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The adrenaline had started to wear off before Yoongi finally made it to the door, and it was starting to sink in that his lopsided gait and deadweight arm might be due to more than shock. Bruises pulsed under the skin of his calves and chest, and he was thankful for his black hoodie hiding the bloodstains that had assuredly leaked through from his elbows. But he could still feel the adrenaline vibrating in his veins as he got his shaky fingers around the door handle and pushed his way inside.
He padded through the darkness on unstable feet, a sharp pain traveling up his leg with every step. A hot throbbing was settling into his shoulder, his arm a pulsing deadweight as it swung at his side and collected more pain.
Faint snoring could be heard from the bedroom, but Yoongi was too overwhelmed in body and mind to brave the nighttime noises and mixing scents of five other boys. He pushed his damaged body further across the living room to the bathroom. Namjoon’s woody scent permeated the sofa as he passed it, and he slowed his feet as much as he could, the stealth of a cat in the night. He had to be alone, to gather his wits before he braved the exposure to the others. They’d ask questions he wouldn’t be able to answer, not without things ending badly.
“Hyung?”
Yoongi slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.
A loud pounding rattled Yoongi back to consciousness, causing him to realize he’d been asleep on the floor. As his head swam with lingering traces of sleep, the pounding on the door grew louder.
“Yoongi-ah! I’ll force this door open if I have to!”
Yoongi let out a long sigh and stumbled to a stand, buckling under the full-body throbbing that had only gotten worse. He swallowed a hiss when pain blasted through his shoulder, his arm hanging loose and limp as if it were a hair away from detaching and falling to the floor. Part of him wanted it to happen, just to be rid of the agonizing pull burning in the socket.
He opened the door with his functioning arm and tried to push his way around Seokjin. “Sorry, hyung.”
“Whoa, whoa, what happened?” Seokjin reached for Yoongi’s arm, but retracted at the sudden snarl and bared teeth he got in response.
Yoongi noticed Jungkook cower behind Seokjin, and forced his expression to soften through the hot pulse running through his shoulder. He wasn’t about to be the reason one of the pups was upset.
“’M fine. Took a bad fall down the stairs when I came back last night. Someone needs to clean those damn things.” He gave a friendly nod before rushing back out the front door before he could be questioned further.
When Seokjin caught Jungkook staring after Yoongi, his eyes wide and his hands twitching, the elder knew he’d smelt it, too—something was very wrong, and Yoongi would assuredly not let them know what it actually was. “Don’t worry Jungkook-ah, he’ll come around. Now go wash up, we’re going to be late.”
As soon as he got the pup to retreat into the shower, he went looking for Namjoon. He wasn’t sure if the baby alpha would know what to do, but he was the best problem-solver in their little posse, especially since Hoseok left. He supposed his alpha was finally starting to show itself more freely, its leadership skills blooming. If they ever debuted, Seokjin just knew he’d be the leader.
He followed Namjoon’s woody scent to the small kitchen, where he nodded off over a cup of coffee. “Namjoon-ah. Something’s wrong with Yoongi.”
“Mmh.” Namjoon’s eyes fluttered open, his voice raspy. “Oh…yeah. He came in last night. He smelled sour. I called out to him but he just locked himself in the bathroom. Like he always does.”
“He still smells sour,” Seokjin sighed. “He said he fell down the stairs, but he looks really hurt.”
Namjoon shrugged. “Just have to hope it gets better on its own. I know he won’t want any of my help.”
Seokjin hummed, then left to see if Jungkook was done in the shower.
Namjoon kept an eye out for Yoongi when he went into work later in the day, but he never crossed paths with him. He even asked the other trainees, who also hadn’t seen him, and some even informed him that he missed their breakdancing class. This worried him, but did give him a bit more information. Whatever was bothering Yoongi was physical—if it was his anxiety or depression rearing its head, he might have only been more motivated to overwork himself in the practice room, the abusive voice ringing Not good enough through his head.
Finally, he heard from one staff member that they saw him enter his studio, but by that point he was late for a meeting with the agency. Begrudgingly, he fulfilled his scheduled duties, his list of talking points guiding him through discussions with the staff on the current status of the group and what changes to make going forward. He stumbled on his words a bit, preferring to stay silent and listen to the others offer ideas and feedback on the members’ progress.
Once the meeting came to a slow end, people shuffling papers and filing out little by little, Namjoon made sure he wasn’t needed for anything else before rushing over to where he knew Yoongi’s studio to be. It was a somewhat communal studio really, about as much wiggle room as a closet, but Yoongi worked hard in hopes to have his own one day.
When he got there, however, the room was empty. Yoongi’s scent lingered, the burning tartness of grapefruit that sent Namjoon’s instincts on high alert. He had to find him.
A thorough check of the practice room, gym, two men’s rooms, a couple studio rooms and the cafeteria yielded no leads, leading Namjoon to the conclusion that he’d clocked out for the day. It was unlike him, normally the last to leave the office, which left him more worried about the elder’s condition.
It had to be one hell of a fall down the stairs.
He had some studio work that needed doing, but he decided to push it back in favor of searching for his ailing hyung. He left the office for the apartment, opened the door softly. As he padded inside and toed his shoes off, he heard a clatter of cookware and running water in the kitchen. When he peered around the corner, he saw the running tap showering over sudsy pots in the sink basin. Yoongi stood next to it, his posture stiff and contorted in obvious pain, a death grip bunching the fabric of his shirt around his left shoulder.
Yoongi’s head snapped around to lock eyes with Namjoon, likely having caught a whiff of the smokiness his scent had when he was worried.
“Hyung-”
“I’m stiff.” Yoongi dropped his hand from his shoulder, picked up the sponge with it and scrubbed at the pots—the pups should really get into the habit of washing them out as soon as they’re done. “Thought I’d take the day off to recuperate. Got some online classes to finish anyway.”
Namjoon’s alpha flared, juvenile and scared and so full of urge to help. It wasn’t fair. “You know I’m not buying that bullshit. Why are you so stubborn?”
“Watch your mouth, Namjoon-ah. You may be an alpha but I’m still older.”
“Hyung!” His tone grew whiny, petulant, his alpha so upset and confused as to why this omega drenched in distress pheromones was refusing it. “I just want to help. If you can’t be honest with me when something’s bothering you, how do you expect to be a part of the group?”
“Why do I always need to tell you when something’s bothering me? Can’t I just fix things myself?”
“Not when you’re in obvious pain and dragging it out because you’re too prideful to admit when you need help!” A thought at the back of Namjoon’s mind told him he was walking into dangerous territory, but his alpha was chomping at the bit and ready to pounce.
“Bite me! You don’t treat the others like this! Stop acting like I’m just some demure little omega who needs an alpha’s help for everything.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You’ve said enough. Now quit airing those pheromones, I can hardly breathe.”
Namjoon hissed and bared his teeth, the back of his neck prickling. “Well fuck me for caring, I guess! I’ll just ignore you from now on, then! Would you prefer that? You keep whining about people treating you like an omega, and you write off all my worries on alpha hormones! I bet you never treated Hoseok like this!”
The loud crash of pots blasted throughout the kitchen, assuredly loud enough for the neighboring units to hear. He spun on his feet, his eyes narrow but so deep-cutting, his limp arm shaking with a clenched fist.
“You listen to me very carefully.” Yoongi’s voice was low, soft, but deeply threatening. Namjoon felt his stomach drop as Yoongi padded toward him with a finger brandished at his chest. “You will never know the shit I had to wade through to get to where I am now. I was bullied. Threatened. Turned away at the door more times than I can count. I spent years of my life hiding my scent and adopting mannerisms until I almost convinced myself I was an alpha. And I may be here against all odds but I’m still in a precarious position. I can be gone tomorrow if I fall a hair out of place. You will never realize the privilege, the amount of second chances you get because you don’t have to carry around the fine china that is being an omega rapper. So pardon me if I want to hide a few things, clean up my own mess before anyone else finds it and uses it to conclude they were right about me. I’ve spent my entire career with one foot out the door, and I’ve done this far too long to slip out fully.”
The words cut through Namjoon like arrows, his mind struggling to digest the implications of what Yoongi was telling him. Did he get hurt doing something that could get him fired?
Yoongi inhaled deeply, shakily, as if sucking any wavering emotion back inside. “And don’t bring Hoseok into this. He was more than just a peacekeeper.”
Namjoon watched as Yoongi returned to washing the dishes one-handed, feeling small and defeated and unbearably helpless—no alpha should feel how he did that moment. And no omega should feel how Yoongi did, either.
The group was tense the next week or so, their teamwork disrupted by the dark cloud no one dared look up at. Each member carried on with their routine—the pups went to school, Seokjin went to university, Yoongi disappeared until nightfall and Namjoon locked himself in the studio so no one could catch a whiff of his singed scent as he agonized over a solution.
Namjoon fancied himself a fan of puzzles. He’d always done well in school, from STEM to humanities, each subject a question he could ponder until he’d cracked its code. Some were direct and straightforward like math, others like philosophy an enigma of questions with branching solutions and circular algorithms, full of ifs and thens. These were his favorites, as each person had their own solution to the puzzle, and weaving these conclusions together was its own puzzle in itself.
Yoongi’s emotional barriers were another one of these puzzles—a direct answer, or complex network of answers, shrouded in cryptic language and carefully executed illusions. A scrambled Rubik’s cube, his colors seemingly randomly placed, but a careful strategy can arrange the colors into their rightful place.
He agonized over this particular solution during downtime from his work, which for him meant lying awake in his bunk, the sleepy breaths of five other boys entirely too loud, until dawn painted the room a dull blue hue, and he passed out at his desk from exhaustion.
But as much as it plagued his mind, as many ciphers as he thought he’d decoded, it was an intervention from fate that gave him the solution he needed.
It was an unusually cold night, Namjoon quaking in his state of underdress as he returned to the apartment, his face twisting against the sting of wind against it. The apartment wasn’t much better—everyone was curled under their blankets, nearly hanging over the edge of their beds toward the dying space heater they shared in the middle of the tiny room.
Namjoon settled in for another rough night, lying in wait as chilly bodies tossed and turned. But as the night wore on, a vague emptiness began to weigh in his stomach, an almost sickly bout of anxiety. He soon grew too restless under the power of it, and climbed out of his bunk before his sharpening scent would permeate and wake the others.
He snuck out to the common area, and was nearly blown back as the reek of sour pain assaulted his senses. Yoongi’s suppressed, pained grunts could be heard from the couch, and his heart split in two. When had he snuck out here, so hurt, so alone?
Namjoon knew he had to be careful. He hovered closer, one step at a time, always kept some space as not to corner him. The light was faint in the night, the residual city light leaking inside his only source, yet it was enough to see Yoongi’s form across the sofa. He was stuck tight in the fetal position, gripping and squeezing his shoulder from his neck from his deltoid.
“Hyung…” His voice was shaky, wavering, as frail and tiny as he felt.
No excuses. No changes in demeanor. Maybe he couldn’t anymore. Namjoon took another tentative step, then another. Yoongi faced the back of the couch, but he had to smell him coming closer. And then, ever so slowly, he knelt down and ghosted a hand across the elder’s waist. He let it hover, let Yoongi feel the heat of it.
Nothing was said, and Yoongi didn’t react. Namjoon might have thought Yoongi didn’t notice his presence, if not for puffs of sweetness against the otherwise burningly tart scent. Pheromones spurting through, betraying him. Inside a strong body, an overtired omega, screaming for help.
“Hyung…can you sit up?”
Yoongi looked as though it took the last of his strength to detach his hand from his shoulder, to use it to push himself up to a sit. Even when he did, he leaned over and continued his rubbing. Namjoon pushed himself onto the couch on his left side, and delicately pinched the collar of his shirt. “Is it okay…if I…”
Yoongi grunted through a tiny nod. Namjoon carefully peeled the loose collar aside, ghosted his lips over the feverish, swollen skin. Slowly, gently, he poked out his tongue and lapped at the hidden injury. Yoongi’s breath hitched, and he adjusted the angle until he exhaled again.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Yoongi mumbled. “But then this weather…”
“Mm,” Namjoon agreed. He focused on licking the wound, lapping from the end of his shoulder up to the scent gland. He tasted lemon on the roof of his mouth—still too sour, but it was leveling out just the slightest. It was silent for minutes aside from Namjoon’s ministrations—he wanted to know more, but this was the most open Yoongi had been with him all week, and he wanted to wait for him. And his patience paid off.
“I didn’t fall down the stairs.”
Namjoon’s response was hesitant, careful. “I know, hyung.” He nuzzled his scent gland for good measure, when he noticed it didn’t hurt.
Yoongi sighed, exhausted. It sounded as though he hadn’t been sleeping, either. “Will you promise not to make a stink about it?”
Namjoon lay a delicate hand back on his waist, mouthed at the shoulder a few times. “I’ve got my alpha on a leash this time, I promise.”
It took a few more moments for Yoongi to answer. “I was hit by a car.”
Namjoon’s stomach dropped to the floor, and his tongue paused on the other’s skin. He’d had a suspicion that it was something more serious than a fall, but he couldn’t have been prepared to hear something like that. Yoongi tensed—he must have noticed the spike in Namjoon’s scent, the char of distress. But Namjoon did everything he could not to react, focused back on tending to his wounds.
“That must have been scary,” is what he settled on.
Yoongi grunted. “I didn’t really know how to react. I still don’t. What I’m more worried about is how I’m going to be able to keep it from the company. I thought I’d just let it heal, but…” He winced, clenched his fist a bit.
Namjoon had so many questions, but he settled on the simplest and least offensive one. “It’s not feeling any better?”
“If anything, it feels worse.” It came out strained, as if it took all his energy to confess it. “It’s been so long and I still can’t move it.”
He couldn’t move it!? It took all of Namjoon’s strength not to throw him over his shoulder and carry him to the nearest hospital right then. He grazed a few knuckled up and down his arm. “Hyung…with all due respect, I think you need a doctor. I think dealing with it on your own is just making things worse.”
When Yoongi didn’t respond, Namjoon continued. “I’ll deal with the company if they decide to get involved. If it impedes you from dancing, I’ll pull as many strings as I can to get them to keep you on somehow.”
“It’s not that.” Yoongi sighed then, accepting his fate of opening up even more. “It’s…I really fucked up, Namjoon. They’re gonna fire me.”
“…How come?”
Yoongi stared at the wall ahead of him. “When that car hit me…I was working. I was at my job.”
Namjoon’s eyes widened at this. “You have a job?” Every time he learned of a new activity Yoongi was doing, he could only wonder how he fit it into their schedule.
Yoongi grimaced. “I had to. My parents can’t afford my tuition, the company barely pays us enough for our meals. I had to make it work somehow. But now they’re gonna find out and they’ll let me go…” He swallowed hard.
Namjoon found his hand and squeezed it, determination and a surge of protective instincts coursing through him. “I won’t let that happen.”
Yoongi leaned back against the sofa. “I don’t doubt you’ll try, but…everything feels so now-or-never these days. Hoseok left, Jimin is on the verge of being let go…if I have to pack my bags one day, I’ll have to do it in the middle of the night because I can’t watch Jungkook cry like that again.”
Namjoon felt a wave of bittersweetness bloom in his chest. Yoongi rarely openly treated them like anything more than roommates, which made the veiled affection that came out subconsciously in moments of vulnerability mean the world to him.
“I want you to worry about yourself for now, hyung,” Namjoon whispered. “The other boys, the company…we’ll deal with that later. And don’t feel like you have to deal with everything on your own. Even if you have reason to believe the company isn’t on your side, I always will be. I say this not as an alpha, but your friend.”
After a minute of silence, Yoongi met Namjoon’s eyes, even if only fleetingly. “In that case, can I cash in some friend points to get you to cover me while I see a doctor?”
“Of course.” Namjoon smiled, and nuzzled his scent gland to collect as much as he could onto his skin—the sourness was disappearing, sweet frosting pluming in its place. And when Yoongi turned to press his face into Namjoon’s, the scent of silent pain began to fade from the musty room.