Chapter Text
***
“Is it going to rain soon?”
On their way back to the dorm, Jeongin asked, eyes still fixated on his phone screen. Minho looked up at the bright sky where only a couple of light clouds could be spotted, and turned back to their equally bright maknae, “Seems unlikely to me. The weather app also predicts a fine, sunny day.”
Jeongin looked up at the sky following his hyung’s response; he shrugged, answering in a calming tone to play it down. “Not a big deal, hyung. It just feels like that to me; I guess I’m just overthinking.”
It might have been a psychosomatic reaction, an illusion, but he could actually feel the humidity building up on his fingertips, accumulating into a microscopic drop of water and rolling – creeping – down his digits. He could actually feel the slight change in temperature, direction of wind blowing, and the way that air pressure pushed the oxygen and carbon dioxide through his left and right lungs.
“Are you feeling alright, Innie?” Minho asked, resting his right hand on Jeongin’s shoulder.
“We would know that if Hyunjin-hyung was here; he’s more sensitive to the change in weather and would complain about it non-stop.” Their bright maknae answered, seemingly unaffected, returning his attention to his phone.
Minho shrugged, too. “Just text him and ask.”
To which Jeongin just shook his head. “He’s coming back next week. I don’t want to bother him with this kind of nonsense when he’s taking a break.”
Maybe he just missed his Jinnie-hyung like a turtle missing his shell.
***
Taking a hot shower didn’t help much.
Minho-hyung turned on the air conditioner for him, making a half-joke about how their luxurious lifestyle had presented a serious threat to the ecosystem and environment. The overwhelming humidity inside the room was somewhat taken away by the cooler temperature, and that lightly eased sensation was then overpowered by the low-frequency humming of the outdoor AC unit right outside of their balcony, amplified through the auditory canal inside Jeongin’s ears.
Jeongin wondered: Was the sound of water droplets hitting a hard, solid surface supposed to be this loud?
Standing in front of the large window, he watched the outside world start to dim down bit by bit, blazing rays of sunshine gradually covered by the dull-colored, thick clouds. And the light perceived by his eyes was somehow turning brighter and brighter, slowly blinding his vision.
“Are you having dinner tonight?” He heard Minho ask, whose voice appeared distant and distorted on top of the white noise in the background. “I’m going to heat up some rice and the leftovers from last night. Do you want any?”
The smell of heated instant rice coming from the microwave repulsed him. That was odd , Jeongin thought; he always liked the fresh scent of steamy rice, and though instant rice was merely an easy alternative, he had never minded such a thing either. It wasn’t the rice, he figured; there must be some wooden scented undertone that did not blend in with the rice too well.
Turning to his back, he found 3racha coming back home through the front door. Could it be Changbin’s scent of pine wood? He quickly dismissed that thought, as they were all wearing scent blockers – he could see the small, circular patch tinted with skin-color.
The aforementioned rapper gave him a lovely hug from the back that almost made him flinch. No, Yang Jeongin never flinched at the skinship of his own packmate; he would shy away from it to play hard to get in front of the camera, but not like this – as if the gentle touch was able to burn through his pale skin.
“Is Innie’s scent usually this strong?” He heard Jisung whisper into Chan’s ear. He saw their leader – their pack alpha – put away his precious laptop to check on him, a warm hand lightly pressed onto his forehead.
Chan’s voice hit his eardrum like a crash of thunder. “You are so cold, Jeonginnie.”
Accompanied by Chan’s confirmation and the first few droplets of early summer rain hitting the ground, Jeongin finally figured out what was happening to him.
***
“Yes, I’m in Seoul right now.”
Hyunjin’s voice sounded distant, muffled; blended into the background noise of a rare rainstorm before summer officially hit Seoul city. Chan, on the other end of the call, wasn’t sure if he was in any rightful position to feel relieved about this given knowledge.
“Is it possible for you to spend tonight at the dorm with us?” He asked, tentatively. “Innie’s having stress-induced sensory overload right now. None of us were able to notice it in time before it fully hit him; I’m really sorry.”
Hyunjin answered at a barely audible volume, “I don’t think I’m of too much help in this kind of situation, hyung. I don’t have the right type of hormones to make him feel better.”
“Lix has spent a couple hours trying to comfort him, but it didn’t seem to work. If Jeongin cannot recover sooner, we will have to induce him into a rut, and that’s bad for his health and will conflict with our practice schedule…”
Their practice schedule for the next performance on Kingdom; a phrase that Chan struggled to verbalize at Hyunjin’s presence. The intermittent splatterings of rain cut him off at that awkward pause bluntly – brutally, as brutally as his action of calling their packmate on break in the middle of the night for a heavy favor.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The long-haired dancer ended the call right there. Before he picked up everything off the table and got going to find a taxi, Hyunjin did not forget to collect the scattered brochures and pamphlets – soaked in rain water with blurred titles mentioning “health” and “transition” – and throw all of them down the nearest recycling bin.
***
Sometimes, he would be afraid of making eye contact with Minho-hyung, as he knew those sparkling eyes could see through him as easily as if his body were transparent.
“Hyung.” Hyunjin commented, standing alongside Minho in the elevator. “You smell strongly like cedarwood.”
Despite the overpowering wooden scent that mostly covered up the lemongrass underneath, his hyung was still staring at him: his blank, pale face, his slightly-hunched posture, his rain-drenched clothes and canvas crossbody bag. He saw Minho raise one side of his eyebrow, answering in a calm, coherent manner, “Our entire apartment smells like cedarwood. You should be glad you weren’t there when I was heating up the rice and kimchi-jjigae; I would rather be put on a diet for the next three months than relive that scent combination again.”
“I didn’t know Jeongin’s scent could be this strong.” Hyunjin said.
“Me neither.” Minho shook his head, walked the younger dancer out of the elevator and unlocked the door for him. “Be prepared. It smells really interesting in here.”
The rich scent of cedarwood dashed out towards him like a hurricane, circling around his senses and shouting out things he couldn’t grasp or comprehend in the form of pure silence. He could feel the light, sweet hibiscus – Felix’s scent – chasing after the wooden one in a desperate attempt to ease Jeongin’s outward turmoil. Jisung’s nutmeg and Seungmin’s yuzu quickly joined the current and rested themselves on the quieter side of this storm, enveloped inside Minho’s lemongrass.
He assumed Chan and Changbin both kept their scent blockers on for the lack of burning fire and pinewood, respectively.
Hyunjin paced himself towards their spare bedroom that faithfully served the purpose of both storage and their pack activities. Minho, following right behind him, asked if he would like a towel to dry himself up. He muttered something that distantly sounded like a yes, and rushed into the room.
“Your precious Jinnie-hyung is here.”
Felix announced his arrival for Jeongin, who was wrapped inside the thick blanket while curling up at one corner of the bed, almost like a silent protest against the freezing temperature inside the air conditioned bedroom; except he was the one needing it the most. Jisung smiled at him, a subtle sight of concern glistened inside his round, wide eyes, and moved to the farther end to make some room for him.
Hyunjin could only hear the muffled sobs coming from underneath the blanket; and regardless of Felix’s gentle cooing and comforting, the only response Jeongin had given was to latch onto their pack omega’s hand through the thick layer of blanket.
“Innie, hyung’s going to check on you. Is that okay?”
He slowly peeled off the scent blocker from the back of his neck, sat down on the bed and just waited there, for his scent to come back alive again and for Jeongin to give out a positive answer. As their maknae slowly turned and held up one corner of the blanket, the smooth, a gentle swirl of red tea – a harmonious combination of tart flavor and a light tint of honey – had joined the scent storm inside their house.
Lowering his upper body onto the soft mattress, Hyunjin crawled inside the bundle and gently tugged the younger alpha into a hug. Jeongin kept on writhing, moving around and shying away from Hyunjin’s attempt at wiping the tears off his face. Their maknae’s entire body was covered in sweat from his abnormally cold body temperature; the familiarity hit him like a stray bullet, reminding him how much more he would be able to do if he had the right type of hormones like Felix did.
“He’s already in pre-rut now.” Hyunjin left the warm bundle and sat back to the bedside, obediently letting Minho put a large white towel over his drenched body. “Do we have to induce him into the rut? It won’t take too long until his natural rut takes place.”
Chan, from the other side of the room, let out a deep sigh.
“A natural rut – even the stress-induced ones – can take up to five days to come to an end. The company won’t let us risk it; our managers are on their way to bring the syringe over.”
The coldness – coming from the air conditioner, from Jeongin’s abnormal condition, from this unexpected situation – crept onto Hyunjin’s skin in the form of chills and goosebumps. He wrapped himself tighter with Minho’s bath towel, and willingly took over Felix’s job of cooing and comforting their youngest alpha, while their pack omega was taking a quick shower.
Everyone was either moving around or moving something around, going in and out of this spare room, leaving only him and Jeongin steadily resting on the bed. For a transient moment, Hyunjin wasn’t so sure if they even wanted him to stay at the dorm today, since he had already failed his given task of calming Jeongin down before the rut hit.
And the next time Chan came rushing in with some bottled water and bite-sized snacks, he asked his pack alpha, in a voice no louder than a whisper –
Do you still need me here?
Chan paused himself, looking in his direction as if he was about to cry on the spot.
Please stay. He heard Chan say. Stay with us.