he got sick and was in bed rest. He remembers the kind, warm hands examining him with hurt and shock in his dragon eyes.

“H-hi.”

“Can I sit?” he shows the empty cushion next to him.

Seokjin doesn’t understand why he is getting permission, he is not the one to give, yet he still nods.

“How are you?” Namjoon asks but in a second he realizes how absurd it is. He laughs bitterly. “Sorry. It’s just surprising to see you here.”

“I am surprised, too.” Seokjin whispers. Taehyung had gone somewhere again. He is dissappearing a lot. As the pack alpha, he must have responsibilities to do. Seokjin heard that the elders and the alpha are having a council right now from an alpha walking behind him some minutes ago, in order to talk about something he can’t wrap his head around. But he was alone for the past twenty minutes until Namjoon came. 

“This is the time we celebrate our foundation. Taehyung’s great great great great grandfathers build this place. We always celebrate things. Did you- Did you used to in your clan?”

Reminding Seokjin his hometown is not a good way but Namjoon at least tries.

“Yes, we did.” Seokjin nods. “We would have celebrations when the sea moves.”

“Oh yeah, you were from the seaside, right?”

Nod. Again.

“This place is kinda far from the sea. We only have mountains and forests. But there are beautiful lakes inside the forests. Maybe you’ll see one day.”

Seokjin doesn’t tell the alpha that he doesn’t even see the sun. 

“Do you miss the sea?”

Seokjin’s eyes shine for the first time. “So much.”

“Oh.” Namjoon heaves. 

“Sea is sacred to us,” Seokjin continues, initiating a talk for the first time. “We would always celebrate anything by the beach. The sun would reflect on the sea like a scenery. And –and we would, we would hear the waves. It would hit the shore so hard that it would break, and the children –they especially loved the sea. They would always swim. Sea is magical. Just like the moon.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. That’s such a good tradition. To respect the sea. The water, it’s everything, right?”

Seokjin nods. It’s like if he can close his eyes and reach out his hand, he would grab the waves. He can feel the sea on his fingertips. “I always wanted to learn how to swim, but I couldn’t.”

“You don’t know?” Namjoon is surprised.

Seokjin shakes his head. “No,” there is a thin smile on his lips as he sees the alpha get shocked. It’s cute to get a reaction like this. “I always wanted to, but life got in. My best friend promised to teach me but she couldn’t.”

“Oh, why?”

“She married someone from another clan and had to move.” Seokjin says, shrugging his shoulders. He remembers Seungwan barely. She was four years older than him and got married when Seokjin was barely fourteen, more than ten years ago.

It’s funny to call her best friend when she was a helper at the nursery and nothing much more.  But she was the one who would treat Seokjin’s wounds. She would wrap them nicely and neatly, and would apply balms over the bruises on the milky skin. “How did this even happen?” she would mutter in pain as she wrapped the wounds.  “How can you fall over and hurt your arm like this, Seokjin-ah?”

Seokjin never told her the true reasons, but she must’ve known. Everyone in the town knew.

“I miss her so much,” Seokjin whispers. As Namjoon looks at him with clear bewilderment in his eyes, Seokjin smiles again. “I’m trading my choice to see the sea with seeing her again in a heartbeat. I hope she is happy.”

“I hope so too,” Namjoon gulps. “Yeah, I hope she is-”

“Namjoon hyung.” The sharp tone cuts their light conversation, the alpha standing tall and strong above them with cloudy eyes. Seokjin’s heavy gaze falls upon the alpha that looks like he is wrapped in the dark; the clear sharpness in his face is a sign that he was clenching his jaw. From this angle, Taehyung looks taller and somehow more dangerous.

Nevertheless, the sharpness is fixated on the other alpha right now. He doesn’t even glance at Seokjin.

“I thought you were going to go back to nursery after eating.”

“Hi, Taehyung.” Namjoon gets up. “I was about to, but then I saw Seokjin alone and wanted to say hi to him.”

Taehyung hums. He doesn’t look pleased.

“I’m going now,” Namjoon breathes. His dragon-like eyes rest on Seokjin for a clear second. “See you later, Seokjin-ssi. Was lovely to talk with you. Please, don’t hesitate to visit me in the nursery if you feel any pain.” He slowly adds: “With Taehyung, of course.” 

Without even giving Namjoon a chance to finish his words, Taehyung chuckles. Namjoon turns to him, and there is a silent stare between them for a solid second. Nonetheless, it’s Namjoon who bows his head in front of the pack leader, as he supposed to do. “Goodbye, Taehyung.”

In Taehyung’s observing sharp eyes, Namjoon walks away.

It’s two of them again. There are still people around; Seokjin can see Jimin talking with an omega couple, and he can feel Jeongguk’s tearing scent from someone else. He knows there are more eyes; a crowd surrounding them. But when Taehyung’s soul is upon him, it’s all Seokjin can focus on.

No matter what, Taehyung is the alpha who claimed him. The alpha who took his everything —his every first, and every last. 

“Get up,” he almost spats. “We are going back home.”

Seokjin does what he says, but Taehyung doesn’t even give him another glance before walking away. Seokjin follows him like a duck –one step behind, hurriedly, and afraid to miss him. 

He can hear the curses under the alpha’s breaths, and the way he is tense, but he has no right to question anything. He just feels the anger like a third party. He is not the cause, but he is the effected. 

Apparently —Seokjin realizes— no matter what happens, it’s always his own fault. 

Chapter Text

Seokjin loves the sea; because the sea was kinder to him more than anyone. When he needed a place to comfort himself and rest in the solidity, his first step was the coast–the sand warmed up by the sun, waves hitting his toes and warming him up right through his heart. Water calmed him; water accompanied him, and it surely drowned him.

That’s why his showers always take longer than it needs to be.

He didn’t count how many minutes has passed -thirty minutes? One hour? One and half?

No one is at the house. Or maybe, their nothingness is unimportant; because the most important one is here, resigned to his room since the morning. The alpha was quiet today. 

And if Seokjin resembles himself in the sea, then Taehyung’s presence is a wind. He is sometimes felt –brushes the skin, hits the face like a warm blanket, observing, taking, and in every breath he is forced to take. And sometimes he is the storm -sharper, edger, hurting more because it engulfs the omega. It’s strong. 

Taehyung is strong. Stronger than anyone. A bloody killer with a handsome face. 

The naked omega pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin, arms wrapped around his legs. The water had already cooled down, but he doesn’t want to get out. The loneliness is here; and everywhere he can feel the sea is better than the cold basement. 

It had been twelve days since the alpha last touched him.

Three days since the festival night. 

Seokjin doesn’t know if it’s a good sign or a bad one.

Maybe the alpha is planning to kill him soon, could be the reason for his unwanted withdrawal of hands. Maybe he doesn’t want to touch a dirt like him; broken, used, broken, broken, broken. Whore. Slut.

Maybe he doesn’t want to feel Seokjin’s tightness anymore, because Seokjin is too resisting and,

That is useless, isn’t it?

A mind game. Push the alpha too hard, you’ll end up dying. Pull the alpha too close, you are just another whore who will be better off dead. 

Seokjin takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Everytime he pictures the alpha on his skin, there is a warmness right behind his face –a rosy blush that burns.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

He rests his forehead on his knees.

Tears drop down.

Is the alpha really going to kill him? That’s why he is not touching him?

Seokjin doesn’t want to die. Not yet. He wanted to for many years, because that’s all he had learnt, and that’s all he heard, but now –the reasons are dusting beneath the ground. And Seokjin is finally free. 

Free–from what?

His own family. 

Tears mix with the bubbly water, and Seokjin doesn’t know what to do. 

Maybe he should run. He should find a way to escape. How long does it take to reach his hometown? Is his clan searching for him? Did they ever even search?

A home; where no one waits, the lights are off. A forgotten omega.

If he runs to his basement inside their pack house where the oak trees rest and the lovely waves from the sea is heard, wouldn’t these alphas find him and do more tortures? 

Wouldn’t it hurt more? Wouldn’t their blades be sharper and their words harsher than the last time? Wouldn’t their face be angrier and aiming to kill –this time, would the whole clan search for him because he is a slave for their pack leader?

He doesn’t know what they think.

All he knows is that he can’t continue to live like this. He should do something. 

The voice of the female omega from the festival replays in his head –that Taehyung’s warm nights filled with other omegas, not resisting; instead, welcoming, opening their legs with a smile and grin on their faces, with those sultry eyes they must've send to alpha…

That the alpha can get what he wants from anyone; and Seokjin is maybe just a revenge in this world. The belittlement comes from the every orgasm he felt; from the times the alpha made him drip like bitch in heat. And every word warmed inside his mind, heart, and his legs, that’s the true shame. And Taehyung doesn’t even need him to fuck. His nights are filled with better, beautiful, more welcoming omegas.

Why would he even want Seokjin other than to just take revenge and hurt him?

There is only one thing Seokjin can offer to Taehyung to be alive.

Only one thing.

Only his body. 

It’s ugly and rotten -but that’s all he has. 

He wraps his hands around himself a little tighter. That’s what he is, too.

Rotten. 

It’s tense in the room; and Seokjin’s throat aches. “Alpha,” he manages to say after a long, distraught silence.

Taehyung tears his gaze from the TV he was watching and  focuses on Seokjin with a hidden shock behind his sharp, tiger-like eyes. It’s not everyday that the omega initiates a talk with him.

Seokjin is standing in front of the kitchen door, freshly showered, clean yet dirty in his old sweatpants and torn down shirt. The water droplets fall from his longish black hair to his shirt, staining it to a darker color. His crooked fingers are holding onto each other in an attempt for comfort, but the words pour with pain no matter what he does.

There is a long silence. 

“What?” Taehyung fills it when he realizes Seokjin won’t speak.

Seokjin fists the hem of the shirt. “D-did I do something wrong?” he asks.

“What can you possibly do?” Taehyung is direct –clean, neat. His directness a barrier in front of the omega. 

“You -you haven’t –you haven’t—” Seokjin is not sure if he can utter the words, because as the alpha’s hard gaze on him like all the nights they had to play, it’s hard to hear your decided fate. 

Touch me. 

If it will keep me alive, touch me.

And if I offer myself to you, would you laugh at me?

Would you mock me?

Would you say that I’m a whore like all the people in your clan had said? Would you mock me –enough to make me cry and make me want to die? 

Would you laugh at my pathetic offer, saying that why would I even want to touch you?

Would you find me pathetic for wanting to live –and then, hot iron on my skin, knives, and belts. 

You hit me with a belt when I begged you to stop–remember? Would you spare me life if I begged you to continue?

“You haven’t t-touch me. Is it because of… me? I— I’m sorry.  I— I’m sorry– if I did … If I did something– And I’m – I don’t know how to ask– but-but-but if you want… I’-I’m…”

Taehyung freezes with every uttered and broken word. The more the omega talks, the more he goes cold from his head to toe.

And when Seokjin stops talking, as if it’s impossible for him to continue more, Taehyung’s eyes turn back to the TV screen instantly; the blue light shadowing his face and showing the ice burns on his cold, tan skin –the alpha’s whole face is a mystery, but the eyes at least speak. If Seokjin could look at the frozen eyes, maybe he could see all the guilt and pain –but the alpha hides the pain; all the things allowed are anger, hate, and laughter towards the pathetic little omega.

“No. You didn’t.” The teeth are gritted. The alpha doesn’t even blink as he continues to look at the screen rather than the troubled omega near the kitchen door. “There is nothing wrong.  Do whatever you want. I’ll sleep early tonight.”

Seokjin nods. “Okay,” he whispers, turning back. 

And all the steps he takes to the basement feels like walking on a grave.

It’s hours later, and Seokjin doesn’t even have sleep in his eyes. 

He is going to kill me.

He is going to kill me.

“What can I do?” he whispers to himself in the cold basement –the warm blanket on the floor, and Seokjin tries to muffle his cries on his knees, hugging the piece of cloth to stop the shivers. It’s not because of the cold; it’s because there is no light in the future. Everything is dark and cold like the alpha’s burning eyes –Seokjin is mixed with water and fire.

Taehyung is the breeze. Seokjin can’t hold onto the ground anymore. 

God. 

God, he can’t do anything. 

When is he going to kill him? In his sleep? In the broad daylight? Would he let Seokjin see the sea the last time?

God. God, he can’t do anything other than beg. 

The omega’s eyes are puffy from the cries and redness spread inside the orbs, but he is trying his best to stay awake and do something instead of thinking when death will come to him. It’s almost sunset outside; and Seokjin is hungry. He is in the kitchen in order to focus his mind over something else rather than sudden death. 

The dinner for tonight is a little hand-keeping. He just wants to focus on his task. Cut the veggies, add to the broth, cook the meat and serve it with rice. It’s Taehyung and him in the house, like the past two weeks. They don’t eat together.

The last time was at the festival. And before that –was the time Seokjin dropped the soup bowl to the young alpha’s lap and the time Taehyung had slapped him for it. 

Seokjin can’t erase the memories.

Not when the front door opens and a shout twists his stomach.

“Hyung!”

The young alpha. Jeongguk.

Seokjin freezes. The steps are like Death –and maybe he is going to be the end of Seokjin. With every step, his heart squeezes harder, and it’s hard to breathe.

His hands turn messier, and he has to put down the knife he is using to cut vegetables to not cut his fingers off. He stays in his place,  not turning back, but the faint scent of the alpha gets closer and closer and Seokjin knows he is standing near the door, observing the omega.

“Is hyung home?”

Seokjin nods. But if any other questions, he is not sure if he can answer. 

“Are you making dinner?” Jeongguk speaks, a little clueless and uncaring as he walks towards the omega.

Seokjin nods. He doesn’t open his mouth.

“What are you making for dinner?” the alpha asks again, going over the gas stove to check what’s bubbling inside the hot pot. The whole kitchen smells of fresh vegetables and spice; it’s nice. It reminds Jeongguk of Yoongi hyung’s cooking. 

Seokjin opens his mouth but words don’t come out. He knows he is here, he knows Jeongguk is talking to him, and he sure does know to give answers to Jeongguk because if he doesn’t a great pain he can’t endure will come. 

But he can’t.  He physically can’t speak. 

“You look pale. Let me help you.”

As Jeongguk leans to him, the alpha’s arm brushes over Seokjin’s bare bones-and the omega takes a step back, hands grabbing the sink to have a hold on.

And looking at the alpha in fear. 

“If we work two, the dinner will be ready faster,” Jeongguk continues –he realizes how the omega trembles. (But Jimin hyung said if he wants to make up with him, he should treat Seokjin with kindness. And maybe some sorries, or explanations.)

Jeongguk does what his Jimin hyung says. Or, at least he tries.

He grabs the knife from the cutting board. “How should I cut them?” he waits for an answer, eyes on Seokjin.

Eyes on Seokjin, who is looking like he is having a panic attack.

The omega looks at the tattooed hands, and then to Jeongguk’s innocent-looking face and his big-eyes. 

The knife is directed to him. It always is. It will always be. No matter what Seokjin does, they will never forgive him, and they will never stop.

They will never stop.

He will never stop.

Because he enjoys this. He enjoys torturing Seokjin and laughs at it. Because he finds joy in this. Because that’s what Seokjin is for the two of them –all he is, just a toy, a tool for their sick games, and a revenge play that can be passed around.

No matter how many times Seokjin begs, Death will come for him from Kim Taehyung’s and Jeongguk’s hands.

Breaths shutter more, and the omega whines, “N-no…” The trembling lips can’t stop. The tears continue. Everything crumbles. The world. Death will come too soon. 

“I am trying to help-” Jungkook tries to explain himself.

But the knife is in his hands;

and the minute he takes a step to the omega to calm him down, Seokjin’s whole world spins. He can see the oggling eyes, but he can never react. As the world spins, he just lets it.

He faints. 

“I swear I didn’t do anything!” Jeongguk is yelling; hurt, petrified, as if he is facing the biggest scandal in the world that there is no exit.  “Hyung. Hyung, believe me, I swear I didn’t do anything! I didn’t touch him or yell at him or even say anything.” 

Jeongguk begs, but Jimin’s eyes still don’t soften. He looks at Jeongguk like he is some piece of dirt. 

Jeongguk continues to cry, tears rolling down as he looks at Taehyung. “Taehyung hyung, I swear to god I was just trying to help him to cook dinner. He just fainted, hyung, please, believe me. I didn’t do anything. I swear-”

“Jungkook, enough,” It’s Yoongi who cuts his words. “They believe you. Stop begging. C’mon, let’s get some fresh air.” 

Jeongguk’s eyes quivers. “No they don’t, Yoongi hyung! They don’t! Don’t you see, they don’t believe me!” 

“Can you be quiet?” It’s Namjoon, a stethoscope around his neck, checking the unconscious omega’s heartbeats with it. 

The omega is lying on the bed, a duvet  enough to reach his abdomen covering him. His soft eyes are closed like they will never open; long lashes falling to his beautiful applecheeks and wet. 

He has a fever. He is sick, apparently. His body is too sensitive and his immune system is too weak to fight back with it. 

“But you don’t believe me-” Jeongguk spits, more tears rolling. “None of you do!” He looks at Taehyung with pain and anger filtering in his eyes. “You ordered me to do them to him, and now you are turning your back against me, hyung? Just because I followed your every order? Just because I was loyal to you?” He is angry -because no one is believing him. An angry puppy who realized he is cornered and has no choice but to bite.  

Taehyung closes his eyes with the mention. Jimin’s disgusting gaze are on both of the alphas –going back and forth and back and forth.

“No. Jungkook.” Taehyung breathes. “I’m not turning my back at you. Just –I just need you to stop talking now and let me focus on Seokjin, okay? This is what I want from you now.” His shaken eyes turn towards Yoongi; and the older alpha gets it.

“Yeah, Jungkook, c’mon, let’s go. I’ll take you to Hoseok’s, we’ll have a nice dinner and rest together, okay, boy?” He grabs the tattooed arm. Gentle enough to let him make a decision, firm enough to show the decision is already made.

Jeongguk sniffs. It’s a battle inside him but without saying anything back to his most beloved hyungs, he lets Yoongi drag him outside the room. 

Jimin hears their voice going small and small every second. “They are not mad at you Jeongguk, of course they know you didn’t do anything. They are just worried for him…” The voice drops and drops, until a point in the house. 

Jimin sits on the other side of the bed, holding the omega’s hand with his own and caressing the pale skin. “When is he going to wake up, Namjoon hyung?” he asks, worry dripping from his everywhere. 

Namjoon gulps. “It’s hard to say. I just injected him with a dose of sedative and some antipyretic for fever to go down. He must wake up in the morning with these. Please, call me again then.” He looks at Taehyung, the alpha standing near the bed, arms crossed over his chest and a thoughtful expression on his face as he stares the omega. 

Doctor alpha continues. “I will inject another dose in the morning. I think it will take some days for him to wake up. He is just too.. worn-out and distressed. Seeing Jungkook triggers his memories, I suppose. He-” He licks his lips.

“Taehyung, you were in the garage with them the whole time, weren’t you?”

Taehyung nods.

“Did something else happen? Something… indecent. You didn’t see, maybe?”

“Like what?” Taehyung turns to him, sharp. “Don’t hesitate your words, Namjoon hyung. And even if you try to hide it, the judgement in your tone is clear, so don’t hold yourself back down. It’s feigned.”

Namjoon sneers. Then, asks a little colder. “Did Jeongguk touch Seokjin?”

“No, he didn’t fuck Seokjin.” Taehyung is sharper than a blade. “He didn’t do anything sexually to him. Only I did.”

“Okay. I was just asking.” Namjoon breathes, eyes unclear and focused on the omega again. They all know what Taehyung did –and does– and it’s somehow acceptable, with the way omega has the alpha’s teeth marks over his bare neck.

Jimin’s mouth is closed tightly (if he opens, he will scream). 

“I wonder when was the last time he had his heats.” Namjoon speaks again, examining his pulse. It looks like he is talking to himself, and Taehyung would want to ignore the question and the known answer. 

Yet, he is hesitant in his words for the first time. “I know.”

Namjoon quarks an eyebrow. “When?”

“Two months ago.”

“In… the garage?” Jimin asks. 

Taehyung nods again. 

“Was it a natural one or because he was anxious? Sometimes omegas can go into heats when they are feeling anxious-”

“No. I forced him. I gave him heat-indicating pills.” Taehyung looks at them with sharpness behind his eyes -because the fear of being judged is clearer than what he did. “It was a forced heat.”

Jimin closes his eyes. An agonising silence is behind his bittering scent –but there comes only a sigh with the following tears. “Fuck this, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t even look at you,” he chokes, getting up, and his trembling body is already near the door. He slams it as he leaves the two of them in their silence.

Namjoon is more composed. “How long did his heat last?”

“Three days. He was mostly unconscious.”

“Fever?”

“I didn’t check.”

“You were busy fucking him?” Biting. Sharp.

“Yes, hyung, I was.”

Sharper.

Namjoon gets up. “Call me again in the morning definitely,” his tone is colder than the ice. “I will come to check on him.”

Taehyung doesn’t look at him –as the alpha leaves the room, Taehyung’s neutral eyes never leave the feverish omega. He lays there; broken, used, and even with a fever, still shivering.

He can hear the front door closing; and he knows everyone left. There is no soul he is feeling in the house; different from months ago where he would hear his sister’s giggles even through the closed doors. He could smell the delicious meals his mother prepared, and then the soft voice would call him to tell the dinner is ready. 

Taehyung sits on the bed.

All the cold facade he displayed in front of the others is gone now –and what is left behind is no different than the omega. Broken, hurt, and shivering.

He is just too tired.

Taehyung is hesitant as he lays next to the omega, afraid to hurt.

No one needs to know this. No one needs to know the pain in Taehyung’s eyes as his hand reaches over the omega’s face and caresses the scars that are left behind from the torturious nights. 

No one needs to know how Taehyung wipes away the wetness from the omega’s eyes. He is sleeping–with all the medicine in his blood, he will sleep more– but he is still crying in his sleep.

There are no moments of Seokjin without tears. 

There wasn’t in the garage, either.

It never dries. The omega is full of sea. 

And no one needs to know too, if the alpha borrows the tears and shed some of his own. 

“Seokjin,” he whispers. “Seokjin. Wake up.” A tear rolls down from his eyelids to his temple. “You can’t just... you can’t just continue to be sick, fuck. I haven’t even apologized to you yet. You don’t know that I know you are innocent. You don’t know that I don’t… hate you.” He leans again, feeling the omega’s bloated breaths on his own lips. “I don’t hate you, Seokjin. I – just.”

He closes his eyes, gritted teeth.

“Please,” he begs. “Fuck. Seokjin. I need you to be okay. Please… please. I don’t know what to do. Just be okay.”

Another tear falling; right from his eyes to the omega’s applecheecks.

They meddle. And as Taehyung rests his forehead on omega’s skin, he feels the soft, salty breathe like a sea. 

Chapter Text

In a basement, where he had his mattress on the floor; soft plushies scattered all around the floor with an order among them –his favorite pink plushie right next to his pillow, when a bigger white alpaca one was beneath the duvet for him to hug to sleep. His clothes were neatly folded in a portable wardrobe. His books, where he would borrow them from the library of their clan, would be on the tiny desk in his room. The old omega man who worked at the library would smile brightly every time he catched a glimpse of the young omega’s face –”My favorite student is here,” he would say, putting a hand on his back and patting. “Did you finish the last ones I gave you?” 

Seokjin would indeed finish every one of them. He would read until the candle would turn into dust, until he would grab another big candle from the bathroom where he knew his parents would keep the stack. He had a lighter –purple colored, with stars and galaxies on it. He would fall asleep with a book on his lap, pages open but the fingers would stay in the middle even in his sleep to not miss the place where he was.

Every time he slept, he would flatter from universe to universe. Colorful galaxies took him from one place to another; and every time he woke up, it would be with a yell. “Seokjin, come help for breakfast!”

“I’m coming!” 

Then his daily tasks would start. He would help with every meal prepared in their pack house; because it was not easy to feed five strong alpha sons and respected elderly from their clan. Seokjin would put lots of portions on his brothers’ plate, and the best part of the meat would always be on their plate. But Seokjin had the privilege to sit next to his mother on the table some days, and it was enough. 

Seokjin loved dinners, because while eating, it was the only place they acted like a real family.

As if Seokjin was also part of their family.

As if in some hours his oldest brother wouldn’t take him out for hunting and Seokjin would be the prey –as if they wouldn’t throw daggers at the apple positioned right over Seokjin’s head. They would laugh every time they missed the target and it hit the tree Seokjin leaned on –and Seokjin would cry and beg them to stop. Only when one of them split the apple into two, his middle brother would come to hug him, and he would tease Seokjin. “We were just joking, young omega, don’t you trust your brothers?”

“I do– but I’m scared!”

“C’mon Jinnie, you know we would never kill you.” The second oldest would laugh. “Have faith in our aiming skills, right?”

Only when the omega’s tears stopped, they would continue to bicker between themselves, as if Seokjin was not even there. 

Only time they acknowledged Seokjin was the times they used him for their sick games.

Only time they would see Seokjin was when he was standing as a target.

Their hands were never loving. Their touches were never brotherly.

The first time it happened, Seokjin couldn’t even tell his parents.

He was so scared, on his knees, in the woods, where it was just the two eldest brothers. He didn’t even realize there was it in front of his eyes –and in front of his mouth, rubbing at his lips. He could do nothing but to cry as it was pushed into his mouth, or the first time the white liquid hit his face. 

And when he didn’t tell anyone the first time, it became natural for them to continue to do so. 

And after some time, they talked like it was Seokjin’s fault. “You are an omega, so why not make use of it? Look how he is not even rejecting.” 

Seokjin washed his mouth with bleach and soap, over and over again, over and over again, over and over again over and over again, over and over again— 

He poisoned himself so that they had to take him to the nursery.

He vomited every time after they had used his mouth. 

He thought about telling the youngest brother about it –because out of the five, he was the only one who would want to help him. He was the only one kind enough to caress Seokjin’s sweaty hair when he fell ill, he was the only one who made sure to save some candies for Seokjin when they were children because Seokjin couldn’t find the secret eggs. He was the one who bought beautiful hair pins for him just because Seokjin said he liked one on a girl’s hair.

But then one day, he saw him watching them from far away right behind a tree, with a painful and disgusted look on his face. Seokjin would’ve begged him to save him if his hands or his mouth was free, but all his hyung did was to turn his back on him and walk away. As if it was Seokjin’s wish– As if Seokjin wanted that. 

Since that moment, Seokjin had no one in the house. His mother was blind to his sons –his father acted like Seokjin didn’t even exist. Only time he touched Seokjin was when he would hit him. Slap him. Was something wrong in the house? Did the brothers fight? Yeah, it is Seokjin’s fault. Every goddamn time. 

No matter what he did, Seokjin could not find a place in that house for himself. 

And nothing changes.

No matter how he wishes and prays to god for a better life, nothing changes.

That’s what Seokjin’s life is going to be. Always. Full of thorns on his path, just like the disgusting rose scent he has to endure. That was the time his cuttings had started too. He took thorns from his path and used it to cut his wrists and his legs. He would cut so much –so much that his sheets would turn red. 

Seokjin would knock out on the floor; ill, feverish, the cuts being open and full of ichors. Since then, the full sleeves were on his life. 

The first time his father saw the cuts, he beat Seokjin to tame him. It was a failure. Seokjin was a failure. No matter how many times he got beaten up, he continued to do so. His parents didn’t know the reason –but his brothers would laugh at Seokjin for it too. 

His brothers are dead now. Dead and gone. Rotting under the ground; fake tears from the pack people. 

And Seokjin did shed tears for them too. He only hugged the youngest one when he saw the dead, torn bodies on the floor. He held his youngest hyung in his arms and wailed, wishing he was dead but not him. 

He didn’t feel sorry for the other four. He didn’t feel sorry because they had died.

He only felt sorry, because they were never going to apologize to him. They were never going to beg on their knees to Seokjin.

And the worst part is…

Seokjin didn’t even want that. All he wanted was to find a comforting seat on the arbor, where they would spend their nights, talking and eating, enjoying each other’s company. His brothers would always bicker with each other and there would be light talks between his mother and father. All Seokjin wanted from those nights…

Not even that.

It was a comforting hug from his father. What he craved.

They could’ve fixed it. They could’ve. If they wanted to.

And as they are gone now, they will never want to love Seokjin.

That’s what Seokjin is going to be, for the rest of his life.

Unloved. 

Broken.

Used. 

Every time he wakes up, he wants to lull into sleep again. World is hot. So cold. Hurt. Broken. Ache. Every inch of his skin aches. Every bone in his skin is weak. Every time his heart pumps blood, even the blood doesn’t want to continue to keep him alive. Even the blood running through his veins is against him. 

Out of the line between dreams and reality, Seokjin can finally grasp reality. He holds onto it. He fights for it.

Seokjin is heavy with a weight that feels like tons–there is something on him. Not something. 

Someone.

The earthy tone; the musk scent hit his nose in every breath he takes. Somehow familiar. Like a homemade soup brought to him when he fell ill when he was a child. Like his mother’s cooking. Like the sweet fragrance of the sea every time he took a walk on the beach. Familiar –yet still distant. And new.

Seokjin feels a soft breath hitting his neck.

His eyes open in an instant.

The weight belongs to the alpha.

Taehyung.

The strong hand is wrapped around his torso, legs tangled under the heavy duvets pulled over them. They are a small spot on the bed of the alpha, close, body almost one, with tangled to each other. Seokjin’s body arched back to match with his, and the alpha is spooning him like they are–

Lovers –

Alpha’s head is on the crook of Seokjin’s neck. Every breath he takes and gives, it falls over Seokjin’s skin. Sweaty. Because they are just so close. 

The warm, bloated breaths mingles on Seokjin’s neck, the way alpha’s lips are just centimeters away from the biting mark. He can feel the way alpha’s body rises and falls, matching with his own breath. 

Seokjin freezes.

The alpha is hugging him from behind. 

And the arm wrapped around his waist is firm like steel. 

As Seokjin tries to reason his surroundings, realizing that he is in the alpha’s bedroom, between his arms, body glued to his, there is an anxiousness getting spread around his insides. Bugs, they crawl inside his skin and make his breath hitch.

The alpha moves lazily on the bed, trying to turn back to the mating bite that is trying to get away from him. He is still sleeping, but it won’t take long for him to open his eyes with the way the omega’s scent sours.

One second, two, three, and four–

And just like clockwork, the alpha opens his eyes.

They are both awake. Even though Seokjin can try to act like he is still sleeping, nothing can hide his bitter rose scent.

When the omega was unconscious an hour ago, the scent was sweeter because he didn’t know Taehyung was in the same bed as him, sleeping behind him. 

“Did you wake up?” Taehyung asks, sleep still hanging from his rough, balmy voice. “Are you feeling alright?”

Seokjin is torn between giving an answer or still continuing to pretend asleep. But the alpha would know he lied. Instead of speaking, he gives a slight nod, his black hair smeares around the bed.

Taehyung is still holding him.

But the sourness, like a rotten cheese, spreads from omega’s buds and Taehyung nuzzles the sweaty neck one last time, before pulling his hands from the omega and leaning on his back on the bed –giving the captured deer a space to be on his own. 

As soon as the tight arms leave his body, Seokjin gets closer to the edge and tries to sit upright. “W-what happened?” he asks, turning to Taehyung with still fear dripping from his beautiful, sleepy almond eyes.

Taehyung looks as tired as the omega himself. He has bags under his eyes- and his whole face is sullen. Either being forcibly awakened by the omega because of the souring scent, or because something else has happened. 

“You had a fever. You have been sleeping for the past five days.” Taehyung rubs his sleepy face, closing his eyes by the light hitting him from the ceiling. He murmurs, watching the omega with a hidden worry behind his eyes. “Are you feeling okay now?”

Seokjin nods again. 

Was he sleeping for five days? It felt like nothing -maybe a nap he took right alongside the river, back brushing against the grass, a bird singing a lullaby near his ears that would make him turn into a child as if his mother sang a song to him to put him to sleep. 

Seokjin was happy. In his dreams. In the escape world. He was happy. 

But none of it was real. 

The voice drops lower.  “I am sorry for– for-”

“Having a fever?” Taehyung raises an eyebrow.. 

Seokjin doesn’t answer. Yes, he is. 

Taehyung sits up like him after some seconds. His big hand reaches to brush the sweaty hair locks to brush off from his face; and Seokjin has to act like the touch doesn’t burn him.

“You don’t have a fever anymore,” the alpha murmurs. He pulls his hand. “It’s better than the last time I checked.”

No response, again. 

Seokjin wants to ask something, but he doesn’t know how to talk. 

Since when the alpha was sleeping with him? Even those nights where it was just the two of them in the basement and Seokjin’s cries were muffled by the same hands that reached out to check his fever just now, they had never fallen asleep like that. Taehyung came; he marked, he fucked and left. 

He never hugged Seokjin. He never slept next to him. He never showed weakness in front of Seokjin.

“Namjoon hyung came to give you medicine,” the alpha continues to explain as he realizes Seokjin is still clueless. “He was injecting you vitamins and some painkillers. Your fever never went down, so he said forcing you to sleep would be better.”

A hesitant tongue roll.

“...and he checked for pregnancy.”

His last words hit the omega like a truck, scared doe-eyes looking at the alpha with petrificus lost. 

The bugs. Inside. They tear him apart. No. No. There is no way. 

“You are not,” Taehyung says after examining the omega, a discomfort hanging out off the edge. “Don’t look that frightened.” A scoff –almost annoyed.

Seokjin averts his eyes in a second, the lostness –the pain in his heart— 

He thought… He thought-for a second–for a second he thought he—

He… He can’t be pregnant, right?

Taehyung never used protection.

But Seokjin can’t get pregnant. Not now. Not from him. No. Not after those tortures. Not- Not when the little alpha burned his skin-not when he hit his womb with a belt–

The scary moments roll like a movie in his mind and then his whole face flinches, two shaking hands going on his face to hide the discomfort. He slightly creates a bigger distance between himself and the alpha; and tries to collect his broken memories to at least remember. 

He remembers how he fainted.

When Jeongguk was holding the knife and walking towards him. 

He got so scared he was almost going to pee his pant–

God. Oh. 

Oh no.

He did.

He did.

 He doesn’t feel any wetness between his legs so someone must’ve cleaned him. God.  

A sudden shame crushes him again; from the way his broken and ugly skin can be seen. Observed. Someone checked his cut legs, someone cleaned the dirty liquid off of him –his old, long sleeved sweater and long pants are gone.

He is wearing a new shirt -black one with random designs on it, big and oversized. It’s not his. A black short revealing almost every inch of his legs and the scars –not his, again. Is it Taehyung’s? 

No, why would he give Seokjin, the person he hates the most, his clothes? 

Are they new? They look old. Maybe Jimin… 

But Seokjin slightly smells the collar of the shirt to understand it belongs to the alpha. It has his earthy scent on it. 

“T-thank you…” His voice is barely above a whisper. “F-for the clothes..and for letting me s-sleep here.”

Taehyung is still watching him. Seokjin can’t look at him. 

Even when he pushed Seokjin to the floor and stripped him naked and claimed him, it looked like he never cared about the cuts on omega’s skin. But now, when Seokjin is this visible, where his short is curled to reveal his milky thighs and the shirt doesn’t hide the scars on his wrists, he feels so fucking ashamed. 

“Come on,” the alpha says after a long silence. “Jimin left dinner for you in the kitchen.”

The dinner is silent. Seokjin drinks the soup that the kind omega prepared for him. But as he feels the eyes of the alpha on him, it’s hard to swallow anything. He tries his best to keep his head bowed and mouth close to the bowl to not make a mess because he is not sure how he can be clean when he is still feeling a little off. His hands are trembling.

The alpha is smoking, sitting right across him on the mahogany table. The ashpit is full of the poison, as if he had been smoking non-stop.  He is already on his fifth cigarette as he watches the omega to eat. 

 “Eat this too,” he says, pushing the rice bowl towards the omega with two fingers.

Seokjin watches the way the bowl spins as it stops.

 He holds the spoon a little tighter. He doesn’t. But he should –will he be angry if he doesn’t? 

Without raising his head, he pulls the rice bowl closer. It’s warm, sticky. He drinks from the soup to melt the rice in his mouth.

“You’ll not sleep in the basement anymore, that place is bad for your condition,” the alpha says after a silence.

Seokjin immediately raises his head, almond eyes focused on the alpha –the clear, sheer command. His tone was light but there was a hidden dominance behind it.

Seokjin’s face puzzles. “W-where will I…?”

“In my room. With me. In my bed.”

Tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack.

Seokjin’s thoughts are scattered. In his room. With him. In his bed. 

He has the upper hand. Taehyung always has the upper hand. 

The omega’s eyes water. Defeated, broken, fear, and hurt.

“I don’t want to,” Seokjin manages to whisper. “I- I don’t…” 

What did I do again?  

When will their punishments stop? 

When will they ever stop?

Alpha chuckles bitterly. “It’s such a shame that you don’t have a say in this.” He pushes his chair back and gets up, fuming eyes averted. “My decision is final.”

-

“Seokjin. You are awake.” 

The omega hurries to him, with his yellowish hair and grey clothes that shines on him. Young omega is beautiful like there is a halo around his head. He marches, passes by Namjoon and Taehyung, along with another alpha Seokjin doesn’t recognize much.

His name is Yoongi apparently and he is the big brother of Jimin and Jeongguk. 

“God. We were so worried. I was so worried.” Jimin sits on the table right across the couch where the omega is resting, and he holds the crooked fingers,  squeezing. “Are you feeling alright?”

Seokjin nods. He doesn’t feel much. He is used to the pain, and the constant hammering inside his brain, so there is not much of a thing to feel about in his life. 

“Your fever never went down,” the omega sighs as he caresses the black hair off on Seokjin’s hair –”We thought about taking you to the hospital. But-” He stops talking, sharp eyes digging Taehyung’s eyes. “Someone didn’t want you to go out.”

“That’s not what I said.” Taehyung -standing right behind the couch, watching the way Namjoon treats the omega- speaks, arms crossed over his chest as he examines his cousin. “I just said it could make things harder.”

“Let’s not fight about this,” the quiet alpha sighs. Yoongi. He slowly adds: “Again.”

“Don’t forget to take the pills I gave you, okay?” Namjoon directs, eyes on Seokjin. He looks unfazed by the alpha standing over him and examining every action he does towards the sick omega. 

Just five minutes ago, when Namjoon asked Seokjin to turn his back and lift his shirt up, Taehyung immediately started to send darting eyes. “No, you can examine him with his shirt on it.” Namjoon didn’t even fight, just sighing as he examined the omega’s limbs over the clothes. 

“These pills in the morning. And this one is after your dinners. And don’t forget to melt these vitamins in water after your meals. Chew this herb when you have a headache.”

The doctor alpha raises every medicine and directs to Seokjin, the pills making a pile on omega’s laps –and it’s Jimin who is taking them from him and putting them on the table he is sitting on.

Seokjin nods to everything, little eager to follow the alpha’s orders. 

“I also want you to pay me a visit over two to three days.”

Quirked eyebrow. Taehyung.

“You are not walking. You should take daily walks at least thirty minutes of the day.” Namjoon side-eyes the alpha standing over them, Taehyung looks unfazed with the looks. A bored expression on his face. “Taehyung and you can visit me in my office, see the nursery.” 

With the hesitancy of the omega, Namjoon continues to courage him. “There are babies and children we take care of. And also some omegas too, they are the helpers of our clan. I think you’ll get along with them. They will surely love you, Seokjin-ah. And Taehyung can spare an hour of his day for this, right, Taehyung?”

“It can be good for you,” Jimin encourages too. “And you’ll blend with our omegas; get to know our people better. I’m sure they will love you.”

Seokjin can not have a say in this, he knows. He lifts his head lightly to look at the alpha, and Taehyung’s bored eyes turn towards him. 

It’s clear in his darkish, ocean carrying eyes that he wants to keep Seokjin in a box –in this house, forever, maybe- but seeing the slight light inside the omega’s beautiful eyes – a kindness, a hope- Taehyung sucks in a breath and drowns every rejection he can offer. 

The omega wants it. Hesitant but want is there. 

“I’ll think about it,” Taehyung says, coldly and firm but still an open door for the omega. “Are you done, Namjoon hyung?”

With the sudden question, Namjoon gets surprised. But he is quick to compose himself. “Yeah,” he arranges his briefcase. “I need to get back to the nursery. One of Jung’s children fell and broke a leg. I need to take care of him.”

“I’ll walk you out, I need to get to the market also,” Yoongi says. “And Taehyung –” As they are about to leave, Yoongi looks at Seokjin briefly, then Taehyung. “I need to have a word with him about his clan.”

Seokjin furrows his eyebrows. 

“Not now, Yoongi hyung.” Taehyung is firm. “I’ll tell you when.”

“Okay.”

When it’s just the three of them again, Jimin sits on the couch, right next to the omega’s feet where Namjoon was sitting. There is a blanket over the omega, and even his arms are under it as if he is hiding the arms (Jimin knows the reason, but he doesn’t talk about it.)

Jimin puts his hand under the blanket to find the delicate feet –As he touches it to give a light message, the omega pulls his legs to his chest in an instant, looking at Jimin with utter fear in his eyes.

“I -” Jimin clears his throat, surprised by the sudden withdrawal. “I was just going to give you a message.”

Seokjin is hesitant again, but he speaks. “I– I don’t like when people touch my feet… Sorry.”

Jimin’s furrowed eyebrows. “Why?”

It reminds me of all the times I tried to escape but my brothers pulled me by my ankles –and they laid me on the floor to beat me up more. 

Is it a good enough explanation?

Or maybe he should talk from the way Jimin can understand.

In the garage, when it was your brother and cousin, I tried to escape with my bruised legs but Taehyung pulled me from my ankle and sat on me, just so he could fuck me better.

Jeongguk was there too. Laughing at my pathetic attempt to escape. 

Seokjin has fallen to the memories again, his whole face going pale, but he manages to collect himself from the memories –but even though he didn’t speak, Jimin can understand the memories hidden. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just wanted to help.” 

He takes a deep breath, letting go of the topic to open one. “Are you hungry? I can prepare something to eat. And oh, did you like my soup? I made it just for you. My father used to say I was the best at making it.”

“You liar,” Taehyung scoffs. 

Seokjin looks at the annoyed alpha, surprised by his light-weighted and teasing reaction.

“Everyone knows it’s Yoongi who has the best soup. My uncle never said that.”

“He did!” Jimin yells, offended. “Oh, you weren’t there to hear it, it’s not my fault! My father said it exactly five years ago, it was a rainy day, and we were at the home-”

“Yeah, sell your lies to the others.” Taehyung laughs. “Oh, you are turning into a tomato. How pathetic. Just over soup?”

“I make the best soup! All of you guys are a bunch of sick headed alphas!”

“This sick headed alpha still thinks the best soup maker is Yoongi hyung, so what now?”

“I will– I will prepare a contest –”

“A contest of what? Soup?”

“Yeah, fuck off.” Jimin spats. “I’m gonna make a soup making contest to see who makes the best soup and it will be only me and Yoongi hyung and you’ll see who will win, fuck you Kim Taehyung!”

As they bicker, they hear a slight laugh.

A giggle.

A soft giggle, hidden gem, the smile of an angel.

They both stop to look at the giggling omega –but as the eyes turn towards him, Seokjin’s uppered lips fall again, and his whole body goes rigid as if he did something wrong. It’s a brief second he makes eye-contact with Taehyung and immediately his beautiful almond eyes hold onto fear, scared. He clenches the navy blue blanket over him and hides his face by keeping it low.

Bowed head, closed lips, hidden face. Bitten lips with anxiousness. He wants to say sorry, but even that might make the alpha angry. 

“Hey.” It’s Jimin who has graveled. He tries to smile. “You like my soup, right, Seokjin?”

Seokjin doesn’t say anything.

“I –” Taehyung opens his mouth.

Fuck. 

He never thought Seokjin could giggle. Like that. Smiling. Teeth on display, almond eyes crusted, face light up. 

And…

He wants to hear that giggle again.

Fuck.

FUCK.

If only he had his phone on his hand to just capture the moment -the way the beautiful lips bestowed a bright smile, the sweet and angel-like voice when he giggled, the way his almond eyes crusted to form a beautiful moon shape.

It’s the first time he smiled in front of them because of them.

For the past three months, it was just constant cries and painful agonizing screams that the omega uttered. And it was all because of them. 

And now, with the way his eyes dwell, it’s clear that the omega is feeling astonished. That he is covered in his thoughts again, retired to his shell and maybe never meant to giggle again. 

A heavy silence is over all of them.

“I’ll make you a soup,” Jimin whispers eventually, still dazed by the omega. 

Seokjin nods after hesitating. 

The truth is, he is hungry. “I’ll help you,” he whispers, trying to put off the blanket, but as he tries to get up Taehyung is quick and sharp.

“No, you’ll not.” 

Seokjin stops.

“You are still sick. Don’t get up. He can make it on his own.”

“But–” the omega opens his mouth again. “I want…” He stops. I want to help. 

Jimin sighs. “Taehyung is right, Seokjin. You need a lot of rest. I’ll make it for us. And we can watch a movie later, how does that sound? What kind of movies do you like? Animation? Action? Rom-com? Taehyungie, can you pick a movie for us to watch after dinner?”

Taehyung nods. “Yeah. I will.”

Seokjin’s eyebrows furrow again.

The questions in his mind deepens, branching a new whole tree. They continue to grow and grow until every place is left untouched. But the first one is clear– Why are you guys acting good towards me?

How can anything change only in a month?

How can the hands that used to lift to beat him turn into light caresses? How can the disgusted eyes turn into worried ones? How can the sharp words that hit his heart like a dagger act like a balm to heal, right now?

Everyone is acting so fucking weird. 

And Seokjin hates it.

He hates when he doesn’t understand a shit –and as they eat dinner together, as they sit on the couch to watch an animation Taehyung chose, he has a sudden worry in his heart, a never ending question: Why are they acting like this?

Why is Jimin squeezing his hand when he is saying goodbye when the night comes? Why does he look like he wants to hug Seokjin –when Seokjin withdraws himself from the omega, why does he look hurt?

Why doesn’t Taehyung do anything? Why he is just sitting next to him on the couch, sitting crossed legs, arms crossed over his chest and watching the TV with a blank expression his face –he didn’t even laugh at any of the jokes in the animation, but every time the audience or the people in it laughed, his gaze fell upon to Seokjin as if he was checking if the omega was laughing. (Seokjin wanted to laugh a few times, but he realized how the two acted when he laughed hours ago and stopped himself. He didn’t like their shocked faces when they realized he laughed. Because after all, who would want to hear the laugh of a person they hate so much? They must’ve been so disgusted by him. And maybe they were wondering where the audacity came from –the audacity of Seokjin to laugh, when he caused the family so much pain.)

But none of them are as puzzling as the night unfolds. 

Seokjin, unsure of what to do, stands in front of the alpha’s bedroom door, gazing slightly at the alpha resting on the bed.

“Are you going to look at me until the morning?” Taehyung says, tearing his gaze apart from the phone in his hands. He looks comfortable and cozy in a black sweatpants and a black shirt. His voice is neutral as he speaks to the omega, like he wasn’t the one who was so disgusted even to talk with him.  

“S-sorry…” the omega mutters. “I-”

He stops.

But Taehyung doesn’t let him fall into a silence this time. He raises an eyebrow. “Continue your words, Seokjin. Stop this habit of cutting your words.”

“I am just–” Seokjin tries to breathe –and to speak. It’s always hard when the alpha is watching him. His tiger-like, sharp eyes are more dangerous with the candles lighting inside the room, and only light from the outside is the moon accompanying them, where the alpha’s face is hidden behind the shadows. 

“I was just —will you be … will you be okay with me sleeping next to you? I get that–that you are… disgusted—and, you are, you are… I don’t –I don’t want to disturb you…” 

…and make you angry. I don’t want to trigger your hate over my stupid habits. 

Remember when I blinked too much and you slapped me for it?

In the garage. Taehyung asked questions. Seokjin was trying to recover from being awakened by the water thrown on his face. He blinked too much. Taehyung slapped him.

“You’ll not disturb me.” Taehyung grimaces his face as if it’s the most stupid thing he had heard. “I wouldn’t offer you to be in this room if I didn’t want you to.”

Seokjin blinks. Not too hard. He learnt his lesson. 

“T-then why do you want it, alpha?” he slowly asks, unsure. 

Taehyung goes silent with the blunt question of the omega.

“Because I want to, that’s it. And I can. ”

Seokjin stands silent, but even though he wants nothing but to escape to a comfortable area, the basement offered to him months ago, his steps find the bed hesitantly. He goes over the bed, passes by Taehyung who has already turned back to his phone.

Seokjin lifts the duvet to lie on the bed, trying his best to be careful and as silent as he can as he moves. He pulls the duvet over himself slowly. He doesn’t know what the alpha is thinking –because he is still focused on his phone, a message screen open. Seokjin doesn’t look at it for long in order to not meddle. He makes (at least tries) himself comfortable under the duvet. Slower than how he got into bed, he turns his back to the alpha. 

He feels a hard gaze on his back but he doesn’t return. He pulls the duvet over himself enough to cover even his eyes. His breaths are under the heaviness of it –and he doesn’t even breathe as the phone light goes off and the alpha moves on the bed, going from sitting to lying.

They are under the same duvet, but Seokjin is on the edge almost enough to fall.

The body is not touching him, but Seokjin is still rigid.

Because he knows. The hands will reach.

It does.

It always does. 

And it takes all Seokjin’s power to not scream, but he yelps and tries to get out, like a sheep attacked by a wolf. The tears dwell in his eyes as he tries his best to pull off the hand on his waist for his dear life. “I-’m sorry-” he chokes, sobbing. He knew it. He knew it. 

“Please –don’t– I’m sorry– please–”

“Stop struggling,” the alpha’s voice is firm. His body is right behind Seokjin –chest on his back, arms around his waist, nose right over his neck, almost nuzzling. “Fuck. Seokjin. Stop struggling -I’ll not do anything. Shh, calm down, calm down, I won’t do anything– just stop struggling, calm down, fuck, I’ll not do anything, shh–”

He repeats and repeats like trying to carve the words to the omega’s mind. He continues to hug the struggling and crying omega, and his firm hands never budge, and his dark eyes are closed throughout the whole shenanigan. His pheromones are reeking inside the room and Seokjin’s mind dizzies for every passing second. 

And the alpha doesn’t stop holding him.

He doesn’t stop the arm around his waist.

He doesn’t stop whispering the same words over Seokjin’s ears.

He doesn’t stop pulling him closer.

They rest in bed, just in the same position Seokjin woke up in the morning. 

Eventually, Seokjin stops sobbing, and his cries turn into muffled hiccups. 

He knew it. He knew it. 

He wants to be in the basement. He wants to be alone. He would rather cry himself to sleep and freeze to death and rot inside the humidity basement rather than being on the edge and being afraid because of all the possibilities the alpha can do to him. 

He knew it was a lie. 

He knew it. 

“Shh, don’t worry, you are okay, you are safe, stop, shh, calm down,” the words are poured with softness. Calming. Almost putting a child to sleep. 

Seokjin’s trembling hands find the strong hand around his waist, and he digs his nails. But the alpha doesn’t even do anything.

“Let’s just sleep like this for a while, alright?” The words are almost pleading.

Seokjin starts to cry again. No, he doesn’t want it. He is so scared. He thought he could offer himself to Taehyung to be alive– but the minute even the fingers brush over him, the minute the alpha’s strong and unbreakable body is on him or near him, Seokjin crumbles. 

The alpha is so strong –the strongest man Seokjin had ever seen, and Seokjin is just a paper next to him. Easy to tear. Easy to throw. Easy to burn. 

“Just for a while.” the alpha murmurs, lips brushing over Seokjin’s reddened ears. “Just for a moment.” Softly, a whisper. “Please.”

Seokjin presses his face to the pillow, trying to stop his cries, because he knows eventually this will also disturb the alpha and he will hurt.

He will hurt Seokjin if he cries too much.

Because that’s what he is. That’s what he likes. He enjoys this. 

But Seokjin is so powerless next to him. He doesn’t even have the strength to lift his finger, let alone oppose the alpha. He can’t fight back. He can’t stop whatever he wants to do. If he, now, gets on top of him and does whatever he did during those nights, Seokjin wouldn’t even fight anymore. He would let him. He would struggle at first, but he would stop fighting after a while. Like how he always did. Like how he lied beneath the alpha, watching the way the alpha’s face turned into a bliss with every thrust just because Seokjin was motionless under him. A hole to fuck, that’s what Seokjin is. He wouldn’t even struggle anymore, maybe. Because he knows he can’t stop it.

He can never stop it. 

So, Seokjin lets him.

Maybe it’s the way the alpha has pleaded to him for the first time. Or maybe it’s because of the earthy scent all over the room, the alpha’s pheromones dizzying his mind. Or maybe he is just so damn tired of struggling.

He doesn’t know the reason.

But he lets himself loose after minutes, his rigid body goes elastic and melting into a puddle. 

Taehyung’s breath is hitting his neck like a breeze. The alpha holds him so close, so tight, like he doesn’t want to let go. 

So Seokjin stops fighting. 

His tired, reddened eyes open, looking at the walls. 

The curtains are open. The moonlight is hitting the room. There is a tree right outside the window –long, firm, old. The branches falter with the wind outside. Seokjin can’t feel the wind right now, because inside the bed, under the duvet is warm, but he can see the way the branches move because of it. 

Sometimes, Taehyung is that wind. Seokjin can’t feel him, but he can see the effects of him. 

He can’t feel the softness of the intentions, but he can see the way he tries.

He can see the way Taehyung nuzzles at his neck, taking his scent in. 

He can see the way Taehyung’s fingers brush over his bare skin on his tummy.

He can see the way Taehyung hugs too tight like he is afraid Seokjin will melt and disappear.

He can see the way Taehyung tries.

Seokjin doesn’t even remember when he fell asleep, but the last thing he felt was the way Taehyung intertwined their fingers. 

Seokjin dug his nails into his skin.

And even then, Taehyung didn’t stop holding him tighter. 

Chapter Text

Melt.

Fade.

Melt.

The alpha’s hands roam around the sleeping body; calloused fingers brushing over the skin of the soft, flat tummy thanks to the curled up shirt. The more Taehyung touches it, the more rose scent fills the room and turns it into a garden. 

Seokjin is sleeping. Eyebrows furrowed, lips turned downwards, the lashes wet and sticky. But his body is different from the times he is awake –it’s not rigid. Not rock-hard like everytime he is tense around the alpha. Now, it’s soft. Like a vanilla pudding. Bends whenever Taehyung presses his finger. 

His bare arms. His hands. Tummy. His soft, milky legs. Even his breathings are slow and steady, instead of the heart beating continuously crazy when he is trying to sleep next to him for the past three days.

Taehyung is lying sideways on the bed, elbow resting on the bed, cheek resting on his leaned hand as he watches the every motion of omega. 

Seokjin had fallen asleep early tonight; despite being alone, he was still on the edge of the bed when Taehyung arrived in the bedroom two hours after him. He pulled the omega towards the center, and from being tired and still illy, the omega didn’t even wake up. The pills Namjoon gave to him made him sleepy throughout the whole day. Not only that, but his sleep is also heavy. 

It’s nice. That the omega is sleeping. Taehyung can observe him without almond eyes dwelling up as he looks terrified because of the alpha.

Long, slim finger brushes over the belly button. From there to his abdomen, then they itch to find their ways a little upper. The shirt is closing his soft mounds; but Taehyung wants to move his hands up to grab them. Bend them between his hands, warm up, feel it, play with it.

He did so many things to Seokjin. Things that shouldn’t even be named. 

And despite wanting to change, the change is not something that comes overnight.

One day, he had the omega to himself. All. Owned. His to touch, bend, mark and fuck. He could do those to him because he had the right —to take revenge, to play with him like a cat chasing a mouse. Because Seokjin deserved it. He deserved every nasty thing coming fromTaehyung’s fingers.  

The next day, Seokjin’s innocence was the barrier. 

Taehyung’s fingers that once were dirty with the omega’s blood goes to the hem of the black shirt to open, to reveal more of the alluring body. He slowly lifts the cloth to bare the omega’s breasts. And aybe even take one nipple to his mouth and suck. 

He would have Seokjin whimpering under him; the omega crying because of the intensity. Taehyung can make him cum with just this, if he wants to. 

But the war in his mind ends with a defeat.

He doesn’t want to.

Unless Seokjin begs for it. 

He sighs, and then without even gazing at his breasts, he pulls the shirt over his abdomen again. His shirt. Taehyung had this shirt for over ten years —a shirt that he wore almost everyday. His scent is inside the threads that are done to sew the shirt; and now, they puddle on omega’s skin. Their scent mixes up. Sandalwood-like earth scent and the sweet roses that blooms. 

His fingers don’t stop. This time, it’s the milky legs that are a dessert for him. Soft. Sweet. Beautiful. Pudding. 

Fuck.

Not ashamed to admit.

Taehyung wants to fuck him. 

It had been three weeks since he had learnt the truth.

And three weeks and a day since he last was inside the omega. 

He just wants to grab him and hammer inside; he wants to fuck him until Seokjin is whimpering and crying because of the intensity. He wants to make him scream –sobs escaping from his plushy lips. 

He wants the omega to break apart because his cock is just too good and he can’t take it.

But he doesn’t. He can’t. Not now. Not when he needs to heal first.

But god, does he want to.

He wants it so much–so fucking much that it’s driving him crazy. He wants the omega on him, under him, lying next to him. He wants him to be one with him; he wants to be one so bad that all they feel in the darkness is their hands and their souls. He wants him so close that they will never break apart. 

He wants him in his blood; in his veins, in his mind like a thought he was born with. He wants Seokjin to be dependent on him; like he can’t breathe without Taehyung near him. He wants Seokjin to cry when he is gone even for an hour. He wants him whimpering like a wounded puppy when Taehyung doesn’t give him his cock. He wants him absolutely gone and divine. He wants him to leave his own soul from his body, and enter Taehyung’s and stay there until they die. 

He wants Seokjin to want him like a child needing his mother. 

He wants.

He wants so many things and so much–

Taehyung sighs, shifting his position; and getting between the open legs to be a weight on top of him. He looks at the omega as he rests his chin on his belly. Seokjin is sleeping, and he’ll not wake up because the pills are flooded with sleeping doses. Taehyung can do many things to him, and maybe after it hurts enough, the omega can wake up.

Taehyung rests his forehead on his belly. It’s nice. To be in his arms, even though the arms never reach to hold him. But Taehyung can and this is enough for now. 

His muscular arms wrap around the omega’s torso.

Being between his legs, warm breaths hitting on his twitching belly–it’s nice. Taehyung hadn’t had a feeling as safe as this before. Sure, he had lovers. Boyfriends and girlfriends. One night stands. The omegas whom he would spend his days and nights with. The ones who were with him for months, the ones who were a fling for a night. The childhood friends he had hooked up with. 

His father warned him about it once. It was the first time Taehyung took a hit from his father. It created chaos in their house. Because he was hanging around so much that it had been ruining their repetition. Because one of the omegas he had hooked up was creating rumors around that they’ll marry –while Taehyung was just having fun. 

Having fun can be dangerous. The line between fun and craze are so subtle, like how turning a white into a black is the same. Greyness is their problem. 

Taehyung managed to take the first hit for his faults, but he knew he couldn’t handle a second one coming from his father. He would bite back –even though he never would want to. He loved his appa so much, before he was taken away from him. By those monsters. 

How did Seokjin manage to survive in that fucking bloody household?

Every cut must be a story. 

His hand caresses the milky thighs, runs from the tiniest waist to the backs, as he lays over him. 

It hits –where there are blisters. 

Seokjin has so many scars on his legs. Cut, open, white scars that are done by a razor. His arms. Little lines with deepness. Messy. Like he just takes the razors and cuts them randomly. Some are big. Some verticals. Some small like it was just a relief for a day. 

That household. Taehyung should’ve burned it. With everything on it.

He was going to. He was so close. If Jimin didn’t kneel in front of him and hugged his legs, pleading to spare the innocent households, saying there were children and omegas, Taehyung was going to burn down the whole clan. 

They didn’t show mercy to his family –why did Taehyung have to? Why did he have to be kind towards the innocents when Taehyung’s sister was also one? She was an omega, too. She was innocent. Barely eighteen. Five years younger than Taehyung. She was his soul –his strength, his smile, his heart.   

Why did Taehyung have to be the bigger one? He didn’t want to. 

When he shoved Jimin off of him, he was a little saner –because it was true, there were children and omegas, and Taehyung hated them being hurt. 

But inside the clan household, when he entered that big, beautiful and isolated household in the darkness, there wasn’t a discrimination for him. No omega, no beta, no alpha. He wanted to kill everyone in that house. 

He met with an alpha in the kitchen, drinking some beer and eating chips, enjoying a video on his phone. Awake even though it was a late time. His eyes got bigger looking at the intruder, as if he realized who Taehyung was. He probably knew. 

He knew Death came for him. 

Taehyung threw the knife at his heart without giving him time to scream. 

He wasn’t dead at the first second, no, he wasn’t. He tried to scream. To make others aware. To raise his voice. But he couldn’t, when Taehyung went there to punch him in the face, then constant punchings that ended up with his two hands around his neck, strangling. 

The other three were sleeping in the same room. Despite Taehyung trying to be careful, they were awakened by the noises. They fought back. Tried to attack him. Taehyung got hit. It was a bloodfield. But;

One

by

One.

Taehyung took them one by one. He was feral. His eyes; red like blood. His soul; totally claimed by the wolf in him. His teeth bit, his hands strangled, and his soul burned with revenge. 

The fifth one didn’t even struggle.

As he saw the dead bodies on the floor, his hooded eyes didn’t even flinch. “Kill all of us,” he had whispered, “Kill everyone in this household. Only that would clear the madness inside.”

Taehyung was surprised by the sudden words, but more so, when the alpha opened his arms and welcomed Death like an old friend. 

When the brothers were done; it was the father. They were also woken up by the sounds. The Alpha tried to fight back. He was the one who made Taehyung struggle the most.

The mother wasn’t even in the scene. Alpha must’ve ordered her to stay in the bedroom; maybe he thought Taehyung would spare her life if she stayed back. 

“Remember me?” Taehyung said to his face, calm and composed, but delirious, as he had the Alpha of the clan on the floor, strangling him with both of his hands. “Do I resemble my father?”

Head of the Clan knew him. Of course he did. 

“The last face you see will be me. My revenge. I’m going to take your clan and make them suffer because of your fault. I’m going to make them commit to me. I’m going to torture them so much that they will hate you, everyone is going to curse when they remember you and your family. I’ll erase your whole bloodline from the surface of the earth. It will be like you and your clan never existed. You’ll be nothing but forgotten history. Look at my face. Remember who took your last breath.”

It was not enough. He wanted to hurt more. 

“Be glad you don’t have an omega child,” Taehyung laughed with craze. “My sister’s shirt was open. When they killed her. If I saw one of yours, I would make them regret that they were even born. I’m going to erase your whole bloodline. You’ll die. See my face. You’ll die looking at the man who is going to claim your clan.”

As the Head Alpha took his last breath, Taehyung left the dead body on the floor. But it wasn’t enough. He kicked him over and over again, even the deadness. 

Then, he went to the bedroom. To her. The mother. Head Omega of the Clan.

She didn’t beg for forgiveness. To have a life. No, she had a knife. She fought back. 

They didn’t show mercy to Taehyung’s sister. Why did he have to show it to her, when she was fighting back? 

Taehyung’s sister didn’t even fight back. She was too scared. They must’ve killed her when she begged for a life. 

Taehyung didn’t show her mercy either. He made it quick. He made it painless. 

But even then when he thought everyone was dead inside the house, the black hole in his heart didn’t fill in. It didn’t stop the pain –the constant hammering that ached his brain, his heart, his whole body. It didn’t stop. Taehyung wanted to torture even their dead bodies. 

He wanted to tie their feet to a car and take around their dead bodies in the streets for days. Like how Achilles did it to Hector. 

He wanted to cut their heads off and put it on a shelf in the center of their town so that everyone could see.

It didn’t stop the aching in his heart. 

And when he went back to the first floor, he saw him.

The omega.

Seokjin.

He was crying, holding a dead body. He was muttering the name like a prayer. “Seokjung hyung, Seokjung hyung, Seokjung hyung.”

But when he realized the intruder of the night –the Killer of his family– his almond eyes broke down. He was breathless for seconds. 

Taehyung could smell him.

He smelled like them.

Like his father. Like his brothers. He smelled like they were inside him; like it was in every inch of his body. 

He was one of them. He was an omega, with beautiful almond eyes, with long black hair, with pajamas on him, he was one of them. Taehyung had checked every room to find someone; but he couldn’t find anybody.

Only for the beautiful omega to emerge from the stairs which looked like it was tied to a basement.

He was them.

And that moment, Taehyung went berserk.

He wished he didn’t kill the Father so he could see what Taehyung promised for was happening. 

He pulled him by his arm, and pushed him to the floor, right next to his dead father. He tore down his clothes –where it was only needed. He punched him when he struggled and screamed. He strangled him when he was inside the tight cunt –two hands wrapped around the tiny throat.

Almond eyes rolling and face reddening.

He should’ve kill.

He should’ve. 

He took him on the floor. The blood smeared around his cock. Virgin. The scent rottened. The acidity of it drowned Taehyung so much he tried to knock him out so it would stop. He grabbed him by his hair and smacked his head to the floor, countless and countless times.

Seokjin should’ve died.

How did he even survive those hits?

How did he survive when Taehyung knotted him the first time –and he bled so much?

How did he manage to crawl on the floor when Taehyung was done with him?

How did he, when Taehyung dragged him by his feet outside the house, uncaring about the stairs, and dragged him for meters until they reached the truck?

Surprising.

But he did.

Even in that old garage.

He didn’t open his mouth when Jeongguk beat him to a pulp countless times.

He didn’t tell them where they were keeping the stacks.

He didn’t tell them how many family members they had. 

He didn’t tell them why they betrayed Taehyung’s clan.

He didn’t tell them if he was inside the house when Taehyung’s family got killed. 

He was mute. He cried, he screamed, he begged, but not once he sold his family out. He didn’t when Taehyung fucked him on the floor until he bled and fainted.

He didn’t when Jeongguk cut his throat. 

The cuts. 

It’s still on his body.

As Taehyung remembers everything, and everything he had done, he touches all the scars like they are stars made from the stardust. 

The scars…

The ones they made.

The one on his womb; where Taehyung hit with a belt countless times because he begged him to stop, calling him a monster. 

A monster.

Taehyung was a monster.

But he was innocent, huh.

So Taehyung hit. Over and over again. Over and over and over and over and over, where each time the omega yelled at his face, screaming the same word.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

Maybe Taehyung was. 

Because he didn’t stop until Seokjin’s skin tore apart and the omega passed out, on the floor, skin peeled off. 

The scar on his chin. It will never heal. It will always be a ugly scar on his face that messies the beauty. 

The cut on his throat. Faded to whiteness; but forever on the skin. 

And what the omega said is true; Taehyung is still a monster.

Because no matter what he did, he still wants the omega like a maniac.

He wants him so fucking much it drives him crazy. He is ready to act like he didn’t do anything wrong if acting is going to create an illusion like they are lovers and mates in love. 

Taehyung closes his teary eyes and breathes on the soft skin. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, maybe countless times. “I’m so fucking sorry for everything.”

He truly is. 

But he can’t kiss the omega –it will be sandpaper. 

It will hurt the skin. It will hurt him.

If he tells Seokjin that he knows he is innocent, wouldn’t the omega crumble more? Wouldn’t he yell at Taehyung’s face?

Maybe he would even try to run away.

And Taehyung can’t let that happen. Not now. Not ever. 

He loves kissing him so much, he can’t not have this. 

As his thoughts scatter around the lit bedroom, he leans to kiss the bare tummy. Every inch of it. One kiss, one sorry, one kiss, another one. Kiss, kiss, kiss. Until he kisses every scar and reaches to his bottoms. He takes a deep breath, trying to fucking control himself, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to. 

He doesn’t want to be a decent man.

He doesn’t care about being a good guy.

He just wants Seokjin. All of him. Defeated. Every inch of him.

He pulls the black pants to lower, lower, lower. 

He kisses the bare, smoothless groin. He plants kiss over kiss. He nuzzles the sweet skin of the omega, a natural rose scent emitting. 

He wants to wander lower parts, to the blossoming roses, but he–

He doesn’t. 

Not now. Not when he is sleeping like this. Not when he struggles this much. 

He pulls the bottoms over him again, resting his face on the cloth. “Fuck,” he murmurs, breath hitting the cloth. Taehyung sucks the cloth. A bad, bad, bad man.

“Fuck, Seokjin. Fuck. Fuck.  I want you so much. You are hating it yet I still want you so much. I want to be inside you all the time. I want you to cry under me because I make you so fucking satisfied. I want every inch of you –and the fact that you hate it still drives me crazy.”

He sighs.

He is hard. 

The omega is smelling like roses and Taehyung is hard in his slacks. 

Uncaring about it, he shifts his position again to lie his head on the crook of his neck. It’s where he loves the most. The place where he carries the mating bite; where Taehyung’s own soul is connected to his. The door, the barrier, the feelings. He kisses the mating bite and laps at the skin, trying to scent the omega. 

But then, his bitings cut with a struggle.

“No…” 

The whine makes Taehyung pull his face from the omega. He lifts his head to gaze over his face; and he can see the way tears roll.

Seokjin cries.

Even in his sleep.

“N-no…” The words are pouring from his agape mouth, teeth seethed like it hurts.

It probably does. 

“No…” a hiccup, a sob, the eyes trying to open but they are closed, and the omega is seeing nightmares.

Like the past three days. 

And Taehyung lies next to him, holding the pretty being in his arms. So much, so rough, so close. He hugs him like he can’t breathe without him.

“I’m here,” Taehyung whispers, trying to shush the crying omega, holding onto him so tight –he pulls the body almost over him, trying to make their body one. He holds him so close that he can feel Seokjin’s heartbeats against his chest. It’s deep, hurt, and messy. 

“I’m here little omega.” He kisses the sweaty hair. “Alpha is here.”

An alpha that broke so much that can’t even collect back.

How can he take the porcelain dusts and glue them together?

It’s impossible. He can’t.

But he has no choice but to try.

Because even though Seokjin is still shivering, his body melts into a puddle with every word Taehyung utters.

“You are safe, you will never be hurt again. I promise. You’ll be happy. So happy. So safe. So protected. I’m going to protect you for the rest of my life.” 

Heavy sighs, more tears rolling from the pretty eyelashes. The tears never dry. 

“You are here, little omega. I’m here. Alpha is here. You will be okay. Everything is alright.”

Chapter Text

Seokjin loved the night –but his life wasn’t kind enough to let him continue to love the night. When the sun went down, the pain had started to rise from dawn. Nights were painful while day was the saviour.

Because no matter how indecent their brothers were, they didn’t dare to touch him during the broad sunlight. 

Sun was the protector. It was the warm feeling flooding inside Seokjin’s body whenever he was hit with the beam of it –it was his way of being safe. Near the beach, watching the beams falling over the water to reflect the beauty. 

The moon?

It was the accompany. It was Seokjin’s friend who had seen how many times he had cried, how many times he vomited that disgusted white liquid from the back of his throat. How many times he was beaten into a pulp by his own blood. The moon was there for him the whole night. Even in that old, rusty basement that he cut himself to death because he couldn’t handle anymore, even though Seokjin didn’t see the beauty of it, the moon was there. An old friend who waved at him.

When he was in the woods, lying on the hard floor, there were only tree branches that filled his view –with the moon. He would lie on the floor, vomit pouring down the side of his lips, and undrying tears falling from his temples, his focus was on the moon. Moon would reach out his hands and hug his broken body like a warm blanket.

Seokjin carries the whole sea inside. That’s why tears will never die. No matter what happens.

But then, when he came –the alpha, Seokjin’s alpha- there was no day and night. In that old garage, there wasn’t a discrimination. They did everything even while the Sun watched. 

It must’ve been so, so, so, so sad. The warm friend who used to protect him didn’t even matter anymore. Sun must’ve been disgusted by him either. The moon? It was used to it. The sun? It was new. 

Then, the torture stopped. Suddenly. Seokjin was in the house, the kind omega giving him a warm soup to ease his throat and treat his cuts. What stopped them? 

Yoongi went to the Kim’s clan to research, to learn the truth.

Then, the torture continued in that old basement. But over a month, it also stopped.

When Yoongi came back, to reveal the sickening truth.

Now, the nights are…

Different.

This time, there is no sun and no moon. There isn’t a sunlight or moonlight. This time, there are candles. 

Candlelights. 

Vanilla and coffee scented. 

The heavy blanket over them. A body lying next to him. Hands holding his waist. Fingers caressing instead of hurting. This time, there isn’t a moon and a sun. 

This time, there are Kim Taehyung’s drowning, dark brown eyes. 

Whether Seokjin likes it or not, this time, it’s this alpha nuzzling his neck and giving his biting mark a kiss before falling to sleep.

Seokjin stopped trashing on the bed after the third night. He just lets the alpha nuzzle his neck, hold his waist, and caress his tummy like his skin doesn’t get goosebumps with every action. He lets him do many things –and will let many, many things because he has no strength to fight back anymore.

But these actions are not hurting him like those physical pains he had caused before.

This time, it’s aching instead of hurting. 

It aches Seokjin’s heart. It aches his insides. His soul. His mind. 

No matter he tells himself he hates it, the problem with mankind is always the same: To get used to it.

Four times in a night –and Seokjin’s eyes are heavy with sleep when the alpha who is drenched in black sweatpants and a basic shirt lays next to him. Seokjin forgot to turn his back on the side where the alpha sleeps, but his mind is so foggy and cloudy right now to make a turn on the bed. 

He wants to. He wants to turn his back at him.

Because he hates looking at the alpha’s handsome face. It’s even more sickening. The fact that he is the most handsome being Seokjin has ever seen in his life. Skin like caramel; eyes drowning with the warm browns, a perfect lean nose with downwards lips that resembles a heart.

No matter how many times it hurts to admit, the alpha is handsome. 

Yet Seokjin hates it. Hates the way that ethereal face had a smirk on his lips as he kept torturing him in that garage.

And he wants to turn –but god, he is so tired. He whines from the back of his throat when the alpha’s hands cave the bed in, and then he lays next to him under the blanket like they are some sickly lovey dovey couple to do those sickly lovey dovey couple things.  

There is a depth in alpha’s eyes. Seokjin manages to catch it before his eyes can’t hold anymore and closes. 

The last words he hears are aching.

“Are you that tired, little omega, hm?”

Yes, Seokjin wants to whisper. I’m so tired, I want to die. 

Is the sun still a protector if he is waking up alone in the cold sheets, the bed warm with alpha’s thick scent, the sheets wrinkled showing that someone slept beside him –but he is all alone?

Maybe. 

Maybe Seokjin can be free in those moments, those minutes where he can stretch in bed, or pull the blanket over him and hide under it. It’s thick with alpha’s scent. It’s a weird feeling. To be able to have the scent of the alpha on him all the time. Dizzying. Uncomfortable. As if there is something going to happen soon, it reminds Seokjin of the times he felt safe but it was only an illusion; like the nights he thought nothing will happen, but the crack of the door opening to have the same scent lingering in the room. 

But it’s comfortable. The bed. Seokjin hadn’t had a bed in his own home –his basement- but now, it’s soft and comfy. 

As Seokjin gets lost in his own thoughts, under the heavy blanket, the door opens with a heavy thud. Seokjin stops breathing –one second, two seconds.

Maybe alpha will think Seokjin is sleeping and leave him alone-

“Seokjin.”

His name rolls from the tongue a foreign. Like it was never meant to be said. 

Seokjin slowly pushes the blanket off of his face, only his eyes visible. 

The alpha is standing on the door.

“It’s three pm. You are sleeping for eighteen hours.”

So what? Seokjin manages to not scrunch his face but it’s all he wants to do. What if he had been sleeping for that long. 

It’s not like he has a job to do. He does them because he doesn’t want to get bored. 

The alpha hasn’t even eaten breakfast for the past few days. 

Seokjin is not waking up to prepare it. He used to. But there is just–there is something different in this bed. He can’t wake up naturally. All he wants to do is cave in and rest till he is rotting.

“Get up. We are going.”

Seokjin’s mouth thins out. “Where?”

“Don’t you want to visit the nursery?” Taehyung’s tone is neutral. Rigid. 

Seokjin’s ears perk. “Really?” There is a hesitancy, a some type of unbelief hanging off the edge.

Taehyung scoffs, annoyed by the attentive omega. “C’mon. Weather is a little cold. Take a jacket from my closet. You can wear anything you want. Be ready in five.”

Seokjin slowly straightens on the bed, the blanket falling over him. Taehyung turns his back and leaves him to change his clothes. Seokjin doesn’t have anything to wear, but as he goes over to the closet, he manages to find some pants for himself. He wears jeans and a white shirt; smelling like alpha. It has the earth scent on it; Seokjin is used to it. 

Now, the jacket.

He searches for the closet, but as one of the denims falls off, Seokjin realizes there is a different, black hoodie-like sweater on the floor, hidden behind the depth of the closet. Seokjin takes the jacket; and with a new scent, he moves it closer to his nose. 

It doesn’t smell like alpha. There is a different smell –a kinder one. Like jasmine. Seokjin likes this aroma. It reminds him of his best-friend. A soft flower scent. The jacket has stars cloth on it; oversized, black. Big. even for him.

He likes it. It’s cute and warm and very fluffy. 

When Seokjin leaves the room and down the stairs, the alpha is in the middle of smoking a cigarette, leaning against the headrest of the couch, eyes heavy on the white wall. 

As he hears the steps, flaring eyes turn towards Seokjin.

And then there is a long silence.

A hesitancy.

His hooded eyes lands on the jacket the omega is wearing –black, with stars on it, long and cotton on Seokjin’s skin.

Seokjin, uncomfortable with being observed, holds the hem of the jacket between his fingers, hand turning into a fist and cloth wrinkle between his crooked fingers. 

Did he wear something wrong? He told him to wear anything from the closet, didn’t he?

Seokjin looks at the alpha –to hear what is wrong from him. 

But all Taehyung does is take his eyes off him, heading to the front door without sparing another glance at the omega. “Let’s go.”

Seokjin walks a step behind the alpha, examining the streets of the big clan. He doesn’t know how big of a clan they are, but it looks just like theirs. Streets are full of people exchanging money, borrowing things from each other, children playing on the outside, people sitting on benches while animals run in the grass. It’s nice. A sweet bread scent fills the streets; along with corn, mashed potatoes, and sweets. 

“Nursery is a ten minute walk,” Taehyung clarifies. Seokjin doesn’t stop standing one feet away from him, but as they move towards the crowded areas where everyone greets Taehyung with a slight head bow, with a cheered smile or sometimes, mixed with slight empathy, Seokjin can’t stop getting closer to him. 

No one looks at him; but all eyes are waiting to turn towards him after they had done bowing to the alpha. 

Everyone acts like he doesn’t exist, 

But every eye turns towards him. 

As they pass by the bazaar, Seokjin’s steps slow down when he realizes a stand.

There are plushies. Lots of them. White, brown, black, colorful ones. Pink ones, even. Teddy Bears are holding a red heart with “LOVE” written on them. They are the perfect size to hug and to sleep with. Seokjin had so many plushies in his hometown; where he would keep them neatly on the floor. He would hug a different one every night; but his favorite one was a fluffy white alpaca that his favorite hyung bought for him ten years ago. 

“Shoot Three of The Targets, Get a Plushie” is written in big font and lighting; winking every second. 

Seokjin watches the way two teenage alpha boys try to win the prize; aiming the balloons with a fake gun in their hands, trying to look cool but aiming very awful. The standman, an old man with gray hair, is watching them with a heartful smirk on his lips, leaning against the counter as the boys try. 

Seokjin doesn’t even realize his steps are slower and untidy. But the time he has realized he is not following the alpha, Taehyung has already stopped walking, standing five feet apart from him, hands in his pocket, eyebrows raised and watching the way the omega is looking at the stand with curious and attentive eyes. 

Seokjin tears his gaze apart with the drowning brown eyes on him and immediately marches towards the alpha.

The people pass by them, Taehyung doesn’t even budge. 

“Do you want it?”

The sudden question surprises Seokjin. He doesn’t open his mouth to give an answer. 

Taehyung doesn’t walk, stays where he is, and repeats. “Do you want the plushie?”

Seokjin, like he rarely does, raises his head and looks at the alpha’s eyes. Is he really asking? Is Seokjin’s answer important? 

“Do you want it or not?”

What if it’s fake or new? Why does it matter? Why does he care?

Seokjin nods. To be honest, he wants it so much. He missed his own plushies. 

“Okay. I’ll win it for you.”

Taehyung walks towards the stand slowly. “How much is it?” He is already preparing some cash from his brown leather wallet, Seokjin standing feets apart from him.

“Oh my, oh my,” the standman laughs, a genuine smile. “It’s free for you, Taehyungie.”

“C’mon,” Taehyung says back, easy and light-weighted. “Just because you know me, you don’t have to, Uncle Minchul.”

“You grow in our hands. Everything is free to you.” The man turns back to two teenagers who has stopped playing. They are looking at Taehyung like they truly admire him; mouth open with a clear admiration in their big eyes. It’s clear they didn’t wake up from their warm bed this morning with the thought of seeing the Head of their clan. 

“Will you let our pack alpha play, boys?”

The boys immediately leave the gun towards the counter with the old man’s question but they don’t leave. They are so eager to watch the alpha as Taehyung takes the gun; squeezing his eye and aiming at a pink balloon. 

The gun looks cool in his hands.

But Seokjin takes a step back, one, two, three. His heart clenches. The gun is always dangerous on hands; specially in the hands of someone who had tortured him. No one even cares about him anyways. Taehyung slightly side-eyes him, but Seokjin’s eyes are turned to the balloon targets with a delirious heart. It beats so fast, scared of the idea that it can still be aimed for him. 

“How many shots do I have?” he asks to the standman.

“Five. Three of them will get you the prize.”

Seokjin watches the alpha when the alpha is not watching him. He looks cool. Handsome. Even the teenagers stop with their breaths as they watch the alpha trying to shoot; Taehyung relaxed with one hand holding the gun and the other in his pockets, one eye squeezed and the other is on the aiming circle. 

One. Hit.

Two. Hit.

Three. Hit.

The cheers and applause creates a laugh on Taehyung’s face, the alpha leaving the gun to the counter as the old man pats his back. “You have always been the best at these,” he says. “You are even better than your father.”

Taehyung’s light face turns into a pitched pain only for a second, but he collects himself. “Appa didn’t have a good teacher, but I did.” He says. “He was the best.”

“Your father was a good man,” the standman says, smile dropping, eyes holding onto the flashbacks. Flood of memories crushing the minds. “One of the best leaders we had seen. Such a shame… Such a shame.”

Taehyung takes a deep breath. “He would love to hear that, it means a lot. Thanks, Uncle.” Then, Taehyung turns to him. “Which one do you want?”

Seokjin, forgotten and uncared, stands awkwardly as all the eyes turn towards him. The uncle’s face drops, realizing the intruder in the clan, but he doesn’t say anything as Taehyung waits for a reaction from the omega.

The old man is tolerable. But the boys?

They look at Seokjin with arrogance, as if they still think Taehyung is so cool for everything he did. Did they watch as Taehyung threw him on the town center, did they laugh when Seokjin cried and beg? 

Many young boys admire Taehyung for what he did to Seokjin, don’t they?

His heart squeezes, blood not pumping. The sudden shame rises from his neck to his ears, and eyes dwelling. But he manages to raise his finger and point at the light brown Teddy Bear with trembling lips.  

As the man turns his back to get the Teddy Bear Seokjin showed, Seokjin sees. Banknotes left on the counter, without anyone even realizing as the old man turned his back. Taehyung leaves more than what it says on the board; but he doesn’t even want it to be seen.

A good leader who does the good without anyone noticing.

Would anyone say the same for his father? 

He doesn’t know the answer. People in their clan would tell his father was a good leader, maybe, but not a good man. Not a good teacher. Not a good parent. What were they good for, then? 

Only after seconds, Seokjin realizes the alpha is getting close to him, with that.

Teddy Bear.

Between his long, slim and beautiful fingers. 

Taehyung hands it to him. 

Seokjin hesitantly reaches his hands out to hold the bear. 

“T-thank you…” A continuation. “S-so much… alpha.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything back, just watching the way the omega tightly pulls the plushie to his arms and hugging it.

Whenever his hands reach towards Taehyung it always trembles, but holding the Teddy Bear, it’s the first time Taehyung sees the omega to grab onto something this tight. Like he doesn’t want to let it go, ever. 

Namjoon has a wide smile on his face as he spots them from far away. He has two people lurking around him, telling many things repeatedly, but Namjoon manages to continue to talk with them. He is wearing a uniform; looking tall and handsome with his ashy blonde hair.

Seokjin looks around. The nursery has a big garden with many rooms inside the wooden cabinet; separate three branches that serve for different purposes. The courtyard is green with the grass and flowers that are blooming, some babies are crawling for the first time on the freshly mowed grass. 

It’s true what they said: There are so many children running around, with omega or beta nurses following them. They are treating everyone. It’s so crowded that many people pass by them without even giving them a recognition. 

It’s not clear if someone is coming towards them. Until they enter the biggest cabinet; Seokjin doesn’t realize the omega is walking towards them until he comes to hug the alpha. Tight and long, swaying in his place as he closes his pretty eyes with a… bliss. 

“Taehyung...” The tone is light. The omega is tall, not tall like Seokjin, a few centimeters smaller. He has a bright smile on his lips; pretty brown hair, neat nose, overalls on him. He looks beautiful. And kind.

“Hi, Hoseok hyungie.” 

Taehyung pulls from the hug, but the omega doesn’t take his hands off, he holds the alpha’s bulky arms with a slight caress.

He is–

Seokjin gulps, a tight node on his throat. Very touchy and comfortable with the alpha.  

He only watches with uncertain eyes as they talk.

“Glad to see you here, god, I missed you so much. I kept asking Yoongi about you but he said you are okay, when in fact, I know, you are not.”

“I’m okay, hyung,” Taehyung sighs, “Don’t worry.”

And in an instant, the caramel eyes turn towards him. To acknowledge.

“You must be Seokjin.”

Seokjin’s breath hitches. 

In that crowd, he was invisible. But now, someone is looking at him.

It’s an instinct. The way Seokjin gets closer to Taehyung, standing behind the alpha’s big body. He holds the plushie tighter. Enough to bend between his fingers. Alpha’s sturdy shoulders close his face, but the eyes are always visible. 

Even Taehyung gets surprised for a second with the way Seokjin hides behind him. But a breath he takes in, proudful, and like nothing, his hand reaches back and holds Seokjin’s wrists. “Hoseok, this is Seokjin. My wife.”

The bugs crawl, crawl, crawl. Seokjin has to stand as the breeze -Taehyung– shakes him to his cores. My wife.

His wife. 

“Seokjin, this is Hoseok hyung. Yoongi hyung’s fiance.”

The omega smiles warmly. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Hoseok. I’m also Doctor Kim Namjoon’s helper.”

“And my best man,” the alpha doctor comes near them, with a cheerful note that carries the smile even behind his voice. “Finally. It’s really nice to see you here.” He emphasises, and that creates a slight smile on Seokjin’s lips. 

“Thanks, hyung.” Taehyung says, a little stiffened with the way Namjoon came close to them and stood across the omega. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing much. But we had two newborns today. The omegas are fine. The babies are also healthy. Everything is alright.”

“I was birthing along with them,” Hoseok says, breathing deep as he holds his heart like he had faced something terrific. “We got so scared for a second. Too much blood.”

“I still don’t get how you don’t faint in birth, Hoseok,” Namjoon shakes his head, a hand on omega’s back. “You can’t even stand nosebleeds.”

“It’s hard for some people. Are you saying this when you gag when someone vomits?”

A giggle. Slightly. 

Seokjin.

The omega’s smile drops when the eyes turn towards him, not judgemental but different. But it makes Hoseok laugh more. “God. You are so sweet. C’mon Seokjin, let me take you to the newborns. They are so ugly. And sweet. They smell like milk!!”

Seokjin nods.

But without even taking a stance, he immediately stops. Like he has realized he is not his own person anymore. A slave. 

Turns back to Taehyung with fearful eyes. 

“You can go.” Taehyung nods. “I’ll be around here.” He reaches out his hand. “Give that to me.”

Seokjin, still hesitant, doesn’t let go of the plushie between his hands.  

“Oh my, I didn’t notice that! Is that a Teddy Bear?”

“Yeah, we got it from Uncle Minchul.”

“It’s so cute,” Hoseok says. “Look at his face.” He takes the plushie from Seokjin’s hands, a little upfront, creating a slight frown on omega’s face. Hoseok doesn’t realize the frowned face as holds the plushie next to Taehyung’s face. “Doesn’t it look like our Taehyungie, Namjoon? Look. They are the exact same. Twins. Identical.”

Namjoon scoffs. “Hmm, don’t say.”

“Aren’t they, Seokjin?” Hoseok pouts. He holds Taehyung’s chin to turn his face right towards Seokjin –the intimacy of their closeness making Seokjin take a step back, a little distressed with the way omega is too…. touchy.

How is he this close to the alpha?

Isn’t he scared? Of Taehyung? Of what expression will light up on that face when he makes a mistake? Taehyung would grab his hand and bent it backwards, and he would push him on the floor, and he would do so many embarrassing, hurtful things that Hoseok wouldn’t even be able to struggle as it hurts, broken, used, on the floor–

Seokjin frowns, a scared expression winding on his face and closing his eyes harshly to not let the flashbacks run.  

“Look, Seokjin, I said look, dear. Tell me.”

Seokjin opens his eyes back.

Taehyung is looking straight at him. Seokjin’s breaths hitch, heart beating like crazy.

Even trying to look at alpha’s face is hard. He tries to not look as much as he can. But Hoseok is looking at him for an answer, and Seokjin gulps. He raises his eyes back to the plushie. Seokjin looks at the plushie for longer, the way the brown face, buttoned nose, warm eyes with a “3” black line that stands for his lips. 

And then Taehyung. The alpha’s gaze is hard and challenging, a little amused by the omega’s reaction, jawline sharp, perfect nose, perfect face. Brown eyes –too deep, swallowing Seokjin whole.

It’s like everyone is erased.

The more Seokjin looks, the more he is drawn to the hands and the effects of the alpha. Alpha is the breeze; it shakes Seokjin to even his little limbs.  

Seokjin nods, bowing his head. 

“You didn’t even look,” the omega scoffs. “Our Taehyungie is the handsomest, isn’t he-”

“Hoseok, enough.” It’s Namjoon who cuts the omega. 

Hoseok doesn’t know.

Hoseok doesn’t know anything happened in that house. 

His only thoughts are that Seokjin is a captive, an omega whom Taehyung didn’t have the heart to kill. Someone who needs protection and Taehyung is the protector. Yes, he witnessed the first night, but after that he was unaware of the everything that happened in that garage, as the three cousins kept everything as a secret and the subject -the captive omega- is long forgotten. The omega didn’t matter when Hoseok went to another clan nearby to pay a visit to his sister for two months and only came back when his fiance did. 

If he knew what happened in that house, he would slap Taehyung in the face. 

Hoseok doesn’t know. The best way to have someone stand behind Taehyung, at least. 

“Let’s take Seokjin to the babies.” Namjoon is firm until he speaks to Seokjin. “Are you good with them?”

Seokjin shakes his head as a no. He is terrible, actually. 

“You’ll be,” Namjoon continues. “Let’s go.”

Taehyung rolls his tongue on his cheek, and Seokjin is scared again, wants to cry, wants to curl up and turn back to the basement. Taehyung’s anger can be towards anything –and the only thing affected will be Seokjin.

But alpha doesn’t meddle with the subject. 

“I’ll be outside,” Taehyung says, and Seokjin has to think again. 

It’s a hard decision he has to make. The constant pain that becomes somehow tolerable from someone who he had been used to, or the pain of having to meet with new people –babies- and their omega parents, who knows who he is and hates him?

Seokjin nods, again. But as Taehyung walks away from him, the pain in his heart deepens. The fear of being abandoned in a place where everyone can do anything to him is greater than the fear he feels towards the alpha. 

“A-alpha…” he mutters. Making Taehyung instantly turn back. “You’ll be outside?”

Taehyung’s eyes hold a scary, dark wave. Like possession. He comes closer and closer, until he grabs the omega’s chin –Seokjin’s almond eyes are teary as he is forced to look at those brown orbs. But Taehyung is quick to press his lips on Seokjin’s dry ones, tilting his head to the side for a second.

Light.

Soft. 

Just a second.

He pulls himself back, licking his lips. They are wet. 

“Yeah, outside. Shout my name and I’ll be here in an instant, okay?”

Seokjin is dizzy throughout the whole encounter. Namjoon’s lips thinned out for a second, only to turn back to normal when children ran to his feet and talked about a butterfly they saw in the garden with their big eyes and excited voices. Hoseok let’s Seokjin hold a baby, and Seokjin is so scared as the baby is handed to him. “Her name is Jieun, she is only four hours old. Isn’t she so beautiful?”

“So pretty,” Seokjin whispers. The baby is sleeping. Holding it feels like a plushie –but it is breathing on his arms, so innocent.

Innocent.

Something Seokjin will never be able to be.

She looks so unhurt, so safe, so beautiful and innocent –it looks so white, untouched by all the sins. Just a little being. A whole new life ahead of her. 

“May your road be full of flowers,” Seokjin whispers to her ears as the baby groans on his lap. “Beautiful gardens… And sweet lullabies. I hope…” he whispers, as the tiny hand wraps around his one finger… “I hope you’ll be loved by your family. And you’ll never be hurt.”

The baby starts to wake up, only to cry in Seokjin’s arms. Seokjin wants to cry too. Like how she is. He wants to bawl his eyes out and cry until he dies. But Hoseok comes running to him, taking the baby from his hands as Seokjin looks lost and hurt. His eyes dwell, and the very light rose scent rottens inside the room. 

There are more helpers who run around, some kind and some have a guard around Seokjin’s presence. They don’t look that happy to have the omega next to them, it’s clear from their frowned face, but they don’t say anything as Namjoon instructs them new tasks to do. The only aggressiveness Seokjin faces is an omega girl, barely legal, passing by him bumping to his shoulder, and not even saying sorry. She grits her teeth when Hoseok orders her to say sorry –she doesn’t, and Seokjin has to stand awkwardly and on the edge of tears. Only when he mumbles a sorry, Hoseok leaves that kind façade. “Say sorry,” he orders the girl. “Somin, say sorry.”

“Sorry.” She says mockingly, but Seokjin thanks her for saying sorry and holds Hoseok’s sleeve to let it go. Only then the omega lets it go., mutters between his teeth about respect.

Namjoon is there to distract him, taking the omega from the encounter and giving him a new task in an old room inside the big cabinet. He hands Seokjin a box –a wooden one with lots of medicine in it. “These are mixed. I need you to separate them by their name and put it on the shelves.”

This is somehow more suitable for Seokjin rather than being with people. He is silent as he separates every medicine according to its name, and then he finds the shelf they belong to, swaying in the medicine room like a melody. If he had the chance, he would want to be a herbalist. A healer who knows which herbs are better for which disease. He would love to learn to help people. 

But the dreams are long gone, with the way he is broken. He can’t even heal himself back. All he knows is to hurt himself more. And this is not going to change. 

When he sees a razor on the floor, dirty, rusty, probably unseen by the helpers, his mind wanders off and he stands, getting lost at the feeling it once created on his skin. He would cut, cut, cut until he was sure there was no surviving this time. Every hit from his father –he would cut some more as a punishment to himself. 

He spends hours on the shelves. Arranging everything neatly. As he finishes, Namjoon comes to give him new ones.

Only when Hoseok comes and whines that he had finished separating them days ago, Seokjin realizes the alpha doctor mixed them back just for him to have a peaceful task. “How can you not notice, Namjoonie, they were seperated! Who mixed them?! I did it days and days ago!” with a pretty pout. 

Getting caught, the alpha rubs his nape, embarrassed. But Seokjin smiles at the alpha. Giggles, even. And the alpha smiles, embarrassed, and escaping from the omega’s warm gaze. 

Namjoon takes a call an hour later; an elderly’s situation who had been fighting with illness is getting worse. They want the alpha doctor to go over for control; and Namjoon leaves with a worried look on his face. “Hoseok, don’t let Seokjin wander off, okay?” he says to Hoseok as both omegas are busy with preparing herbal tea for the birthed omegas. Hoseok is making a mixture, getting help from the omega in the kitchen area of the nursery cabinet. Almost everyone has left, as the sun started to set. The cozy hours feel safer to Seokjin, as there are only a handful of people inside. 

“I need to go. And Taehyung is gone too.”

The omega’s ears perk up. He immediately looks at Namjoon with a discomfort on his face. 

“He had to go to the elderly council. Something urgent came up. He’ll be here in an hour. He’ll come to take you, Seokjin.” His words are mixed with reassurance and a slight threat, as if letting the omega that Taehyung’s presence is always between them even though he is not here physically. 

Then, to Hoseok again. “Don’t ever let him go out of your sight,” he says between his teeth, securing his words. “Okay, Hoseok? Alright?”

“Yeah yeah, I won’t,” Hoseok whines, not understanding the seriousness of the repeated words. “We’ll sit like good omegas, won’t we?”

Seokjin, slightly, nods. 

The newborns cry like they are dying. It hurts his mind; the constant hammering to his brain. They cry so much that they are red; and no matter what the omegas in the nursery do, they don’t stop. “She has a fever,” Hoseok says to one of the other helper nurses. A pretty, kind beta named Jieun. Like the little girl. “God. Did you call Namjoon?”

“I did.” Beta sighs. “But he said he won’t be here for a while. You need to give her something, Hoseok oppa, she needs your care.”

Seokjin feels like crying along with her. It’s the baby he holds in his arms. She was alright some hours ago–

Did he poison her with his own scent? Did he make her sick because he is also one? 

“Give me a dosage of tylenol.” Hoseok is also stressed. “Seokjin.” The omega turns to the scattered omega. “You look like you’ll faint in a second. Please, I can’t handle you too. Just go outside and try to get better by yourself, please. Until I handle her. Please.”

Seokjin nods. 

He leaves the nursery cabinet. The outside is already dark; but the pretty garden has some lights. There are other people walking out of the nursery fences, going to the bazaar or returning from the farm with boxes in their hands. The clan is a peaceful place. Only laughter is heard; but the crying from the cabinet doesn’t stop mixing with it. 

Seokjin walks away, finding his way towards the woods behind the nursery. He can hear a river running, the water is closer than he thinks. Namjoon also mentioned there is a river behind the nursery a while ago, he remembers it. “I’ll take you there,” the alpha had said with a smile as he remembered Seokjin loved the sea. “With Taehyung, of course.”

Seokjin, trying to clear his mind, walks inside the long trees.

But the woods are dense; the more he tries to run towards the water, the water runs away from him too. He perks his ears, trying to follow the voice. He had always been good with finding his way in his own hometown, but this place is different than what he is used to. 

He knows the time is passing, and maybe the alpha is back; but Seokjin realizing he can’t find the river, tries to turn back, but every road feels the same. A road he takes, and he realizes he walked from here just ten minutes ago.

He tries to breathe; but the anxiousness crawls inside.

He is thirsty and cold, and so hungry.

At least one hour has passed, he knows it. 

And the alpha must’ve been waiting for him.

If he comes and doesn’t find Seokjin…

Seokjin’s lips tremble with fear, sitting on the floor, trying to turn back to his senses. Panicking is not something he should do now.

There are worse things than being fed to wolves.

If someone else from the clan finds him…

What’s he going to tell them? Will he give his real name? Wouldn’t they know who he is?

No. He can’t. He can’t give them a real name.

What would they do if they learn he is Seokjin of the Wolves? What if they do more things to him when he realizes he is from the Wolves? Won’t they… won’t they want to hurt him either? What if they broke him too?

Seokjin gets up again. “God,” he murmurs between his shaken teeth. “God. Please.”

He walks towards the place he thinks back to the nursery. But his road is full of thrones, and every road leads to the same place. 

More hours pass; and Seokjin, drenched in fear, knows the alpha must’ve been searching for him.

When Hoseok told him Seokjin is lost, what Taehyung felt was something he never thought he would feel again. 

It was the same. When someone banged his door three months ago, when he was crashing at an omega’s house, telling him something really bad happened in the house with a cry on their face. When he ran towards the house he had grown up in, only to see the disaster. 

When Hoseok said, on the edge of crying, telling him he had lost Seokjin, Taehyung grabbed his collar and shouted in his face. “Pray that I find him alive and safe, Hoseok hyung. Or else…” He couldn’t even continue to sentence, as he immediately ran toward the forest, where he knew the omega would run to.

The water. Running. 

Would he jump at the river to kill himself?

Taehyung runs and runs, in the places he knows, to find a trace of the sacred deer. His heart beats on his ear, and the sound of water falling from his eyes to the wooden floor, the teary face who looks so pretty even when he cries… It never leaves Taehyung’s mind. 

He can’t even breathe as he realizes Seokjin is not here. Not near him. Not in a place he knows.

Where the fuck is he?

There he is.

Looking cold, lost and tired in that forest.

“Seokjin.”

The name rolls out his tongue even without him realizing. 

Seokjin turns back to the alpha –and as soon as he realizes, the omega’s breaths stop.

Taehyung is… Feral.

His eyes are reddish; dark brown owns resembling a monster in the darkness. There is only light from the flashlight on his shaking hand, and Seokjin tries to speak, only for his words to die without even reaching towards the delirious alpha.

“I–I got lost… I was trying to find the river…” He explains, words fast and flowing like a note from his dried lips. “I didn’t try to–I didn’t try to run away! Alpha, alpha! Just please listen -”

But it’s no use.

Taehyung is running towards him. Taking the world behind him like a strong wave. With every step, the ground shakes. The anger is like the first time -resembles Seokjin, to the times… the first time.

The darkness is still the same. Blueness too. Seokjin always feels blue. 

The alpha marches towards him like he is here to destroy, to kill and ruin. The time he pushed him on the floor that day; like he carried the world’s hurricane along with him. His hands were steel. His hits were deadly.

Seokjin, not knowing what to do, panics.

Panic, rising from his blood and emerging his brain like an infection. Panic is the most deathly feeling, and Seokjin can feel the omega inside him is trapped to a corner second by second; like a big steel cage is closing around him with every passing second. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock-

Then, he does what he should never ever do.

He runs.

“KIM SEOKJIN!”

The earth is shaking with the alpha’s roar. 

It’s not the Taehyung who won the prize for him some hours ago. No. It’s not the Taehyung who watched a movie with him and checked up on him for a smile. It’s not the Taehyung who holds him like he is a broken porcelain at night. 

It’s that Taehyung.

Who punched him in the face. 

Who hit his womb with a belt.

Who kicked him on the floor the first night.

So, with the dread scratching his insides, Seokjin runs.

But Taehyung runs faster.

“No! NO!” Seokjin screams, wailing, wailing and trying to find a place in the woods for himself. A safe place where he can be free from the tortures. A place where he can rest and breathe. But he doesn’t know here. He doesn’t know where is where. Would the trees that Taehyung had watched to fold in every season be a home for Seokjin? Would the birds who flapped their wings every time Taehyung run in the wild show Seokjin a way out?

If he could just find the river and jump into it in the cold of the night, let the stream take him wherever it leads… Let him take his last breaths… If he could just…

He tries so hard to escape from the alpha’s rage but rage is not something he can run. It engulfs. It wraps around the whole body like a sticky disgusting dark tar; and even the water won’t be able to clear it out. It will be inside his nails, it would be inside his eyelashes. Sticky and wet. 

Taehyung is always the stronger one. Faster one. Powerful one. 

“No! No don’t, don’t please, please!” He screams, steps stumbling because he is so goddamn tired after trying to find a way back–he trips over a fallen branch and saves himself from falling just by a second. But he feels Taehyung’s breath on his nape; constantly hitting. 

He is too close.

And just a second. It only takes just a second for Taehyung to grab him from the jacket and then they roll on the ground, leaves and mud all over their body as they fall off. Taehyung is the first one to come back to himself while Seokjin can’t even do anything but to scream with his hoarse and dry voice. 

And in an instant, Seokjin is on the ground with a body on his, the hand on his neck, with a knee on his abdomen trying to secure him on the ground.

“You- You fucking stupid omega…”

The alpha is fuming. His nostrils are flaring like there are fumes coming out of them. Maybe it will. His eyes are the craziest after all the months; and the alpha is shaking with rage. 

Seokjin cries. “No, no I didn’t run, I didn’t–please, please I beg you–” he wails, trying to cover his face from any potential hit, all saliva running from his quivering mouth, the snots and tears mixed with dirt on his face. “Alpha, please just listen to me-”

“You ran away?” 

Seokjin sobs. “I didn’t!” 

No matter what he says, the alpha will not believe him.

“You run away,” he is murmuring the same word over and over again, his dark brown eyes carrying the mania in them. Seokjin had never seen him this feral.

“DID YOU THINK YOU CAN RUN AWAY FROM ME?”

“NO! No no no no!” Seokjin’s trembling hand tries to push the alpha on top of him, Taehyung’s one knee on his abdomen to secure him on the ground but it’s not a force on him. If Seokjin can hold his leg and beg him if that’s what Taehyung cares about –he can do that, Seokjin is never afraid to beg and cry. 

But it isn’t about what Taehyung cares about. It’s about what he believes.

And he doesn’t believe a word Seokjin says.

He didn’t believe Seokjin didn’t know anything. In the garage. He never believed that Seokjin didn’t know what his family did.

He didn’t believe it when Seokjin told him he wasn’t at the house when his family got killed by his own. 

And despite months passing, it’s the same old same old. 

He doesn’t believe Seokjin. Right now. He doesn’t even want to listen to Seokjin. 

He doesn’t.

And what will come up with that?

Seokjin can hear his thoughts. He can hear the ugly, bubbling poison taking over the alpha’s mind. 

He knows it will hurt. 

He will hurt. 

“I let you go out of the house, out of my sight, so you can at least be happy a little, and that’s how you act?” His tone is dark like a moonless, starless night. A black hole that pulls everything in, and Seokjin can’t even fight back. “I haven’t shown you your place in a month and that’s what you try?”

“No, no, no,” Seokjin wails. His heart hurts so much he thinks he is going to die. “I swear to god I didn’t–”

“Do I need to be cruel to you?” The alpha’s hand on his neck tightens as his eyes get bigger with rage. “Do I need to continue to be a monster for you to know your place?!”

Seokjin tries to shake his head as a no with hiccups drowning him. He can’t breathe. Not from the way the hand tightened around his neck, but with the fear of what will come.

“Do you need a reminder where you belong?” He asks, gritted teeth.

“Who do you belong to? Who is your alpha, huh? WHO IS YOUR ALPHA?”

“You!” Seokjin wails, he can’t even see the alpha anymore because the tears cover everything in front of him. He shakes. “It’s you. You are my alpha. I’m your slave. I’m your slave. Please, please, alpha, please don’t– I’m so sorry I didn’t want to run, just listen-” 

“I am your alpha, right?” The word is uttered between his gritted teeth, as if even challenging and defying the omega under him. “And you need to accept this. Even if you don’t want to.”

And the free hand moves to the lower parts; it always did.  

Seokjin trashes under him, crying uncontrollably. No.

“I’m so sorry,” he weeps, “Taehyung hyung, I’m so sorry-”

But his words are not reaching; he can beg as much as he wants, but the ears will not listen. 

Taehyung doesn’t take Seokjin’s pants off. He doesn’t take his own. It doesn’t even take a minute for the alpha to turn the trashing omega to a motionless doll; already used to what will come next. What’s the point of struggling? What’s the point of anything?

Then, Taehyung is quick to move from that moment. He tests two fingers in uncaring about the trembling omega. Seokjin screams, twitching with the big fingers crawling up his insides. The bugs in his stomach are a slurry now; they are black little nodes that can’t be untied. It hurts. But two fingers are drenched in wetness and ease everything in. 

No matter how he defies, Seokjin is always wet whenever Taehyung touches him. It’s his body that can’t control. The squelching sounds echo in the forest; taking away all the safety Seokjin felt during the last month like the birds flying away because of the pheromones reeking in their safe trees. 

But maybe, it is better. Instead of being on his toes everytime the alpha comes closer to him. Maybe this is better. Maybe this is the only way his hopes would die.

Seokjin weeps. 

Inside.

The alpha takes out his girthy cock; it’s almost twitching in his hand with the need to fill a hole, be inside the omega he had been dreaming about the last month. The blissness of feeling the tight, wet cunt around his aching cock. 

He lines himself up, and Seokjin’s whole fight stops, almond eyes growing bigger with the realization of it being real. It’s becoming too real. Taehyung is going to fuck him on a forest, where it’s no one but the river running somewhere close and him crying with the same stream. He hadn’t touched him for the past month, and now revenge will be taken against his will on a dirty ground. 

He yelps when Taehyung starts to push inside, the fights stop but the long nailed bugs crawl his insides, the blood pumping in his heart going delirious with the sudden pain –is he going to finally have a heart attack? 

Then, Taehyung bottoms out inside him, pushing himself in one go and tearing the omega apart. Seokjin can’t even breathe with the way it pushes his womb, the head of it poking from his stomach. He is going to die! 

“It hurts!” he screams with a hoarse, agonizing voice. Tears following a line from his temples to the dirty floor. They are enough to fill a river, and the water sound is so close that Seokjin wants to crawl away to make the tears meet. 

Seokjin hits his head on the hard ground floor, to make the pain emerge from somewhere else; but Taehyung’s hand on his neck is keeping him steady in a place. 

Inside.

Taehyung is moving inside; rearranging his every little thought along with his body. 

Seokjin’s trembling hands trying to push–they fall from Taehyung’s shoulder to his sides, the omega lying on the dirty floor, shattered breaths falling from his open lips with every push. 

Taehyung is fast. Brutal. But in… bliss.

He fucks hard and raw, like he always did, and Seokjin has no choice but to whimper under him like a wounded dog, only watching the way alpha moves over him. His tiredness kicks him; he wants to sleep, or maybe crawl back to his mother’s womb and never ever be born. 

The newborn baby. Never been hurt, never been broken. Her eyes had a sparkle inside them. It was soft. Like a star shining in the sky. 

Oh, 

the sky. 

It is so pretty tonight.

It’s such a shame.

Such a shame Seokjin has to live with this fate. Like always. 

His brothers. They would leave Seokjin on the ground when they finished using his mouth. Seokjin would lie on the ground for hours, until the moon disappeared and the sun came back. 

Sky is different from here. It is more beautiful. 

But what Seokjin lives is always the same.

How many minutes passes, unclear. But it doesn’t take too long. 

As the alpha cums with a last thrust and a low growl, Seokjin chokes on his own tears and saliva and snot. Taehyung empties himself inside Seokjin, and even not giving him a time to take a break, he grabs the omega’s trembling chin.

To lift his sweaty and wet neck that has a fading mating mark. 

And then he does that. The second time.

He shows his teeth like attacking a prey; looking glamorous and big on top of the small omega, like a scene in a movie where the big, furry monster’s face comes close to the camera to attack, and then Seokjin is no longer a person on his own.

Again. 

Seokjin’s scream is hoarse, coming from the back of his throat, and the pain doubles when the alpha continues. 

It will never stop.

There is no thing called a change. Or a good fate. 

Seokjin’s fate –it is this.

To be taken on the dirty floor.

It will end. It will end; like everything does, this will end too. Seokjin is a prey that is trying his best to run from the hands of a tiger, but he doesn’t have much strength to continue to run. One day he will just let himself sleep -forever- and then, the tiger is going to bite much harder.

Then, it will end. 

Taehyung knots him; the omega’s eyes rolling with the intensity. So  much cum loading and bloating his stomach; it overflows, his body can’t take much of it. But the alpha doesn’t pull out, breathing deep and hard, still delirious as if the idea of Seokjin running away is the most deadly sin, like his mind can’t be sane after this, and then, he lays his forehead on the trembling shoulder, murmuring scared whispers. You are mine. 

Seokjin. You are mine. 

How can you run away from your alpha?

“I didn’t run away,” Seokjin manages to whisper to Taehyung’s ear, his lips brushing over the skin. With the way his body heaves, his lips create an illusion of a feather kiss to the soft ear. “I didn’t.”

Chapter Text

A closed box that doesn’t show emotions. The only way to reach through the skin is to break.

Break.

Something they are already used to, but something Taehyung is still afraid to do.

He knows he does. He did. He hurt him again.

But regret crawls, it wraps around his heart and squeezes down and stains his already empty heart into poisonous ink. 

When Taehyung came back to his senses in the forest, and realized what he had done to the omega crying hard on the dirty floor, cum leaking from his supple thighs and whole body shaking, Taehyung’s heart clenched like it was never going to be the same again.

A man, trying to be good, only to end up in the wrong always. 

And actions have consequences.

Seokjin, a closed box again, that doesn’t even react to the way Taehyung appears in the room like a shadow. The lights are off and candles are burned out, the cries are all muffled and the plushie is a restraint between them. 

That’s the only thing Seokjin holds onto; dainty, little, frail crooked fingers hold the hand of it; and it caresses, like a light breeze, and it continues to caress even though Taehyung kneels in front of him to get a reaction.

The omega’s fearful, lost eyes turn towards the alpha, but they are…. starless. 

They are darker than the midnight sky that doesn’t hold any star or the moon. Empty. He looks at Taehyung with nothing behind his almond eyes, not long enough or else the tears will flow again, then he drops his head low and continues to caress the plushie. 

Seokjin isn’t awake much. He sleeps for what feels like days. And even when he wakes up, it looks like he has no control over his limbs to get out of the bed. He lays on the bed, duvet all over him, covered enough to reach his hair, and he just stares at the empty wall for hours.  

He doesn’t talk with Jimin when the omega pays a visit when he learns that Seokjin visited the nursery –and that he got lost, trying to find the river where Jimin swam almost every day in his childhood. “I would’ve taken you there,” he has said, “You didn’t have to search for it on your own.”

Seokjin, under the dark blue blanket, holding onto the plushie, doesn’t even lift his gaze from the emptiness that holds the wall; as Jimin tries to talk about his day and encourage the omega to react, all the omega does is to continue to look at the wall, lost in his own thoughts with the pain sorrowing from his swollen eyes. 

“Seokjin, please…” the omega whispers, taking the duvet off of him. 

But the minute omega’s skin opens– Jimin sees the renewed mating mark on the omega’s neck; fresh. Red. Like the teeth sink in to devour the omega’s soul as a whole.

He stops, every word dies in his mouth.

He realizes. 

What Taehyung did.

Why Taehyung was looking at him with a little guilt and rigidness as he saw Jimin at the door; like a child afraid to be caught. 

The first night; when Taehyung came to the clan with the omega in his arms, everyone saw the mating mark on the lithe body that was fully covered in blood and trembling like a leaf under the cold night. The mating bark to show that it was a slave. What Taehyung did that night was out of anger. Out of rage. 

It was to show Seokjin was under Taehyung; below him. A slave. Someone who belongs to Taehyung as an object.

But this?

This was claiming. 

This was done with obsession. This was done in the thought of a passion. 

When did they even fuck– Seokjin didn’t even want it. 

“No.” Jimin whispers. “No.”

He storms out of the room. To turn back to the living room where Taehyung is; the alpha who left two omegas to have a talk alone.

The second Taehyung comes out of the kitchen, without even letting him open his mouth, Jimin slaps him on the face. Hard. 

Taehyung’s jaw is clenched, teeth gritted, but he raises his head back to look at his omega cousin.

“You… you did that?” Jimin shakes with anger, hate, disappointment, sadness flooding through his blood. He is popping veins. “After we learnt he is innocent... You still did that?”

“What did I do?” Taehyung asks, unfazed by the anger personalized in front of him.

“Are you asking for real?” Lips trembling, voice shaking. “You claimed him! YOU CLAIMED HIM!” He screams, petrified. 

“Yes.” Taehyung nods. “I didn’t do it to hurt him,” A clenched jaw, but the words are icy and low. “I did it because he is my wife. And he’ll continue to be. Even if everyone opposes it.”

Jimin’s big eyes, growing and growing with anger. “He is innocent !”

Taehyung’s lips thin out. “And he is still my wife, so where do we go from here, Jimin?”

“Taehyung.” Jimin chokes, unable to comprehend the rigid way of the alpha standing in front of him, big, tall, cold. Like he never cried when Jimin got sick two years ago. Like there are no tears in him anymore. “Taehyung… What did you think? That he is going to bite you back and complete the mating mark? Do you really think that he’ll mate you?”

In order to be true mates where they belong to each other fully by blood bond, the omega also have to bite the alpha back. But it’s impossible. Seokjin wouldn’t do that even if he was held at gunpoint. 

Right now, it’s just Taehyung claiming the omega. 

This was done many years ago. This was done when the omegas didn’t even have the right to defend themselves and was handed to alphas as an offer, let it be a deal, an agreement or merging. The alphas would bite the omegas, binding them to themselves for life while they still fooled around with others. 

But if the omega bites the alpha back?

Then it’s a two way connection. It’s mating. Complete. Forever. Bonded.  

Taehyung’s eyes shake. “He doesn’t need to complete the mark to be mine. He already is. By heart, by soul, by body.” He emphases. “He is mine to decide what to do.”

“Taehyung,” Jimin sobs, “I don’t even know you anymore. I don’t. What are you doing? Why? Why, why, why, I don’t understand! Taehyung…”

Taehyung’s fists are clenched by his sides, anger pouring down his head to his toe. “Because there is nothing to understand! Why can’t you just accept that he is mine? He belongs to me! It doesn’t matter if he is innocent or not. It doesn’t matter who his family is. I fucking don’t give a fuck about anything anymore, Seokjin belongs to me! ”

Unable to hold the anger only in words, Jimin pushes the alpha with shaky hands. “So you are going to keep him trapped in this house forever?! Are you going to continue hurting him even if he says no?” The lips of the omega are shaking with the thoughts crawling. 

“Are you fucking him even though he says no?” He says, apprehensive. Taehyung’s face turns cold. “Oh god, oh god…”

Realization. 

It tears his innocence away.

It takes the Taehyung he grew up with. It forms a new type of monster in front of him.

“I can’t even say the word what you do! He looks dead, Taehyung! He looks like his soul has left his body!”

“Yes it did,” Taehyung snaps. “Because even his soul belongs to me.” 

He stops the omega when Jimin tries to push again, but the wrists are between Taehyung’s hardened hands, squeezing the thin bones between his fingers with deadly-cold eyes. “Jimin. Don’t ever come to me to discuss Seokjin anymore. I will decide what’s good and not for him, got it? He is mine.”

“Taehyung. God.” Jimin can’t hold all the emotions wrapping his heart anymore, tears falling from his big eyes as he looks at his cousin. “Taehyung, what will we do then? What is he going to do? Do you think he can live like this? In this house where he is tortured for months? In front of you, who is the killer of his family?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Showing the conversation has ended. 

They stand on the entrance, apart from each other, on different sides of the events for the first time. Throughout their whole life, it was them. Them against the world.

But now, Taehyung is on the opposite side.

Someone Jimin can’t even recognize anymore.

This is not his Taehyungie. This is not the alpha he grew up with.

Jimin takes a step back, another one, two, three, and with more than a thousand thoughts inside his murky mind, he leaves the house. 

Close your eyes

Have no fear

The monster's gone

He's on the run and your daddy's here

They always say the monsters are ugly, disgusting, scary beings that should be feared.

What if the monster is a man that looks like an angel? What to do then?

Seokjin’s monster is an angel.

He is the most handsome man Seokjin has ever seen. 

If he was someone else, Seokjin wouldn’t get enough of looking at his face. His tanned, wide face is sharp but his eyes are soft, they are asymmetrical that creates another beauty no one has. His lips are pink and shiny, and every time he laughs at something his cousins say, his whole face lits up, crunched beautiful eyes that warms whenever he is with them.

But Seokjin never saw the same face.

Alpha has two faces–and Seokjin knows the monster within. He knows the destructor; he knows the one who pops veins from his forehead because of how angry he is. He knows the hands that hurt, ruin and wet. 

And no matter what he looks like, as he cracks the door and enters the lightless room, Seokjin’s body quavers with the thousands of opportunities that he can do –to hurt, to mock, to ruin. Thousands of evilness running in the mind of an angel. 

The crawl, crawl, crawl. He is moving in silence like he doesn’t want to be felt.

Seokjin holds the plushie tighter, an useless thing as if it can protect him from harm. His eyes are teary with lots of sea, but they end up drying on his eyelashes.

Nothing can save him from this monster. 

Not his daddy. Not his hyungs. Not his friends. Not that kind alpha doctor. No one can help him; and as he drowns in a quicksand, reaching his hands out, it’s the monster living under it that holds his ankle and pulls him in.

Seokjin hates when people touch his ankle. 

It irks him. It reminds him of all the times he is being pulled to the depthness of the pain.

So when Taehyung tries to cover his open ankle with the blanket, Seokjin pulls his knee to himself like a habit. 

It’s pitch-black inside the room. But Seokjin, as if he can be seen, hides his face to the plushie, pressing it until he is sure that the alpha can’t see him.

“Are you awake?” Taehyung asks, an useless question as both of them are aware of the reality.

Seokjin doesn’t say anything in response. He hugs the plushie tighter, eyes under the blanket. He knows the alpha will crawl under it, like those bugs that just don’t leave you god damn alone. 

“Why haven’t you slept?” he murmurs, getting on his side of the bed and pulling the blanket over himself too. He rests, looking at Seokjin, and Seokjin is already regretting that he didn’t turn his back before he came.

It’s three of them in the bed now. 

Him, Seokjin, and the Teddy Bear.

“You have been sleeping for the past few days. It’s normal that you don’t have sleep now.”

Silence. The alpha knows he’ll not get an answer, but he still speaks. Softly. Like afraid to scare a baby deer.

Seokjin wants to laugh. 

“Do you like plushies that much?” Taehyung asks, curiosity hanging off his voice. “You haven’t let it go since we got it.”

Taehyung remembers how the omega’s eyes lit up when he realized the stand; watching two boys trying to aim for the prize. It was sparkly like little stars in the sky. Will Taehyung ever see them shining for him?

“Did you give it a name?”

The omega’s lips thins out. 

Seokjin, in fact, did. But he’ll not tell it to the alpha. He’ll tell it to no one. No one needs to know. 

The silence continues for minutes, both of them awake, sleep is long gone for different reasons. 

“Are you still tired from that day?” Taehyung continues with a slight uncomfortableness, uncaring about the ungiven answers. 

Instead of lying down, he straightens himself up on the bed –and it creates a reaction from the omega. Seokjin immediately smalls himself on the bed, squeezing his shoulders, and he holds the plushie closer to his body. 

Taehyung opens the night lamb.

Seokjin’s eyes are dull and fearful. He looks tired –the scars on his face when they fell are still red, mixing with whitish scars that are never going to disappear. Pretty eyelashes move only once, and then the omega doesn’t even acknowledge the tears falling from his face. 

“Does it hurt?” Taehyung reaches his hand out to grab the omega’s chin, lifting his face to look at the neck. Seokjin obeys without a fight. It’s only two of them inside the big house, isolated from the world and in a place on their own. Light and fear; curiousity and want. 

“It’s healing,” he murmurs, watching how his teeth claimed the skin, tore apart the flesh and left a mark forever. It’s right over his first bite, almost matching in size, but this time it is deeper than the first one he did with instincts. 

That first night, when he saw the omega on the floor, Taehyung didn’t even think that he would claim him. But it wasn’t something that was up to his hands. The minute he entered the house of the Wolf Clans, all he could feel was the wolf inside him scratching his sides to take revenge, to make them pay for what they did to his family. 

That rusty, old voice didn’t leave his mind even when he saw the omega.

His teeth were aching to claim the fearful being. It was like everything was erased from the surface, even the dead bodies lying on the floor, and it was the omega in the whole world.

Taehyung can’t get out of his mind that the petrified look on the omega’s face.

Seokjin looked at him like that only two times. 

First was the first night, where Taehyung was feral with his instincts.

And the second was…

It was…

Recent.

Taehyung takes a deep breath and continues to observe the mark on the neck. 

It mixes with the long, big cut Jeongguk left on omega’s neck. It was a knife cut that made Jeongguk laugh with craze. “Bastard,” Taehyung murmurs between his breaths, remembering those moments like a blurry image. His thumb caresses the little scar on the omega’s chin. It is clear that it needed stitches but since they -no, he - didn’t give, it was an open scar. Wider. Deeper. Unable to heal now. 

Taehyung sighs. “Does your mark hurt?” he repeats, again. 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything back. Not to anything. A motionless doll that accepted every possible thing –yet the scent burns again. The rotten roses fill the room and Taehyung has to accept it. 

But he wants it. Still. 

So much. 

Taehyung leans in, and it’s enough to make the omega turn his face to the other side, facing away from the alpha.

Taehyung’s lips brush over the soft, warm cheeks instead of the aimed, plush lips. His calloused hand still holds the chin, but no force is applied. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, right over to the dimple that rarely appears. The omega’s face is warm. “I shouldn’t have marked you like that. Sorry.”

Trailing, trailing, the lips lower and lower to the mating mark and then he kisses the reddened scar, lapping at it to ease the pain continuing. The essence of the rose scent. Too bitter. 

With more kisses, he feels the wetness on his face. Seokjin’s tears are pouring and it hurts like acid. 

Taehyung can’t hold himself. He wants to drown in the acid. 

A hand already on his chin, he turns the omega’s face to himself and closes his lips on his.

Seokjin doesn’t struggle, but as Taehyung kisses him with all the unsaid words behind, tears start to flatter around his closed eyelashes. The kiss burns. The touch burns. Being under the alpha is being under the water –big waves crash on him all Seokjin can do is to wait for it to pass.  How much it will take away from him is unknown. 

Taehyung’s hand on the chin slowly falls over to his shoulders, outlining a line –then to his waist, then lower, lower, lower… The dangerous, red sign shines on Seokjin’s closed eyes but he doesn’t even have the strength to oppose when the slim, long fingers find their way through his shorts.

The hand smoothly sways inside his panties. 

Seokjin sobs, unable to fight with the alpha. His lips tremble as Taehyung tries to kiss him continuously.

Melting like a candle; the candle drops burn on Seokjin’s skin. 

Every place the alpha touches burn. 

“You are wet,” Taehyung whispers against his chin. Kissing the scar that is left after those tortuous nights, as if replacing them with sweet smooches. His other hand on the throat slightly tightens. To feel the warm blood flooding through the veins, a reminder that this alive omega being is his and only his. 

“Fuck.”

Taehyung rubs the honeypot, feeling the slick between his indexes. It’s so warm. Seokjin is so warm. 

Everything about him is warm; the scent, when it rottens, is still delicious.

“So sweet,” he murmurs while playing with the sweet bud, slicks leaking through his fingers to ease the flesh. “Such a pretty baby.”

Omega hiccups, the alpha hovering over him like a shadow, a big, big, big monster that no one can fight with. “Alpha,” he whimpers, a twist in his stomach as the fingers continuously rub at the hot, dangerous spots. He twitches and he hates it. 

“A-alpha.” 

Cries, uncontrollably, afraid of everything. 

To make it stop. Would he hit him again? To continue. It is only going to hurt and bleed. What can he do?

“A-alpha,” he whimpers, “C-can we-we s-sleep?” Sobs. “P-please-please… Please. ” 

With fear engulfed, Seokjin waits with heaviness in his heart. Maybe a hit. Maybe the hand that rests on his throat is going to move to hit. Maybe he is going to put the fingers inside in a swift motion like the last time, aiming to hurt. 

But, without a battle, fingers stop. 

Taehyung sighs. 

He rests his forehead on omega’s. Nuzzling the even sweet nose. The tears of the omega smell, and Taehyung is afraid to taste the acidity of them if he kisses. 

“Yes, we can,” he whispers as he takes his hand from his pants slowly. 

Seokjin takes a deep breath and finally relaxes. He doesn’t even realize he went rigid. 

Taehyung wipes his fingers to the hem of his shirt, and lies next to the omega again while Seokjin sniffles and raises one hand to dry away his tears on his face.

“T-thank you..” he hiccups, “S-so much… A-alpha.”

And surprisingly, without waiting Taehyung, he snuggles towards him in the big bed. Despite the plushie between them Taehyung can still feel him. The omega makes himself smaller, resting under the blanket, trying to hide his reddened face. 

Taehyung wraps his hands around the omega without waiting. Holding him tight enough to show where he belongs, but enough to give the quivering body a chance to escape.

Despite wanting to drown in the sweet arms of the lullabies, Seokjin doesn’t sleep for hours, still.

The mating mark. On his neck.

It hurts –it hurts for more than one reason. The physical pain is something he can endure; but what the little spiders in his mind tell him to do is the scary part.

There are disgusting voices on his head that continues to torture him. About the alpha.

It hurts-Seokjin can’t even think about them. He just cries and sleeps and cries and sleeps. He doesn’t want to have those thoughts.

He doesn’t want to feel protected when the alpha is near –because he is the one who hurts him. But whenever Taehyung leaves, the omega inside him crumbles to millions of pieces like he is going to die. 

He keeps rejecting it. The mating bark. 

But the alpha’s intentions are ruining him.  

However, the reason why his sleep is better and he can’t wake up naturally in the mornings is that the smell of the alpha lingering on his mind; the sureness of it brings. 

The clothes from that day are washed, dried, and neatly folded in the closet.

Seokjin saw them on top of the drawer just hours ago. The jacket he wore. Black, with white cloth stars on it. The jeans that were covered in mud and blood. The shirt that was full of his snots and tears. The mating mark that bled so much that the shirt was a crimson. 

How did that blood from the cloth washed away?

If it can be washed away with water, then why can’t Seokjin’s cut wash away?

He should’ve escaped them, but the comfort of the pain it brings is something that he is used to. He doesn’t think twice as his hand reaches to the jacket to wear over his dark grey shirt. Everything on him belongs to the alpha and has his smell on it. Except the black jacket, comfortable and smelling like flowery detergent that was used to mix with jasmine. It’s nice.

Seokjin is thirsty and the water bottle that the alpha left him on the table is already finished. He has been feeling so hot and thirsty lately, like all the flames are curved under his skin. Especially the mating mark on his neck. It gives him headaches and warmness, it stings right behind his nape. 

He heads towards the downstairs, holding on to the staircase. He carries the teddy bear with his empty hand, the plushie that kept him accompanied for the past week. Steps are slow because the movements in the house are ringing in his ears. 

There are some shifts coming from outside. 

The front door is open; and there is some stuff packaged in the boxes right near the entrance, waiting to be moved outside. Seokjin slightly sways towards the window to see what’s happening on the outside, peeking through the curtain a little. 

Alpha is here.

Both of them.

Taehyung, and Jeongguk. 

The alphas are talking about something serious as their expression shows, moving something from the house to the old, red truck parked outside. Taehyung hands the other alpha one of the boxes and Jeongguk places them behind the truck. 

Are they going somewhere? 

As Seokjin looks at them with a questioning expression on his pale face, his eyes met with the other one.

Young alpha, Jeongguk, looks at him. Like an instinct. His dark, scary orbs are fixated for a second on the omega.

But immediately draws them back.  

Seokjin stands where he is, unable to move as Taehyung comes close to him. “C’mon, we are going.” He doesn’t look at Seokjin’s eyes as he speaks, taking a jacket from the stand behind Seokjin, letting the wind take his sandalwood-like earthy scent to the omega’s skin.

He doesn’t look at Seokjin’s eyes that much. Not anymore. Not after the night in the woods. His eyes resembling the big, dark waves on the cloudy nights are now still water. 

But Seokjin does. The more Taehyung –the alpha, his alpha– twists his eyes, the more Seokjin observes him.

Like right now.

“Where are we going?” He says, with a fear hanging off his voice.

“Surprise,” the alpha scoffs, slightly mocking. 

As he heads outside again, Seokjin follows him despite the ungiven answer. 

He steps over the lawn and rests his naked feet on the hard ground, the plushie in his hands nestled against his body by its head. 

Jeongguk looks at him for a second, especially the jacket on him, but doesn’t say anything back, and Seokjin is more than happy to act like he doesn’t exist. His eyes are only at the alpha –his alpha– 

“Wear something to your feet.”

“Where are we going?” Seokjin asks again, voice small.

Taehyung fumes. “Seokjin. C’mon. Get ready.”

Seokjin holds the Teddy Bear tighter –but as his eyes draft over the other alpha, he sees.

A sudden burn, right on top of his head to his toes. It smashes. 

Axe on the small alpha’s hand, going to the back of the truck. Inside one of the boxes that has robes, pliers, black bags. 

Seokjin saw them once. Especially the axe. In the garage, hanging off a nail on the wall, standing there on the broad light every time they came into the garage, turning the lights on and to hurt more. 

Seokjin was so scared that it was going to stop hanging on the wall one day. Because he knew, if it wasn’t there, it was in their hands. To crush. To smash. To hurt. 

All air is gone out of his lungs, and the only thing that rises from his throat is a small whine. The last meal he ate, maybe two days ago. 

What would they even do with those?

Seokjin looks over his shoulder, to the back, on his left, where he knows.

The garage is open. 

Memories flash back, and Seokjin’s wrist itches. 

They are going to kill him.

His mind freezes. His hands, his feet, his legs. Even the blood moves slowly inside his body, like the heart doesn’t want to pump anymore. 

Maybe he should run –but when he did that he saw what happened, even if he didn’t mean to run away from the alpha. It happened and he got hurt. Again.

How much more can they hurt him?

How many tortures are left that these two alphas didn’t try –to make him speak, to make him beg, to make him plead dying?

What more do they want?

Nothing.

They want nothing from Seokjin.

That’s why they are going to kill him, don’t they?

“A-alpha…” Seokjin doesn’t even realize the word he lets out. He takes a step back, slightly, not even enough to shake his body, let alone the world. “Alpha…”

Taehyung looks at him, a questioning expression on his handsome, cold, tanned face. 

“W-w-why he is–he is holding th-that?”

Seokjin wants to speak more. But there are no words.

“Why are you crying?” Taehyung takes a step to him, worried, and anxious, but Seokjin can only look at the other alpha who is holding the axe.

Lips tremble, like the little life inside him, the omega has already accepted fate, but the body and mind can’t.

Seokjin opens his mouth. “I— I didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispers, almost choking. Screams rising from his insides are turning into choked whimpers when they meet the world. The broken glasses that big enough to cut a heart are turning into dust. “Why are you going to kill me?”

“What?” Taehyung takes another step to him, and the omega shrinks his shoulders, almond eyes closed and already fluttering with tears. 

“I’m–I’m so sorry – I – I didn’t want to do anything-” He whimpers, “I– I’m so sorry, a-alpha…”

“Seokjin. What are you saying?” Taehyung’s eyebrows are knitted. He looks at Jeongguk from his shoulders, realizing what the alpha is holding in his hand, looking like a bloody murderer. Then right back at the crying omega. “What– What did you think? Did you think–”

Speechless. 

Maybe for the first time, Seokjin is the one who has the words to speak.

“He–He is holding tha-that– But-”

“Seokjin, it is hunt season.” Taehyung almost drawls, words fast and the idea of being misunderstood wears on his face. “We are going hunting with the rest of the alphas in the clan. To hunt animals for the winter. We are going to be crowded, and we need those tools to hunt the animals-”

The omega’s hands around the plushie tightens, it’s almost hurting his nails with how hard he dug his nails to the fabric. “T-then why are you taking me?” 

“I’m going to drive you off to Jimin’s.” Taehyung tries to shush the omega, but Seokjin’s eyes are never drawn back from the other alpha, who isn’t close enough to hear them but close enough to gaze at him with a confused and observing face. Those dark brown orbs that shine brightly –especially when he hurts.

Seokjin gulps. “I’m scared,” he slowly admits, “I - I don’t wanna go.”

“You can’t not go. Jimin is waiting. I can’t leave you alone in the house for the whole night. We’ll be away for two days.”

“But- But, Alpha…” Seokjin tries to gulp to calm down himself.

All the paths are always full of thorns. There is no escape. There is never an escape. Even if they say something, they do another. And it’s puzzling his mind.

He is so god damn tired.

God. He is exhausted. 

“I don’t know what to do!” Seokjin suddenly screams with the little resistance stored in him. 

Taehyung irks with the raised voice.

The omega yells with all he has. “I’m scared. I’m so scared!” 

He is so much that his heart pumps much faster, like something is hitting the veins inside. It rushes. It crashes. It overflows.  

“I’m always so scared.. I don’t know what to do to make you not angry…” Warm tears fall over his cheek, the fresh wounds of the night Taehyung took him are still red. His chest is heaving with the fear tangled up inside. “I’m always so scared around you…” He whispers. “Alpha… A-alpha, I’m so sorry –I didn’t want to push you away last night–” 

Taehyung’s eyes flutter.

“Ughhh, I’m so sorry… Please.. Please.” Seokjin starts to sob, looking directly at the alpha’s eyes that creates thousands of waves inside his oceany, cold, stormy eyes. 

Taehyung comes closer to him, to hold the omega by his arms. His big hands rest on omega’s tiny waist on both sides, and he looks at the omega; utterly crying, on the edge of a panic attack with his beautiful face reddening.

Seokjin looks at Taehyung’s eyes with so much pain and sorrow that Taehyung can’t even speak. 

“It hurts. My heart hurts so much,” Seokjin admits, broken eyes and wobbly lips. “My heart hurts and I don’t– I don’t know h-how to stop it...”

“Seokjin,” Taehyung whispers, “Baby, calm down, calm down-”

Seokjin shakes his head. “I’m really gonna die,” he wails. “I don’t know what to do…”

“You don’t need to do anything,” Taehyung eventually snaps, holding him by the arms and shaking in order to turn a mess into something else. “No one is going to hurt you. Breathe, Seokjin.”

Liar.

Lies, lies, lies.

It always does.

They always hurt. He always hurts.

They are never going to stop.

“I’m always so scared,” the omega doesn’t even let the alpha’s words wander in his mind. Because it’s lies, it’s always lies. They always hurt.

He didn’t hurt for a month but then he destroyed him, turning him into dust again. He did what he did the first night, uncaring about Seokjin’s pleas. 

He never cares. 

“I think I’m really gonna die,” Seokjin holds his heart with his quivering hand. Fear engulfs. It squeezes and it trashes. Seokjin realizes he is all alone in the whole existing universe; and even the sun knows his true face now. It shines. It burns.

“I’m gonna die, I’m so scared!”  he sobs, “Oh, oh, oh god, I can’t do this anymore..”

His tired, shaking body falls over Taehyung, and Taehyung holds the omega by his waist to hop him on the front of the truck, getting between his legs and trying to calm down the panicking omega. 

Seokjin lets go of the plushie, it falls over to the ground while his wobbly hands grab the hem of Taehyung’s white shirt. “A-alpha… Alpha… ” He tries to think, millions of ways to make them stop, millions of ways to erase the pain rising from his flashbacks, but it never stops. 

The other alpha is too near and whenever he is, it always hurts. Taehyung lets him hurt. And he watches. He watches when Jeongguk cuts him with those knives, and even though he grimaces his face with every scream Seokjin lets out, he doesn’t stop the alpha. No one stops. 

And when Jeongguk is gone, with a failed attempt to make him turn his family in that took Seokjin’s all power and soul to not give in, it is Taehyung inside the garage. It’s him, the one licking those bloods and sucking the skin, as he pushes inside– and the hand on Seokjin’s throat, it always squeezes like the first night. 

How many times did Seokjin fight with Death? How many times did Taehyung’s mercy let him out of the way? They are the ones causing the pain. They are the ones showing mercy. Seokjin is just a pawn at their chessboard, and he is always the first one to be sacrificed. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. Trembling, trembling, whole body on the edge of a thunderstorm.

“I–I can accept to die, but please, please I beg you alpha, don’t let me feel it much…” 

More, more, more, the lips trembling with every word, saliva running down from the quivering chin, “I keep wondering when the hate in your heart will burn down but it doesn’t. It never will! And I can’t stop thinking about when you are going to kill me…” 

Words are rolling like he is drunk, syllabuses uneven and the breaths he tries to take between every few words are clear to show how deep he is gone. 

He pushes Taehyung, trying to breathe something that isn’t pain and poison, but the more he feels the alpha near the more he fears. It’s like even his mind is against him. It can’t be calm. It can be stopped. He only thinks about the death, when they are going to kill him, when is the monster going to crawl and pull him by his ankles for the last time? The unanswered questions roll in his mind constantly.

He can’t take it anymore. He can’t. 

Why there are axes? Why there are black bags? Why the other alpha is here? He always hurts. Why they are going to the woods and taking Seokjin?

“Every time I see him, my heart hurts so much. Are you ever going to stop hurting me?” he chokes, uncaring about the alpha’s fake comfort. “When you stop, you’ll kill me, won’t you? Oh, oh god,” frail hands move to press on the lips, “Oh, you are going to kill me– What can I do?” He looks at Taehyung’s eyes with his teary almond eyes. “What can I do to make you stop torturing me?”

Taehyung grits his teeth. “Seokjin. Listen to me. I will not kill you. Jeongguk will never ever hurt you again. Not now. Not ever.”

“Liar!” Seokjin yells with all the voice left on him. “Liar, liar, liar! You are taking me to kill me! You are going to kill me!”

Taehyung takes a deep breath, holding onto the omega’s trembling hands. He squeezes. “Seokjin, nothing is going to happen! I mated you, didn’t I? You are my mate. I’ll never kill you, do you get it? Not anymore. I’ll not hurt you anymore again–”

“You will hurt me again,” Seokjin whimpers, a kicked puppy, broken, “You were going to do it last night too… You always lie.”

Taehyung’s face falls.

Jeongguk raises his head, to gaze at Taehyung, but he immediately lowers it again, not watching the scene unfolding in front of him.

“What can I do to make you not hurt?” Seokjin asks, defeated. “I don’t know what to do…”

He can’t do anything. Nothing. 

Even his own family didn’t love him and didn’t care enough for him, why would a stranger be kind to him?

Didn’t Taehyung show this? That night, in the woods? Didn’t he show Seokjin what he would do if he ever tried to be useless?

“I don’t know how to not hurt…”

He doesn’t. There is nothing he knows. No one taught him anything all his life.

And the only thing that has been taught was by his brothers.

The only way of escaping from different types of pain Seokjin knows is–

Oh. 

The root of the pain. Same yet somehow different. Bleach cleans the white; it erases the whiteness to a blank. 

The branches are the halos over his head, the ground is his bed, and the moon is the companion. 

It’s always in the woods.

Seokjin stops, with saliva running down his chin. His closed, painful eyes open in an instant, like a candle lit on the pretty little mind. 

Taehyung tries to reason why the omega stopped, but then–

Seokjin drops to his knees in front of Taehyung. 

Both of the alphas go numb with the way omega is on his knees. 

He sits in front of Taehyung, sobbing. “I only know how to do this,” he says between his cries, frail hands moving in the air and stopping at Taehyung’s belt.

Trying to unbuckle the belt.

Yet trembling hands can’t even hold the leather. 

“This is the only thing I know how to do,” he sobs. “ They always said I’m good at this–”

Echo.

The words echo in Taehyung’s mind for what feels like hours.

“What?”

He manages to whisper.

The shaky fingers can’t even unbuckle, and the lost attempt raises more wails from the omega. “I’m sorry, I’ll get going, I’ll –I can’t open– I–” He weeps, resting his face on Taehyung’s thigh, hugging his leg with choked words escaping. “Al-alpha, can you do it for me? I’ll be good.” 

With that, he leans slightly back, closing his eyes and opening his mouth, wide, like waiting–

Waiting–

What did he say?

Taehyung can’t move.

All the limbs on his body –they froze.

The hotness spreads around his neck like it’s a fire, and within seconds, it hits his mind.

Like a house being burned down.

Arson.

The more Seokjin wails, waiting for Taehyung to do that to his mouth, the more Taehyung hears those sobbing like a constant hit on his head. 

Seokjin hiccups, closing his lips and sniffing. ”Don’t you want it?” he asks, shy and embarrassed, “I’m–I’m really good at this…”

Then, the second when he –that’s when Taehyung is a goner.

Seokjin’s devastated eyes fall on Jeongguk.

Jeongguk stops breathing as the omega crawls, on his hands and on his knees, like some type of animal.

He crawls to Jeongguk.

The young alpha immediately takes a step back, a fear and shock written on his face. He looks at Taehyung with fear in his big eyes, like he is trying to tell that he didn’t do anything. 

“Seokjin.”

Word leaves Taehyung’s lips like falling from the sky. 

“Stop.”

Seokjin doesn’t.

“I SAID STOP!” Taehyung shouts.

With a roar echoing in the front lawn, Seokjin finally stops.

He tries to breathe for more seconds but he can’t. The position he is in. He was never this humiliated before, but look what fear made him do. Seokjin fears everything; and the first thing is… himself. The cuts on his wrists; the bleach he drank every time. But he continued to do so. Every one of them. With every time, he cut and he drank as the cycles continued. 

And if they are planning to kill, Seokjin can do more cuts and bleaches that come after the sacrifice. 

He lays on the pebble floor, feeling the little stones crushing skin in. It hurts.

And maybe, it needs to hurt.

It is the only relief. 

It is the only thing that makes him feel safe after the disgusting acts. It erases the unwanted skin, and it is something  he can choose at least.

Crying his heart out; with every little dirty thing happened to him.  

Like always.

He is such a small point on the floor, curled up to fetal position.

If he didn’t cry this much, he wouldn’t even be seen.

Taehyung, unable to hold anymore, sits on the floor, on his knees. 

And he shakes, shakes, shakes.

Seokjin is crying two steps ahead of him.

And Taehyung is on the floor, on the other side of the lawn, frozen with millions of thoughts scattered in his mind. 

“Hyung.”

It’s Jeongguk whisper bringing him back to the world. “Taehyung hyung. He is crying so much. He’ll faint.”

Pushing everything aside, with a breath he is forced to take, Taehyung lets those thoughts get locked and gets up on the floor to haul up the crying omega.

Seokjin holds onto him like his whole life depended on it despite even the slight touch from the alpha irks him.

“Don’t. Don’t. Please. Don’t kill me.” He hiccups, pressing his reddened face on Taehyung’s chest, hugging the strong, big, handsome alpha that is his angel. 

“Please. Alpha. Alpha. I’m so sorry. I–I’m so sorry, I’m grateful to you, I thank you, for everything. I’ll be useful. I can be useful, I’ll not resist anymore, I’ll enjoy it, I’ll make you –make you enjoy too.” He hiccups. “Please-”

“Seokjin,” Taehyung whispers. He is going to faint himself, but he holds the omega on his arms and hugs him so tight. “Seokjin, stop talking,” 

“I can do everything you want me to do,” he chokes. “If he wants it too-”

“Stop. I said stop, for the love of God!” Taehyung roars, trying to engulf the omega by holding him tighter. 

Jeongguk doesn’t enter the house; he stays near the door entrance, watching with a curious and still shocked face as Taehyung rests the omega on the couch, Seokjin curling up to himself and continuing to cry.

Taehyung doesn’t gaze at Jeongguk. “Leave. You go ahead to the forest, I’ll follow you guys.”

“Okay, hyung,” Jeongguk whispers. “Take care.”

Taehyung closes the door behind them with his foot.

Then, he doesn’t know what happened. 

He sits on the floor.

The sound of cries echo in the house. 

But Taehyung can’t even grasp that it’s not just omega.

It’s both of them.

Taehyung feels the salty tears on his lips, they fall to his neck that doesn’t even have a back biting mark like a newly mated alpha should have.

Warm, sticky, wet. Tears burn his skin. 

Seokjin can’t even see anything. He is in his own world, curled up on the couch, crying his lungs out.

And Taehyung, on the floor, next to the couch, trying to think what the hell happened in that house. 

Chapter Text

A bottomless pit that he was falling down and down, and with every second, the branches were tearing off his skin inch by inch.

Seokjin wanted to take off everything. He wanted to tear his clothes; his skin; his insides; he wanted to vanish to being a nobody.

In order to not be observed, maybe the best solution was to tear everything apart.

But he can’t stop it. He can’t undo what he did; how he lost his control and begged on his knees in front of the alpha, trying to do something he hatedto do. 

Would he truly do it if the Alpha let him? Would he do it to the other alpha, if his Alpha let it?

Seokjin wants to forget about it. Forget that it happened.

And apparently, so does the Alpha.

After they both come back to their senses, moreover the Alpha, he dragged Seokjin to the car again and drove. Seokjin didn’t know where they were going, but as they stood in front of a two floored wooden house with pretty flowers outside, Seokjin guessed it was Jimin’s. And Jungkook’s. And Yoongi, probably. 

Taehyung straightens the collar of his coat, standing on the lawn, waiting for the door to be opened. His face is motionless –every little thought is hidden behind bushes and the only thing that was visible is how strong and calm he was. His eyes didn’t hold emotions; they were drawn back so much that it looked like the scene had never happened. 

But his hand is wrapped around the omega’s dainty, pale wrists.

And Seokjin was behind him, a tired head falling over the broad shoulders of the alpha, trying to keep his eyes open but still failing. The cry made him sleepy, it made him exhausted. 

Taehyung carried him on his lap to the car, and Seokjin didn’t even fight.

“I’m coming!” The yelling of the omega is bright, but still composed in order to not show how excited he is. Jimin opens the door with a warm smile. His smile is directed towards the omega –but as he sees the redness on the beautiful almond eyes, the way tears have dried and lips still wobble, the blonde omega’s whole face falls. “Seokjin. Are you okay?”

“He is okay,” Taehyung says, a shield in front of the omega. 

“I asked him.” Jimin says, word heavy. “Not you.”

Taehyung doesn’t argue. He pulls the omega by his wrist and Seokjin takes a slow step towards Jimin. “Be careful with him. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Or the next morning.”

Jimin nods.

“Don’t take your eyes off him even for a second.” 

“I know, Taehyung,” Jimin snaps, fuming.

“Be good.” This is directed to Seokjin.

Seokjin nods soulless. 

“I’ll come as soon as I can, ‘kay?” He says, one hand caressing the rosy cheek that has dried up tears. “Have fun with Jimin. You can ask him anything and he’ll get you. Eat your meals. Sleep. Take your pills. I’ll call Jimin at night. Answer it. You’ll talk with me.” 

Seokjin nods while Jimin rolls his eyes. 

“Can I get him now?” the omega sighs. 

“Yes,” Taehyung says, still uncertain about leaving the omega. But before going, he leans in and grabs the omega’s face with his calloused hands, and leans in for a kiss. Seokjin, obedient, opens his mouth to let the alpha in –and Taehyung’s one hand finds its way towards his nape to pull him closer, devouring the sweet, salty lips. 

Ever since he thought about how to kiss, it’s the first time the omega opens his mouth to let him. 

Taehyung can’t get enough.

The other hand on the sweet face falls towards his minuscule waist and smashes their body together, slightly tilting his head to have a better access at the roses emitting from the lips. Seokjin starts to whine, trying to pull himself back –but even then Taehyung holds him still. “Fuck,” he moans at the rosy lips; then starts to pepper kisses along his jawline, to the chin and finding the way towards the marked neck. He laps at the mating mark and pulls the skin between his teeth. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispers against the warm neck. He can hear Seokjin’s pulsating heartbeat from here. The intimacy makes his mind dizzy. 

Seokjin’s eyes are in the sky, open and teary almonds watching the clouds passing by.

Taehyung stops for a while, then almost begs. “Miss me.”

Seokjin tries to pull away again and this time Taehyung lets him.

He turns to Jimin, the omega’s eyes are on the floor, burning the floor almost, thinned lips showing the discomfort, but he doesn’t argue. “I’ll take care of him,” Jimin adds. “Better than you.”

“You better be.” Threats slightly, but Taehyung knows Jimin will look out for the omega more than anyone. 

“C’mon,” Jimin smiles at the omega. “I have a surprise for you.”

Seokjin’s almond eyes slightly grow, but he nods with a swift smile. 

As he enters the house after the omega, he doesn’t look at his back.

But Taehyung watches the way omega sways inside the house, observing somewhere new and somewhere that doesn’t reek of painful memories. And Taehyung is praying to have him turn.

Yet, Seokjin doesn’t look behind.

And the door closes to his face; Taehyung standing on the lawn.

One minute ago, he had the omega. 

But now, he feels like nobody.

“What do you want to do?”

Seokjin doesn’t know how to answer, so he just stares at the omega with his curious almond eyes.

“Well… I have cardboard games. But we need at least three people to play with it, so I also invited Hoseok hyung. Is it okay? He is at the nursery but will be free–” He checks the watch on his wrist. “In two hours. And Yoongi hyung is going to come with him. He didn’t go out hunting with the rest. He’ll sleep at the council house tonight so don’t worry. It’ll just be the two of us. And I also, c’mon get to the kitchen.”

He grabs the omega’s pale wrist with his small hands and leads him to the kitchen.

Seokjin looks at the banners.

The amusement lights on his tired face.

Soup Contest Of The Kim Clans – Best Soup Maker

“I made a banner, it took my whole day,” the omega says, laughing a little shyly. “Today, Yoongi hyung and I’ll cook and you’ll be our judge. We will count your choice as the final. You’ll taste our soups and Hoseok hyung will be the witness.”

Seokjin, despite all the downy he faced today, manages to smile little. “Okay.”

“But till they are back… let’s watch a movie. What do you wanna watch?”

Seokjin shakes his head as a no. He doesn’t know what types of movies he likes. He didn’t watch them that much. Usually his people would gather around the town hall and have a “movie night” but Seokjin would be at home, in his basement, wrapped in his blankets and stuffed toys and would cry himself to sleep. 

“You didn’t laugh at animation last time. How about a rom-com?”

Then Jimin stops.

“God, I never asked what you wanted to do,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. Do you like doing something other than watching movies? We can do what you want. We can visit the river.” He stops, eyes growing. “Oh my god, how did I not think about it? Let’s visit the river!”

Seokjin cowers, immediately shaking his head as a no with the flashbacks flooding through his mind about what happened in the woods, what the alpha did to him last time. “N-no. I don’t want it. Alpha will be angry. No.”

Jimin, looks frightened with the omega panicking. “Okay, okay, sorry. Let’s not go. How about we stick to watching movies? Okay. Would that be alright?”

Seokjin nods. “Y-yes.”

Jimin opens the movie. The omegas sat on two different couches, with snacks in front of them. Seokjin doesn’t talk too much but Jimin is a talkative person, he stops the movie to make comments and then plays it again. He talks too much. But he doesn’t force. It’s light. It’s nice to listen to him.

Seokjin falls asleep during the half of it because of the pills he takes, but Jimin doesn’t do anything other than wrapping him under a blanket.

Three hours later, Seokjin opens his eyes to the alpha observing him.

Yoongi is different from the other two. He doesn’t talk much, lips sealed most of the time. He is also built smaller than the other two alphas, but it is clear to say that it’s not his physical build that makes him more dangerous than others.

No. This alpha is different. He observes. His soulless, dark eyes are always hooded and directed towards someone, somewhere, to the event or to the action. He thinks. He tilts his head and watches the way fingers bend, lips pursue and body moves. 

Seokjin knows, if he lies about something there is a chance of fooling the other two alphas –but not this one. Yoongi will catch it immediately. It’s impossible to lie to him; and Seokjin has no intentions of trying.

The alpha’s scent is mixed with the other omega’s -Hoseok- and Seokjin understands that they must’ve been dating for a long time with the way they are comfortable around each other. Yoongi’s hand is at the back of omega as Hoseok talks about his day to everyone in the room, but mostly to him. Yoongi hums and doesn’t speak except asking questions like: “Hm, how, why, when?”

“Jimin told me you cook delicious food.” Hoseok’s question is sudden, defying the silence in the crowded kitchen. “Were you cooking at home, Seokjin?”

Seokjin, sitting on the chair with his legs closed to his chest, head resting on the kneecaps, sluggishly raises his head to look at the omega talking to him.

Jimin gulps, his hands that were busy with cleaning the beans stop mid-air, eyes hesitantly falling towards the sullen omega. It’s true he said it; but the home is where the problem lies. Home. A place where no one knows; and Jimin can only guess the cuts and scars. 

Seokjin looks at the alpha before speaking.

Asking permission.

The omega knows: when Taehyung is not there, Yoongi is in charge. Seokjin saw the two of them more than once. Despite being the leader, Taehyung is always confined to the elder alpha. 

Taehyung was the head alpha, Yoongi was the decision maker, and Jungkook… the action taker.

Yoongi gives a slight node (uncomfortable with the omega asking permission) before returning to helping Hoseok to cut the veggies. 

“I did,” Seokjin whispers with his raspy voice. “I always cooked.”

“How was your hometown? Did you have many friends? Maybe you can invite some of them here, you know, since our clans are merging now and me and Yoongi are going to live there. How many friends do you hav-”

“Hoseok hyung,” Jimin cuts in. His tone is sharper than normally -it’s rare to hear him like that. “You were going to tell me about what was going on with the school principal.”

“Oh. Yes. That.” Hoseok whines, doesn’t even wonder why the subject has changed immediately. “So, yesterday he paid a visit to the nursery. You know he had been mated for five years, but yesterday, he was asking me about which ‘herbs’ he could use in a potential ‘miscarriage’ issue. And I first asked…”

Hoseok continues to blabber things about the situation, but Seokjin is past the stage to listen to the omega about people he doesn’t know. 

Seokjin doesn’t have any friends.

There is no one from his hometown.

But one of them gets stuck in his head. 

Merging two clans.

Seokjin heard it right, didn’t he?

Taehyung had already taken control of the Kim’s, he is already recognized as the leader among them, Seokjin knows this. But merging? 

Merging means moving. It requires people, it requires actions. It means they are meddling. Getting under the region of another pack is something; merging with them is something else. 

Would he kill anyone who resists? Would anyone resist? Would they torture them just like they did to Seokjin for the past months?

Seokjin gets lost in his thoughts, until a warm hand touches him.

“Hey,” Jimin whispers, big eyes worried. “Are you alright?”

Seokjin nods. “Yes. I am.”

“Are you hungry-”

“Yoongi Alpha… What do you mean by merging?” Seokjin asks, cutting Jimin’s words. Leaving everyone freezing. But his continued words are a bigger shock. “Are you going to kill my people because of what my family did?”

He asks a hard question, but his voice has no emotions. 

Seokjin looks already soulless but his voice is already dead. 

His eyes are still sparkly –with tears. The almonds shine. 

“Seokjin, what makes you think that?” Hoseok asks, bewildered. “Of course not. No. Right, Yoongi? No.”

“Don’t harm them, alpha,” Seokjin pleads. Jimin looks at the omega with sorrow in his eyes. “It was me and my family who hurt you. My people are innocent. They didn’t do anything wrong. It was our fault. Not theirs.”

“Seokjin.” Yoongi speaks to him for the first time. “One. Stop referring to me as alpha. I’m Yoongi. Call me Yoongi hyung since I’m older than you. And second –no, we will not kill anyone.” Adds, slowly. “Unless they attack first.”

“My people won’t attack. They will obey you.” Seokjin flutters his eyes, tears falling to the applecheeks. “Even if they resist, that’s only because they are afraid of you. They don’t mean harm. Don’t kill them, please.”

Yoongi doesn’t talk for a second. “Hoseok. Jimin. Can you leave us alone?”

“No.” Jimin teeths, “I’m staying with Seokjin.”

“Jimin.”

“No, hyung, no. I’m tired of any fucking alpha making him cry!”

“Jimin….” Hoseok says again, “Come with me. I need to talk to you too. Clearly there are things I don’t know –why the heck this omega is crying thinking we will harm them– and I’m sick of everyone lying to me.” 

Despite the protests, Hoseok pulls Jimin by his arm and Jimin can’t do anything but whine as he leaves the kitchen.

It’s only Yoongi and Seokjin, now.

The alpha takes the seat cross to the omega, heavy and calculated in his moves as he observes the omega. 

“Seokjin. There was something I needed to talk to you about. But during that time you were sick –so Taehyung didn’t want me to interfere. And he was planning to keep it a secret from you, but I think you can give us the answer.”

Seokjin doesn’t answer.

“We are thinking about merging two clans, yes. I’ll… I’ll be the pack alpha of your clan. I’ll rule that region and I’ll make my oath to stay loyal to Taehyung. Taehyung will be the head alpha of both clans.” Yoongi hums. “Hoseok and I are engaged. We are going to marry soon, and when we get married, we’ll start living in your clan.

“But, we need to move some families with us to have a merger. And there should also be families from your clan who are willing to move here…. I need names from you.”

“Names?” Seokjin whispers, confused. 

“The ones who will be compliant. The ones who will want to move. The names who can–” Alpha licks his lips. “The ones who will resist and try to kill me and Hoseok. The ones who are rebels. I need their names, so I can watch them closely. We don’t mean no harm to your clan. I think your clan already knows that if they do something they shouldn’t, there will be consequences. But there are rebels everywhere. So tell me, who can potentially harm us? Who can stab us in the back? Do you have cousins? Did your father have a brother or a sister? Any niece? Anyone who can harm us?”

“I’ll give you names, and you’ll kill them, won’t you?” Seokjin directs, almost harshly, two tears falling from his almond eyes. “I’ll never sell my clan. Try however you want. I’ll not speak. E-even your l-little a-alpha couldn’t make me speak,” He raises his head, prideful despite the thousand possibilities waiting to hurt him. “You’ll never get a name from me.”

“No, Seokjin. I’m not moving to harm. I’m moving to protect. Me and my mate. And the other families I’m gonna take with me. And also, your people too.” 

Yoongi takes a deep breath, rubbing his face in tiredness. “I know you have no reason to trust me,”

“I have reasons to not trust you,” the omega clears.

“I know.” Yoongi gulps. “I know. But we need to compromise. If they attack me when I arrive there, it will not be me who is dying. I hate violence. I truly do, Seokjin. But if they attack, I’ll attack harder. So I need you to think clearly, and give me names. Okay?”

With every directed question, every aim, the foxes continue to linger in Seokjin’s mind.

“And I’ll have to tell Taehyung that I talked about this with you. So he’ll make you give names when the time comes.” Yoongi slightly raises his eyebrows. “And let me tell you, giving them nicely is better than Taehyung forcing them out of you, and you know this. We both know this.”

Seokjin’s lips thin out. 

He knows. 

There is a long silence. 

And Yoongi, slowly, continues.

“Do you know whose jacket you are wearing?”

With that, Seokjin feels like he is standing naked in front of a thousand people. Like their eyes are dagger and he is bleeding. 

He grabs the hem of it. Sweater paws hide his frail hands that are full of scars. The black jacket with white stars stitched on it.

“It was hers.” 

It was the first time the alpha’s voice shakes; and Seokjin sits awkwardly, with thousands of thoughts about his own clan mixing with the state he is in now. It’s like two lives; where the pain emerges from both. 

“Taehyung’s sister. Taeha. She was–it was her favorite jacket,” The alpha licks his lips, trying to avert his eyes that are teary. “She would wear that all the time. It was her comfort jacket.”

Seokjin is not sure if he should take it off. But as his hand reaches to his zipper, Yoongi shakes his head as a no.

“No. Don’t. It’s yours now, anyways.”

“Why did you tell me then?” Seokjin asks, voice cold. He realized the jacket didn’t belong to the alpha the first time he got the sweet jasmine scent from it –but he didn’t think it would belong to the alpha’s sister. Her favorite. 

And the first day Seokjin wore it; the alpha looked at him differently as if torn between ripping it off from the omega’s or acting non-chalant about it.

It should’ve been the clue for Seokjin. 

Yoongi shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t know. Every time I see you in it, I remember her.”

“Do you think…” Seokjin asks slowly, “...he does too?”

Yoongi’s lips curl. “I’m not sure. But even if he does, he didn’t want you to take it off, did he? So it’s your comfort jacket now, I guess.”

The silence lingers for a second before the alpha leaning back, shouting towards the kitchen door. “Hoseok! Jimin! Come back!”

Jimin rushes to the room, and traces a pain or cry on Seokjin’s face –but the omega’s saddened face is something he already got used to. Seokjin looks wary, but as Jimin requests him to help him prepare the broth, the omega only nods and heads to work.

Rest of the evening goes fluently; Seokjin feels drained out but he realizes Hoseok and Jimin is trying extra hard to gain his trust; the way they make jokes, even laughing at each other, the way they act and every time they make a joke wait for Seokjin’s reaction. Seokjin, despite being tired from all the things that happened in the morning, manages to smile a little when he is with them. 

The omegas are warm in their own ways; the way Hoseok leans to Yoongi’s big hands when he bids goodbye –it looks like the kindest star in the galaxy. And when Jimin backhugs Hoseok to whine about something, closing his big doe eyes, Seokjin sees the fairy dust on the omega’s pale face. 

But these little moments. They are not worth fighting for. It can’t tear away Seokjin’s storms. 

When he is alone in the guest room that Jimin prepared for him to sleep; Seokjin is surrounded by darkness again. 

He sits on the bed, knees pulled, and he has to act like what happened in the morning didn’t crush him.

The way he crawled. 

From one alpha to another–the way it always had been for all of his life.

He really thought they were taking him to kill. Maybe they were. The dilemma rises from there: If they threatened to kill him truly, would he do it?

Would he do that, the thing he hates the most in the universe, if it meant he was going to be alive?

Seokjin can’t answer. At that moment, it felt like it was the only reasonable thing… But now, standing alone in the big room, Seokjin feels so fucking ashamed. 

It makes him feel so little. 

Offering them what he did offer to his brothers for years in order to not get hurt.

It makes him want to die.

“Hey.” Jimin stands at the door, cutting the darkness with the apricot light in the room. “Seokjin,” he whispers. 

The omega looks at him slowly.

“Me and Hoseok hyung will be downstairs.” Jimin stops for a while. “I’ll not sleep. So if something happens, you can come to me.”

Seokjin observes him for a second. “You don’t have to take shifts to stay awake,” he says tiredly, “I’ll not run away.” 

Taehyung showed him what he would do when he thought Seokjin escaped for a time. Seokjin is not idiot enough to even wander out of the house. Never again.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Jimin immediately defends. He wanted to sleep in the same room with Seokjin in the first place; but he thought it would make the omega uncomfortable. And it would. He knows. Seokjin doesn’t like being with them that much. 

“I just –I’ll not sleep, okay? I’ll be downstairs. Call me if you need anything.”

Sleep lulls him to its arms but it’s the branches that hover over him again. The anger shakes inside and Seokjin runs in the woods, escaping, again and again, trying to follow a different path but always ending up in the same pit. It’s his fate; escape is not manageable. Every time the hands catch him, he wakes up in cold sweat, crying. And every time he turns back to sleeping, he takes another road but it still leads him to the same end.

It’s a hamster wheel where no matter how much you run, you only run in a circle. 

And Seokjin can do nothing other than crying, even in his sleep. He is a stranger to this bed so nightmares surround him and he doesn’t even understand when the morning comes. 

Not a different morning but always, always feeling itchy. 

Alpha’s body is almost on him.

Taehyung.

The head is resting against the omega’s chest rising in a rhythm, bulky arms around the thin waist. 

So he is the reason why Seokjin felt like he was suffocating. It’s hard to breathe when Alpha’s whole weight is on him. 

What is he doing here? He should’ve come back tonight or the next morning…

Seokjin, lost in his thoughts, doesn’t know the hour but the sun is set outside. Taehyung is sweaty too, his hair a little greasy and dirty as Seokjin sees from the top of it. He must’ve been straight out of the woods and jumped in the bed, not even showering.

Seokjin tries to control his pheromones in order to not wake the alpha–

But he always feels. 

Taehyung’s hefty eyes open; and he raises his from the omega’s chest and gazes at the omega, sleep still dripping from his eyes. 

Seokjin’s scared eyes fall over the alpha’s shirt instead of his eyes –and Taehyung takes this moment to observe the omega. 

Sleep drips from the omega’s face, face swollen and eyes puffy. Had he been crying? He looks sweaty too, hair damp and sticking to his forehead, making him look like a small puppy. 

Taehyung rubs his face, straightening himself up on the bed. 

“I called yesterday night, you didn’t answer,” his tone is earthy. Almost as a question. A scold, maybe. 

Seokjin gulps.  “I–I was sleepy…. So I slept early.”

Taehyung nods. Yesterday, they managed to hunt deers and birds to keep them full for a whole winter but the alpha’s wanted to stay to hunt some more in case of an emergency. Taehyung woke up early and notified the alphas in the hunt that he’ll head back to the town; keeping a secret that he’ll be running back to the arms of the omega. 

Alpha gets up from the bed to open the curtains and Seokjin, being left alone on the bed, lies again, trying to cover himself with the blanket. It’s still early. Or not. He doesn’t care. He is still sleepy.

But the broad sunlight hits on his face, Seokjin lazily opens his one eye only to see the alpha open up the curtains. The wooden tiled window is also open, letting the fresh air get in.

“Get up,” Taehyung says, gazing at the omega again. Near the window, the sun hits the alpha’s face and makes his brown eyes deeper. “We need to talk.”

Seokjin stops for a second. “I’m still sleepy,” he murmurs. 

“You can’t sleep. Get up. We’ll talk.”

“About what?” Seokjin asks. 

Is it about what Yoongi said yesterday? Did he already tell Taehyung what he said?

Taehyung pulls the chair resting near the window and places it in front of the bed, deep eyes never leaving the omega’s hesitant, scared almond eyes.  “About what you said the other day.”

Seokjin’s hardened eyes fall to the alpha. “What I said?”

“You know it.” Taehyung drawls, his tongue sticking out from his teeth slightly. There is a quirky way –he looks scary. Angry. “Don’t pretend to be stupid.”

Seokjin keeps his mum.

“I couldn’t even focus on the hunt. I had to come back early because-” Taehyung licks his lips, words teethed like they are forcing them out. “Because I can’t continue like this. I can’t. Not knowing what you implied yesterday is hunting me.” 

A long silence hangs between them, and Taehyung leans again to the omega’s space, trying to catch the puffy eyes. 

“How many alphas have you been with before me?” He asks, slow and clear. “And what did you do with them?”

Seokjin’s closed mouth –resembling the times. In the garage. He would seal his lips like the same; biting the tongue, hurting himself in order to not talk, and he would not stop until he bled. 

Taehyung knows this face.

The omega won’t speak.

“Seokjin, I’m not in the mood for plays. Answer me.”

“None,” Seokjin whispers, lowering his head. “You were my first…”

“I know I am!” Taehyung shouts suddenly, angry and red. “I know you were a virgin. I’m not asking that. You know what I’m asking.” Gritted teeth. “Seokjin. Don’t play dumb.”

Silence.

“Seokjin. Who were they? Who were you talking about that day?” Taehyung leans in, trying to gaze at the omega’s lowered eyes. “Seokjin. Tell me. I’ll not be angry at you. I just need to learn. C’mon. Tell me.”

The omega gulps, discomfort wearing on his face. 

With every passing second, Taehyung’s anger grows while Seokjin’s courage shrinks.

“Seokjin. I’m getting angry because you don’t speak. And you know what happens when I get angry.”

“But I already said,” Seokjin says, voice wet and trembling. “There was no one, alpha. I’m telling you. You were my first.”

“You are not going to talk?” Taehyung says and his tone is dark like dripped in citrus, Seokjin has no choice but to whimper when he realizes that the alpha is getting angry. 

And he sure damn knows what happens when the alpha gets angry. 

“But a-alpha, there was really no one,” Seokjin states, fear engulfing him as a whole when Taehyung gets up from his seat in a swift motion. “I was– I didn’t know what I said yesterday. I thought you were going to k-kill me, so I just– I just got stupid. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You know what?” Taehyung says, standing tall in front of the omega. Seokjin feels so small in front of him. 

“Open your mouth.”

Drop, drop, drop.

Seokjin’s heart twitches. Breaths hitch. Hands curl. 

“Let’s see what that mouth can do and learn if your words were real or not.” 

Taehyung grabs the omega’s chin forcefully, two tears rolling down to end up on his big hands. 

Omega’s eyes are small; like a glass shattered and millions of memories bench through his mind and the whole face setting down like a sunset, resembling a starless night. 

It is enough proof for Taehyung that something happened.

Something that the omega didn’t want.

That he was forced to.

Just like how he did for months. Things that Seokjin didn’t want; but had no force to stop.

“You are trembling with the thought of it.” Taehyung lets go of the face, gazing at the fainting façade of the omega. “And I haven’t even fuck your mouth for once. Who did that to you? Who were they?”

An act.

It was an act.

Seokjin takes a deep breath; not even realizing that he hasn’t been, and tries to calm his burning heart. The alpha has played. 

Seokjin knows he gave it away.

It’s a dilemma. To be okay with the touches; to endure the pain it brings. 

He can offer; but when the offer is accepted, there fires a pain in his already burning heart.  

“No-no one did anything…” Seokjin tries to lie for the last time. “Can we eat? I’m hungry, alpha… I’m sorry.”

Taehyung frees his chin, and then suddenly a crash echoes in the room.

Seokjin screams, closing his arms around his face as if it’s going to be a hit.

But it’s not him.

The vases over the counter are now on the floor; all shattered and flowers in them scattered around the room. The fact that they are still at Jimin’s does not make the situation easier. Seokjin feels his heart squeeze; what if the omega hears them?

“FUCK!” Taehyung shouts. “You and your god-damn tongue!” A craze expression on the alpha’s face. He leans over to the omega, grabbing the arms covering the face and applying a force. Bruises on the pale skin enough to turn them to red.

He screams.  “I asked you who they were! Answer me, who were they? Seokjin, who were they?”

Seokjin keens. “No one-”

“Was it them?” Taehyung reveals, dark brown eyes burning. “Was it your brothers?”

It is so faint–

The omega’s whole face goes pale. Empty paper; stained with inks (Taehyung’s hands, the root of the ink).

Inks grow, it branches around the faces. Around his small teeth. It grits. The trembling mouth; this time not with fear.

With anger.

The almond eyes; burning with mania.  

Seokjin is shaking. 

“What are you saying?” He whispers between the dreadful dripping from his eyes. “What the fuck are you even saying? Are you out of your mind?” Surprising Taehyung, the omega gets up from the bed, tremious fingers finding their way on the collar of alpha’s shirt. “Who would do that to their brother, huh? Who? What makes you think that? My family loved me!”

Taehyung feels the breeze. Seokjin’s anger; a little wind, reeking through the cracks of the open soul. 

A little wind, named denial.

Seokjin is pretending. 

He is pretending that his family loved him. He is pretending that they didn’t assault him. He is pretending that they cared for him. He is pretending that everything is all bubbly and sweet and full of sunshines. 

/prɪˈtɛnd/ 

Taehyung’s heart cracks. 

He pities.

Concerned eyes fall over the omega’s reddened eyes.

“They LOVED me so much you can’t even understand that type of love!” He screams, pushing the alpha away. Hitting his chest, over and over again but no one moves.

“Seokjin,” Taehyung whispers, deep eyes in utter shock. “Seokjin.”

He tries to stop the hands, to hold him; to console him, to hug him and engulf him. But the minute he tries to touch the omega; Seokjin’s screams increase. “Fuck off! FUCK OFF! Stop touching me! Stop! You are a monster–a monster, a monster! What makes you think that anyone would do that to their brother? YOU ARE SICK! SICK!”

The yellings must’ve been the clear line for the omega sleeping downstairs; the door knocks but without even an answer, it opens. Jimin stands in the hallway, eyes big and face full of concern as he watches the way Seokjin throws a tantrum and Taehyung tries to–

“Seokjin-” Taehyung can’t wrap his head around his cousin being an audience; his main focus is the omega, to calm him down. He attempts to wrap his hands around the omega’s petite waist, but then...

Seokjin’s hand rises in the air.

The slap lands on Taehyung’s face.

Taehyung feels the tingly burning on his cheek. He hit him. Seokjin hit him.

Not a second later, he raises his head back; ocean-like eyes full of fire with the coldest face in the world.

He walks on him but with one step, Seokjin immediately cowers as if realizing what he had done. 

“Taehyung, no, wait!” Jimin tries to get between them with an anxiousness spreading around his heart, but only one stare from Taehyung has him standing still, unable to move.

Seokjin whimpers, trying to cover his face from any hit. “Ah. Ah. Stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Ighh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Taehyung grabs his wrists, taking it off from his face, squeezing the pale skin. “Don’t ever do that again, do you understand?” he spits.

“Yes,” the omega whimpers, crying uncontrollably, “Yes. Yes. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Alpha. I’m so sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” Lips wobble, eyes wide shut. “I’m sorry. So sorry. So, so, so, so, so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I told you to stop saying that damn word!”

“I-I’m–I’m…” Seokjin stops, gulping, trying to find better words, but nothing comes out of his wobbly mouth. He hiccups. “I’m–I’m… Yes. Yes. I’ll stop. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Fuck it,” Taehyung runs his hand on his hair; trying to calm himself down but nothing works. He wants to burn down clans; he wants to get those nasty bodies from the ground and torture them even more. He knew he made their death easy. He should’ve hurt more–

“Taehyung,” Jimin takes a step towards them. “Taehyung, let’s calm down-”

Taehyung looks at Jimin for a second, and then he takes a step to the door. “Seokjin. Get your jacket. We are returning home.”

Seokjin doesn’t say anything, still trying to comprehend the scene that had happened. He is trembling. 

“Why?” Jimin’s hands raise in the air, in a motion to calm down. “You promised he’ll stay two days with me. It had only been one. Please, just-”

“Seokjin.”

Seokjin reaches towards the jacket lying on the bed; holding it with frail hands.. He tries to not step over the shattered glasses but it’s impossible. He knows there are already some cuts under his naked foot; but he still doesn’t say anything as he wears his jacket back.

“Taehyung. Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interfere, I know. I just -” Jimin tries to reason, looking angry yet still composed. 

Taehyung looks at him with bored eyes. “I’m taking my omega to my house.”

Jimin tries to beg, “Please let’s just eat breakfast first at least–”

“You’ll eat another time. Seokjin, c’mon.” 

Seokjin obeys the words; and when he is about to pass by Jimin, Taehyung’s hands engulfs his.

Seokjin has to act like the hand didn’t grab his hair a minute ago; and holds it tightly.

As they walk away from the house, Seokjin looks at the broken omega over his shoulder.

Jimin manages to flash a slight smile. That doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything back. 

As they walk, the blood reeking from his cuts leave prints on the wooden floor. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt next to the things he had to endure for years; it doesn’t hurt like the things he had to do, he was forced to do; forced to admit, forced to say, forced to enjoy.