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when it all began - early trainee days, jumping group to group until managers decided which one should stick, going through rote life changes the way only youth could do - jin and hoseok had bonded immediately.
“i thought i would be the only omega,” jin had admitted after bangtan was formed.
their arms brushed every time they moved, sitting side by side on the rooftop of their shitty dorm in seoul, allowing themselves a few moments of peace from the loud and heavily-saturated dorm they lived in.
“so did i,” hoseok told him almost belatedly. he could barely focus on anything but the electric shocks coming from each tiny contact; he took a long sip of beer, hoping they’d be easier to ignore with another buzz competing against it.
omegas weren’t a rarity in the entertainment industry, but they were certainly unusual in their specific sector. the company they were training under was trying to push a hard image onto them - one that certainly worked for namjoon and yoongi, one that worked for adaptable taehyung and jin, one that was difficult-but-doable for still-evolving jimin and doe-eyed jungkook. hoseok fell in the middle, he thought. they kept him in a mask most of the time, anyways; as long as he danced well and dressed the part, it was good enough.
he knew that the alphas and betas around them thought they didn’t belong; they’d probably try to shove jin into a pretty omega group and shove hoseok out the door. but their group, their working-title-bangtan-sonyeondan, wasn’t like that. they liked them both, it seemed. they liked jin, at least. everyone should.
hoseok admired jin and his perfect omeganess: so caring, so beautiful, his aura so pleasant and rosy and fulfilling and everything everyone always wanted from an omega. he loved being around jin, loved hearing his windshield wiper-laughs and feeling the tension seep from the room with one shrug of jin’s shoulders.
he was also envious, of course, how could he not be? hoseok would like to be a perfect omega, but he just - wasn’t meant to be one. he wasn’t soft with his lithe muscles, he wasn’t beautiful, as many had told him, his aura was bright like jin’s but so much more so that it felt stifling.
but it wasn’t jealousy he felt when he looked at jin. he felt - light. warm. breathless.
-
there was nothing romantic about their dorm’s rooftop. the stairs to get up to it were rickety, as were the wobbly dining chairs that had seen better days before they even made it up to the roof. it smelled like cigarette smoke and hot air, and looked out over the street on one side and other buildings on all the others. and if one looked up, they couldn’t even see the sky, really. city pollution hid the sun and stars in exchange for relative comfort.
but it was on the rooftop that hoseok fell in love.
or it was where he realized he was in love, rather; looking at kim seokjin with his chin tilted up, plush lips parted, the setting sun giving him a warm orange halo. seokjin looked over at hoseok just a few seconds after he had this realization, and hoseok thought jumping off the roof would have been less painful.
he didn’t jump off the roof. instead, he finished off his beer and pretended that alcohol was the only reason he felt like he was in love with an omega.
-
it was when they started talking about forming a pack - a honest-to-god pack, a commitment that went beyond contract, a dedication to being a part of something so much bigger than oneself - that hoseok began to spiral.
he wasn’t good enough to be in their pack. he didn’t fit quite right, like a puzzle piece with a kinked curve.
when they were told “bangtan is dissolving, we’ll find a place for most of you elsewhere,” like it was just another day, another failed experiment, another knot to untie, it became real.
“we’ve talked about it,” namjoon told them all gravely, sitting in their shitty living room with shitty beer after a shitty day of their dream being cruelly jerked from under them. “yoongi-hyung and i have talked about it. we’re staying together.” namjoon cast glances around the room, guarded and assessing. “we’re forming a pack.”
yoongi snorted after a moment. “that’s an invitation.”
“i’m in—” jungkook said, emboldened by a shot of soju and the hurricane of emotions in his chest. “i want to join hyungs’ pack.”
namjoon’s lips twitched. he didn’t disparage jungkook’s age, nor his unpresented status. he was an adult and, hoseok knew, he could live his life without a presenting and namjoon would adore him all the same. they all would.
“okay,” namjoon said easily. “me, hyung, jungkook. who else?”
“me,” jin volunteered. hoseok’s stomach squeezed. jungkook let out an audible whine, crawling over to press against jin’s side. jin let him, didn’t tease or push him away, just tucked him under his arm.
“us,” jimin said. he glanced at taehyung. “right?”
taehyung nodded, hair flopping. everything about him was red, his eyes and nose and lips and cheeks, tinged with sorrow at the thought of losing everything. “yeah, yes—us.”
namjoon still looked grim, would probably feel the weight of perceived failure on his shoulders for years to come, but there was something more emboldened to the tilt of his chin, to the set of his eyes.
hoseok didn’t realize he was the only one left until namjoon held his gaze.
“hoseok?” of course jin was the one to ask.
hoseok had seen them all grow around each other, flowers blooming on unstable soil, their roots slowly intertwining. it was difficult for all of them, skipped meals and sleepless nights and the stress of unsurety; hoseok didn’t understand how they’d managed to flourish so well. he was a scraggly flower if he was anything but a weed, and his roots threatened to tangle around theirs enough to suffocate them all.
he should have known it would come to this.
he saw the way taehyung and jimin had coalesced into this beautiful, confusing, alpha-beta temperamental, irrevocable bond. he saw namjoon take jungkook under his wing like the storytale version of a noble alpha, saw the way jungkook looked up at him with all the admiration that befitted him and more. he saw the way yoongi silently worked to the bone to feed them all, the way jin checked on him with touches to his back, reassuring squeezes, insistences to let hyung cook tonight.
he saw the way jin glanced back at them all as he tended to the stove, making sure they were all still there. there was no mistaking the love in his eyes, unending fondness and care, exuding this is mine, they are mine. it flickered over jin’s face renewed whenever he looked from one to the next. hoseok always turned his face when it fell on him. he couldn’t stand to see it shift into something different, something that would have reflected his non-belonging.
“hobah?” jin prompted again.
he could see it falling into place.
their future: an omega serving his pack well, his alphas and betas serving him well. they’d be a little unconventional, sure, but they’d do everything so perfectly that it would put traditional packs to shame. the betas would lead them, mentally and emotionally. the alphas would support them, stable rocks to anchor them down. the omega would - be everything. do everything. they’d love each other, live with each other, probably fuck each other.
they didn’t need some tagalong omega to make them constantly uncomfortable with the way he couldn’t help looking at their proper one. there was no room for complicated love in an even more complicated time. there was no room for him.
“no,” hoseok said. “i’m sorry. no.”
-
“hobi-hyung?”
hoseok knew that voice. he’d heard that voice on soundtracks and commercials, he’d heard it over grocery store speakers, he’d heard it when his older students choreographed their own pieces to music that made them feel.
he hadn’t heard it in person for five years.
he turned and met jimin’s eyes.
jimin didn’t wait before launching himself at him. hoseok let himself have it - holding jimin close, trying to not get dizzy with how much he missed him, how he hadn’t been hugged like this since he last saw him, how he missed his eye smiles and bright laughter and the joy jimin had made him feel in the shadows of their trainee days.
“i missed you, hyung,” jimin whispered into his neck.
tears stung at hoseok’s eyes as he nodded, giving up on pretending that maybe this was just a casual acquaintance, former roommates, distant friends reunion.
he’d caged up his heart for five years, and jimin had just blown away the chains with just his name.
-
jimin took him home; delivered him to the pack house’s doorstep like he was some exciting novelty and not a residual memory.
they were still together, still intertwined, of course they were. their bonds had already been strong in the dorms, but now - they were intentional, carefully cultivated, built around trust and love and knowing that they hadn’t even been able to touch in their youth.
not all of them had been home - taehyung was overseas, jungkook was running a workshop - but those who were greeted him with as much caution as hoseok felt, though not as much as he thought he deserved.
yoongi kept watching when hoseok wasn’t looking his way; sometimes he kept looking when hoseok caught his eye. namjoon hugged him tight enough to hurt, only letting go when hoseok awkwardly patted his back a few times. jimin kept up a happy, lilting conversation that stayed away from whatever awkward emotions hovered between them all.
when jin came in, hoseok’s world tilted on its axis.
it was clear he hadn’t expected to see hoseok in his living room. he froze in the door as he unwound the scarf from his neck, staring at him with wide eyes and a lax mouth. he was tall, healthy, beautiful; shocked, tense, hurt.
“hoseok-ssi!” he said, like he felt nothing but delight at seeing him. hoseok couldn’t pretend he didn’t see that tinge of anger when their eyes first met. “welcome. have you eaten?”
-
hoseok had lived without them for five years. he’d gone about his life without anyone by his side. he’d gotten a good job, had gotten promotions that landed him at a studio much like the one he used to train at. he’d made sure he was able to care for his parents, and carefully dodged their blatant demands that he find himself a mate every time he visited home. he cleaned for himself, cooked for himself, lived for himself - he survived without bangtan, he lived without bangtan.
(because they still called themselves bangtan. they’d been told “bangtan’s dissolving” and held onto it with claws out and teeth bared and it became so much more than a trainee group name.)
but now that he’d seen them all again - it was like he couldn’t breathe.
why did sleep suddenly feel impossible? he’d slept fine in the silence til then, but it had become deafening, his ears searching for tiny sounds of life like he still lived with six other people.
why was food hard to force down? he’d learned to cook well, but the thought of another dinner alone in front of his phone was enough to kill his appetite.
why was it hard to take each step, to go through each day, to breathe when he couldn’t see them?
so as stupid as it was, he kept going back. he accepted jimin’s constant invitations - then namjoon’s, and yoongi’s, and jungkook’s, and taehyung’s. he couldn’t stay away.
even when jin barely looked at him.
-
“let’s talk.”
hoseok stared at him for a moment before opening his door all the way. jin didn’t come in, grabbing hoseok’s coat from the hook beside the door and thrusting it at him.
it was just him and jin, and hoseok could do nothing but follow.
-
“i was in love with you,” hoseok confessed.
he wrapped his arms around his legs, looking out at the seoul skyline. he didn’t look at jin, couldn’t bring himself to try. all those years of companionship, of happiness, of longing, of resignation, of loneliness, of sorrow - they laid heavily on his chest, an anvil of experience he’d never been able to shake. his eyes stung with tears but he willed himself not to cry; he’d done enough crying over the life he yearned to have, the one he’d turned his back on as soon as it threatened to be real.
“i still am.”
nothing could stop the tears from falling down his cheeks when jin didn’t reply. he took in a shaky breath, tilting his chin up and wondering if he could fill himself up with the stars he could barely see, wondering if it would be enough to chase away the jin jin jin that had overtaken him back then, that overtook him now.
“hobah,” jin started.
hoseok interrupted him with a watery laugh, shaking his head. “i can’t—i can’t, anything you want to say, i can’t bear to hear it right now. or ever. i’m—i’m just sorry, hyung, i can’t—” he let out a sob, a despondent, desperate thing that even the stars wouldn’t be able to drown. “i tried to stop, i tr-tried, please believe me.”
“i knew,” jin said. hoseok nearly jolted. “i knew you loved me and you still said no. why— why, hoseok? why did you leave?’
“why would you know and still ask me?” hoseok laughed again, pressing the meat of his palms to his eyes until he could see bursts of light. it was better than seeing jin. “i don’t belong with you, hyung, any of you. i saw namjoon in front of me, yoongi, even jimin and tae—i saw them and i wanted an omega.”
“so?”
“so—” hoseok exhaled, frustrated. “don’t act like it’s nothing. it’s not—it’s not. i wouldn’t do that to you. i wouldn’t make the world look at you that way, the way it would look at me. the way it looks at me.”
“the world didn’t need to know.”
“the pack would have.” pack felt unpracticed on his tongue. unusual, untouchable. “as good as they are, you think they would have allowed it?”
“do i—are you joking, hoseok?” jin snapped. his tone made hoseok furrow his brows, glancing over at him. he looked serious, angry, offended. “you think that of us?”
he didn’t, hoseok realized with a jolt. he didn’t believe the lie he’d tried to shove at himself for years. he didn’t believe that they’d hate him, didn’t believe they’d truly disapprove, didn’t believe they’d shun him for it.
he didn’t believe he was protecting jin. he was protecting himself from knowing he was a fucking coward.
it was too late now, though. jin pushed himself up, flexing like they always did when he couldn’t keep everything quite contained.
“you have to look at me at some point,” he said tightly. “i’m not going to storm away. i’m not going to leave you.”
“i wish you would,” hoseok mumbled.
“why?”
hoseok took a shuddery breath. “the longer you stay, the more it’ll hurt when you do.”
“you’re the one who left, hoseok.”
“there wasn’t room for me. there isn’t room for me now.”
“you don’t get to make that decision, hoseok!” jin said, voice verging on desperate, pleading. “you get to make the decision to stay, but we—we decide if there’s room, and there is. there’s always been room for you. we thought you didn’t want there to be, when you left, you know? it hurt. we never thought you’d leave. i never thought you’d leave.”
jin laughed a little and hoseok was horrified to see him wiping at his eyes.
“i had a whole scene plotted out. joonie would ask you again, and we’d all be there, and you’d—you’d take it back, you’d say yes, and i would kiss you, and we’d—push all our mattresses together and pile on top of each other and i would keep kissing you and so would everyone else, even jungkookie, even though we’d tease him about—about growing up first, i—” in took a watery breath, looking at hoseok with disappointment, fondness, overwhelming melancholy. “it wasn’t fair to have those expectations, but it broke my heart when you said no. and even after, i was determined to think you’d still be there, even if you didn’t want to be with us. but you didn’t. you left. we came home to an empty bunk.”
“i’’m sorry,” hoseok whispered. “i would have stayed if—if i saw anyone. i couldn’t.”
jin shook his head, sitting beside him again, closer than before. they looked out at the horizon; even with their jackets on, he still felt electric whenever their arms brushed.
“i know it’s useless to go over what ifs, but it’s hard not to with you. if you had stayed—where would we be right now? in bed together, on stage, at some dive bar to get some time to ourselves?”
“right here,” hoseok offered. jin looked at him; he looked at the smoggy sky. “on the roof. we’d share a blanket and drink shitty beer and talk about our day. we’d lock ourselves up here by accident again but jimin would come find us and yoongi would scold us for getting cold but he’d make us tea while he did it.”
“tae would tease us for letting the door close,” jin muttered, knocking his knee against hoseok’s. “he’d accuse us of trying to steal time to ourselves and act offended when we said he was right. namjoon would kiss us both and ask if we had a nice time. jungkook would scent us to get the city smell off. he’d sit on your lap and try to keep his weight off you til you nip him to get him to relax, and he’d look at you like he never wants to let you out of his sight because he doesn’t, and you’d stay—”
hoseok couldn’t hold back when jin’s voice broke, throwing his arms around his shoulders and pulling him close.
jin gripped him desperately, letting out a sob into his shoulder, hands shaking where they held hoseok closer. “stay, seok-ah, please, please, i can’t lose you again.”
i can’t leave, he wanted to say, i can’t lose you either, i can’t breathe without you, without any of you, i haven’t been breathing for years. he couldn’t force any words to come out, though. he held jin closer.
“will you come home with me?” jin asked when he was finally able to pull away, dabbing at his eyes. he was red and puffy and snotty and still so devastatingly beautiful that hoseok could do nothing but drink him in. “we have room, hoseok-ah. there are seven chairs at our table.”
it resounded almost violently in hoseok’s heart. “i-i don’t know if i’m ready, hyung.”
“will you ever be?”
when he stood and offered his hand, hoseok took it.