Chapter Text
“Are you rejecting me?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Jin had said while slowly placing his hand on the younger’s thigh. Immediately he remembered what this conversation was about and yanked it back aiming an awkward smile at the younger instead. “Just establishing boundaries, our pack is solely made up of soulmates and having someone else walk in might accidentally mess up the dynamic we have.”
A nice movie night, that was all Jeongguk had been expecting when his hyungs invited him to their apartment. He was ecstatic since it had been a while since he hung out with everyone together but here he was frozen thinking through the words four of his hyungs were saying to him. The tension in the room was almost suffocating as he tried to understand the situation he was in.
"But I thought we were all, I-" he took a quick breath trying not to panic. "Do you guys really not trust me?"
“We do, if we didn’t trust you we never would have gotten to know you in the first place,” Namjoon said, Jeongguk might have thought that he was completely calm and composed if it wasn’t for the burnt tinges from his scent. “It's just through these past weeks we all accidentally passed the line between friendship and a romantic relationship and we're moving too fast. We all need to establish you are not an official member of this pack."
That hurt. Jeongguk had started to think that his hyungs were beginning to love him as much as he did to them but apparently not.
"Plus there's the issue of you not presenting yet. There's a chance your subgender or scent could cause issues within our pack. It's safer if we just wait to delve into things once we can learn more about you and your wolf."
"But you don't have to reject me because of that!" He responded desperately trying to catch eye contact with one of his hyungs. "A rejection will completely break everything we have right now, you don't need to do that."
"As difficult as it is to accept rejecting you is the best solution right now," Yoongi said as he frowned at the younger. "It'll allow us to set a clear line between how we interact and it won't mess up anything within our pack. If you look at this from our perspective though we’ve been allowing you to see our pack in such vulnerable intimate moments and things are starting to move too quickly now. If we keep going at this rate there’s a chance we could ruin things.”
“Right,” Namjoon responded as he glanced at his packmates then towards Jeongguk. “You know how we feel about you, Kookie, in the future at some point we'd love to offer a position in the pack for you. We just have been moving into things without properly talking about them. Having a clear rejection here will also allow us as a pack to communicate about the prospect of inviting a new member into a previously only soulmate pack and you can learn more about yourself before joining a pack."
It made sense, if Jeongguk looked at it the way they were he could see that it was a well thought out solution. And he could tell through their scents that they felt a bit guilty and upset doing this as well. They weren’t purposely trying to break his heart; it was just the best solution for them to .
But it actually wasn’t.
Jeongguk knew the moment he met the Kim pack that they were his soulmates. He could tell through their scents that they were all meant to be together but he didn’t want to tell them that. He wanted to wait until his presentation so he could see their faces when they figured it out themselves.
And, maybe, he had more selfish reasons for hiding it too. He had trouble trusting people while growing up so the idea of soulmates was a bit daunting. Jeongguk didn’t want his soulmates to fall in love with him just because they were destined to be together, he wanted them to love him for who he was. And he had thought that was exactly what was happening with the Kim pack.
“Do Taehyung and Jimin know about this?”
“No, and they shouldn’t,” Yoongi replied, obviously getting a bit more protective over the younger members of the pack. Jeongguk couldn’t help but tense as he wasn’t used to being the target of his hyungs temper. He was being considered a threat to the younger packmates and slowly started to feel sick realizing what that meant. “The pups don’t need to go through the pain of an official rejection. And you will not be telling them about this, understood?”
“If you were really rejecting me just because you were concerned about my presentation you’d let them know about it,” The younger retorted silently begging that one of his hyungs would try and oppose his statement. “So my delayed presentation is not the real issue, right?”
As the scent of guilt filled the air Jeongguk couldn’t help but laugh feeling a couple tears fall down his face. It was clear none of them had an excuse for that statement and the implications behind it were glaringly obvious.
“Okay,” Jeongguk said as he quickly wiped his eyes trying his best not to break down. He refused to let himself start sobbing in front of his hyungs. “I won’t tell them, I’ll just keep my distance. Say I’m busy or something.”
“Jeongguk, you know we don’t mean it like that.” Hoseok responded as he moved closer to the younger. Jeongguk immediately flinched away from his hyung’s touch and he could smell the concern in the air increase. “Making sure our pack doesn’t influence how you deal with your presentation is a big part of the reason we’re rejecting you. We want what’s best for you, we love you. It’s just, you know.”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly as he stood up off the couch. “Soulmates come before anything else.”
Knowing the Kim pack genuinely cared and had romantic feelings towards him made this even worse. They did love him, they truly did, it’s just they would never view Jeongguk as an equal to their actual soulmates. They wanted to push him away until he presented and then they’d decide what they’d want from him.
What was even worse was Jeongguk still couldn’t find himself to hate them because of that. He wanted to be upset and yell at them, even just flat out tell them he was their soulmate too and they were making a huge mistake. But instead his heart felt dejected and wanted to go back to his own apartment to hide under his bed.
“This truly does hurt us just as much as you,” that was a lie but they didn’t know. “Besides I’m sure we’ll grow even closer after this.”
The youngest couldn’t help but faintly smile at that statement. Officially rejecting someone from a pack was an extremely draining process but it was reversible. Being rejected by your soulmates was a more tedious situation. It didn’t help that all of Jeongguk’s soulmates were already in a pack together, he wasn’t entirely sure he could fully recover from a pack rejection like this.
His wolf would be absolutely devastated but even deeper down Jeongguk himself wouldn’t have the same trust towards them anymore. After their previous statements the only thing he could think about was the pack viewed him as less because they thought he wasn’t one of their soulmates. He felt as if every moment he had shared with them was nothing, they always viewed being with their real soulmates more worthwhile than him.
So the brunette made his way towards the door wanting to be able to leave the pack apartment as soon as the rejection took place. He took his time slowly looking around the apartment trying to memorize everything about it. The apartment was something he sought comfort in and one day thought he’d be a part of living here too. Well, it didn’t look like he’d be coming back anytime in the near future and, even then, he had doubts he’d come back at all.
Whenever Jeongguk officially presented that’s when the pack would realize how serious this actually was, they’d see the damage they’d done and could never repair. But that didn’t matter right now, they had already shown Jeongguk that his feelings didn’t matter. He just wanted to leave.
“Do you want us to call anyone to pick you up?” Jin asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Maybe a friend or an uber? We could pay for it if you need a ride.”
“No thank you,” he responded. He already planned on just walking back to his apartment alone, he didn’t want anyone else to deal with the breakdown he was going to have after this. “I just want to get this over with.”
So while he stood by the door he watched his hyungs glance at each other, remorse and worry permeating the air. Just because he was going to be the only one going through a soulmate rejection didn’t mean they were going to feel awful as well. He felt a bit bad knowing that they didn’t fully understand the weight of their actions but it wasn’t like they could take back what they previously said.
“Jeon Jeongguk, I officially reject you as a potential mate.”
If someone ever asked him what it felt like being rejected by one of your soulmates Jeongguk would simply say it was nothing. He knew there was an excruciating pain starting from his heart but it was almost like his brain wasn’t fully registering what was happening. He knew his hyungs were going along and repeating the same phrase to him but he felt as if he was underwater and couldn’t properly see or hear what was going on.
“Hey, Kookie,” The younger seemed to focus back in reality, noticing that Namjoon was in front of him holding both his hands. And, oh, were those tears in his eyes? “I love you, you know that, right?”
He did, there had been numerous times that the pack members would share those words with him. He had fully expected they were waiting to court him until he presented and was ecstatic to see their reaction finding out the maknae they loved was also their soulmate.
Maybe he was being selfish by not speaking up and telling them that they were soulmates. But what was he supposed to do then? They already established that they valued soulmates over who he was, Jeongguk had already lost the trust he built with them. Telling them that he was their soulmate would fix things for the pack and get them to not finalize the rejection but the younger would still be hurt by the previous implications.
“Yes hyung, I do. I know you all do and that this is for the best.”
Namjoon slowly nodded as he let go moving to bring his hand to wipe the tears from his own eyes. Everyone else in the pack was already standing further in the apartment where the scent of repentance was overwhelming.
Man, they’d really have to air out the place before Taehyung and Jimin got back or else they’d have serious questions.
“As Pack Alpha I reject Jeon Jeongguk from as a potential mate and member of the Kim pack.”