Archive of Our Own

Paying his rent. Eating.

And then the fall. And then the pain. The supervisors telling him he was no use, to go home. That he didn’t have a job with them any more.

He took a limping step forward into the crowd. He was immediately jostled but tried to ignore it, making himself as small and he could and slipping through the crowd. The job offers were pinned on high boards and the recruiters waited below. Most of them were for manual labour, day shifts in construction or crop picking or some of the more dangerous factories. Some were just horrible. Sewage work. Sorting incoming garbage to see if any of it was of value, your wage 20% of the value of anything you found.

And then one sign at the end, one that people were steering clear of.

Jungkook limped towards it, slowing when he was close enough to read the board.

Classified dependent on the planet Bora.
Any human aged 18 and above welcome to apply.
All travel, accommodation, food and medical care provided.
Minimum contract ten years.

And then a wage. A wage high enough that Jungkook rubbed his eyes and checked it again but, no, he’d read it right the first time.

So a scam. The job was clearly a scam. That wage would be enough to clear down his generational debt. Even enough that he could clear down his debt and start again, afford a place to live, clean himself up, start again higher up the ladder.

“What’s a classified dependent?” he asked out loud. Nobody in the crowd answered. He took out his phone before remembering that he didn’t have enough credit to access the internet, the only reason he was here at the physical job board in the first place.

Classified dependent.

What could it be?

It had to be something bad for that amount of money. That was insane. And including travel, just the cost of getting him off planet and to Bora, wherever that was, would be insane. What on earth could someone like him do for anyone that was worth that?

He glanced at the other jobs again. He didn’t want to work sorting waste. A few of the jobs for labourers had closed down already and other recruiters were stepping into the gap, the people hired being herded off to minibuses to labour for the day.

If he hadn’t messed up his leg in the fall. If only.

He turned to look at the classified dependent booth again.

It was staffed by an alien. One of the Koslel, the species who got referred to as Earth’s best trading partner, as though they allowed Earth to trade with anyone else without going through them first.

Classified dependent.

It couldn’t be something that’d kill him as how would he get paid? But medical care was included, was it likely to be something dangerous. He didn’t remember a lot about the different species aliens in the books he used to read as a kid but he thought the aliens from Bora were big. Big and long lived.

Maybe classified dependent was another word for whore. Surely they couldn’t want a human for that. Surely the size difference would make it impossible.

But what else could it be?

He’d always been too curious for his own good.

He pushed through the square, keeping moving into he was still on front of the Koslel. The alien looked down at him, seeing the evaluate him, then gestured up at the sign. “Classified Dependent,” it said, it’s voice struggling to form Korean.

“What is a classified dependent?” Jungkook asked. A few other people had crowded around too, clearly also wanting to know.

The alien blinked in the slow, unnerving was Koslel did, as though thinking through that. Then it gestures up at the sign again. “Classified dependent,” it said, words only just understandable through its thick accent.

Someone new to the planet then, maybe. Who couldn’t answer.

Or someone who wouldn’t answer.

Jungkook’s stomach tightened in hunger. He pressed his hand to his front. Food. It said food. Food and a roof, something he was about to lose very soon.

He swallowed, then nodded.

“Classified dependent,” he said, pointing to himself. A few of the people in the crowd around him made surprised noises but he ignored them.

What other choice did he have?

The alien presented him with a tablet. It contained a lot of writing in a language that Jungkook didn’t understand. He scrolled through it quickly to the bottom where he signed on the line. There, it was done.

His stomach clenched again.

What had he done?

The alien turned and took down his sign, then gestured for Jungkook to follow him.

Jungkook did, limping slowly.

What had he done?

*

Jungkook had never been one of those kids who’d dreamed of going off world, mostly because he’d understood even as a kid that the only way he was ever leaving the planet would be because something terrible had happened. Popping up out into orbit for a visit was strictly an Upper Seoul thing, and a very highest levels of upper Seoul thing at that.

And now he’d done it, now he’d been up and been placed into stasis and blasted through hyperspace at many times the speed of light and now he was in an unfamiliar space station, struggling to keep up with an alien when the journey hadn’t done any favours to his bad leg, so far away from home he almost couldn’t imagine it and no real way back.

He’d made a terrible mistake.

He had to think of the money. He had to, because otherwise he might cry. He was doing this because there was no other choice, no other way to survive. Whatever this was would be better than starving in a gutter.

Probably.

The alien seemed to notice he’d fallen behind and waited for him to catch up. Jungkook could just have been reading too much into the alien’s body language but he seemed frustrated, as though Jungkook was already failing to live up to their standards. He’d maybe be better at doing what he was meant to if he understood what that was. He still hadn’t found anyone to explain to him what a classified dependent even was. The alien back on earth hadn’t understood the question and this one didn’t even speak any Korean and even if he did, didn’t seem interested in stopping and answering Jungkook’s questions.

Once Jungkook caught up he walked on again Jungkook sped up a little, trying to keep up, but at this point it was days since he’d eaten, probably longer if you counted the time in stasis, and his leg ached, and the stasis had somehow left him feeling even more tired and achy in weird places.

And he wanted to go home. Though when he thought about home, he couldn’t quite imagine where it was. Not the run down hell he’d left behind. Not his parents appartment, where he’d mostly been alone while they worked until he’d been old enough to work too.

All that work and they were still drowning in debt.

Though not any more. Not if he could do this. He could get out. His parents would want him to get out.

The alien in front drew up to a door and stopped. It waited again for Jungkook to catch up and Jungkook did the best he could. He was breathing a little heavily, sweating, his hands were shaking so he pressed them into his sides to hide it.

The alien looked him over skeptically, no doubt wondering if he was going to be able to do whatever job they’d brought him here to do. It tried to look competent, to straighten his back and face forward and project an air of ability. Or at least an air of willingness to try.

The alien turned back to the door. It pushed it open and walked in and Jungkook, taking a deep breath, followed.

The room was giant, which made sense as the people in it were giant. The Koslel were about human height, maybe a little smaller, the Bora were not. There were a group of them, six, sat on a low couch, lounging over each other. They all turned to look at Jungkook and Jungkook resisted the urge to scuttle back through the door. It wouldn’t do him any good if he did, he didn’t have any resources to get back to earth and he was damn sure there was wording in that contract for him that if he backed out he’d have to pay for the transport. He might as well just sell his organs instead.

One of the Bora moved, standing up from the pile of sprawled bodies. He was startlingly handsome, they all were. His hair was blond and his lips were full and he smiled in a way that Jungkook couldn’t help feel was soft and inviting though he knew you should never judge alien body language by human standards.

The alien was also tall. It took a step forward and Jungkook found his eyes level with the middle of its chest.

It said something to him, its voice a pleasant, low rumble. Jungkook’s eyes widened. He didn’t know the language. Surely they must know he didn’t know the language? There were no language requirements on the job board.

The Bora alien looked at the Koslel alien. They said something to each other, exchanged a few gestures. The Bora alien seemed annoyed. Jungkook hoped he wasn’t. He hoped he didn’t turn around and send Jungkook right back.

Although maybe he did, just a bit. What could they want him for? What could he possibly do that’d be of value to them? What if they wanted to hurt him? What if classified dependent was another way to say prostitute. He was sure that if they fucked him, he’d die.

But, then, if he was careful, he might at least die somewhere warm. He was cold and he’d been cold for so long and the stasis hadn’t helped.

The remaining 5 Bora aliens unspooled from the couch. They spoke to each other for a minute, then one stepped towards Jungkook. One of the taller ones, and certainly the most handsome though they were all striking. Jungkook swallowed, clutching tightly at the legs of his faded track pants.

Then the alien stepped forward and scooped him up in its arms. It was so tall that it did it easily, settling Jungkook on its hip like he was a child. It said something and Jungkook felt the rumble all the way through the alien body into his.

And then they left, carrying Jungkook with them.

They went out into what seemed to be the main concourse of a space station. Jungkook had glanced something similar on Station Earth but this was many times bigger, layers and layers of rooms opening out above a grand central atrium. The aliens carried him along into a reasuringly familiar lift that carried them up to one of the higher levels. All the others crowded around the one that was holding Jungkook, seeming to form a shield between them and the outside world.

Jungkook let his head fall against the alien’s shoulders. He should probably have pushed away, demanded to be put down, but the aliens were paying a lot for him to be there and it they wanted to carry him around like a doll, who was he to stop them?

Also, it was kind of nice. The alien was warm and its clothes were soft and it held him carefully, like it wanted to look after him.

Their room, when they arrived, was giant, but the six aliens inside it made it seem small. Most of the room was dominated by what had to be a sleeping platform and a few of the aliens kicked off their shoes and climbed right onto it. Another approached Jungkook and gently removed his shoes. They looked quizzically at the cardboard that Jungkook had shoved in them when he’d started to wear holes through the soles, but then set them aside carefully and the alien who’d been carrying him took him to the bed and put him into the arms of one of the other aliens.

This alien grinned as Jungkook was placed in his lap, a giant boxy smile. He had curly brown hair and a boyish kind of enthusiasm and he wrapped his arms around Jungkook and pulled him close.

Jungkook really hoped this wasn’t a prelude to them fucking him. Maybe that was why everyone else had been avoiding the stall, maybe this was the kind of job that you never came back from.

He closed his eyes and let the alien cuddle him close. He just wanted to sleep. You’d think being in stasis for so long would help but somehow it was entirely different and he still felt tired right down to his bones.

The alien who’d picked him up earlier came back again, shoes now gone. He scooped Jungkook up in his arms again and carried him through to what turned out to be a bathroom. A real, genuine bathroom with a tub that the alien who’d taken off his shoes for him, one with sharp features and a smile like a heart, was slowly filling.

In the other room he could hear the aliens talking, in this one he was finally set down on his feet and nearly fell right over as his knee failed to hold him. Luckily, the alien was there to support him, an arm around him keeping him steady.

The alien seemed to think a second, then scooped him up and set him on the counter. It started removing Jungkook’s clothes and Jungkook let it, though he felt vulnerable once his clothes were gone. They weren’t much, his clothes. He’d not had anything new in years, but he’d been careful to take care with the things he did have and his clothes were worn and patched but still good.

Not that he’d need them for much longer if the aliens were planning on fucking him. He wondered if they’d send money to pay off his debt after they killed him or if it’d just hang there, forever unpaid. He wasn’t even sure who his closest relative was any more for it to pass to, though he was sure it was in a database somewhere.

His stomach started clenching and he suddenly felt like he was going to be sick. He sat there, awkwardly, as the aliens moved around the room. His limbs were stiff. He half thought about running but where would he even go.

Maybe this was why nobody else took the job, despite the money. Because once you took it there was no way to un-take it.

The first alien came back and scooped him up again, not holding Jungkook any differently now he was naked. Of course, they wanted to wash Jungkook first. He did his best to keep clean but it was hard in Lower Seoul. Of course they’d want to clean him before they fuck him.

They lowered Jungkook into the water and he sank down. They’d placed something sweet smelling in the water, he was sure it’d be relaxing in other circumstances. He’d never had a bath before, only quick showers, always mindful of the water bill.

And then the aliens started touching him.

Then started by tipping his head back, one of them supporting him while the other washed out his hair. Wetting it, massaging soap into it, stroking it, washing the soap out. It was strange. Nobody had done this for him since he was a child, touched him like this. Cared for his body like this.

He let his eyes drift closed. It was hard to stay tense with the fingers in his hair so he even started to relax a little. Not entirely, of course, there was still a corner of his mind screaming at him to run, but a little.

When they were done with his hair, then washed the rest of him. They touched him with smooth, confident motions, almost business-like. They rubbed the soap into his skin and rinsed it away, arms and body and legs and then his cock. He sat there, frozen, but the alien washing him handled them in the same business-like way, as though it were no more interesting than any of Jungkook’s other body parts.

It was oddly reassuring. Maybe they didn’t want to fuck him. Maybe they had another job they needed him for. Maybe he was going to be a live in servant. Maybe they needed someone small and fast to clear hard to reach places? Jungkook could be fast when his leg wasn’t hurting and he was good at cleaning.

He hoped so much they only wanted him to clean.

Eventually they were apparently satisfied with him and lifted him out of the water. He tensed again, but they just wrapped him in warm, soft towels, drying him as carefully as they’d cleaned him, then they had a new outfit for him. It was something like a giant t-shirt. Jungkook could have honestly done with something more covering but it was soft against his skin and it was new, he thought. There was a crispness to it. Jungkook had only ever had second hand clothes, scavenged junk, rags.

The alien picked him up again and as they came into the bedroom, there was the smell of food. They were all sat on the bed as there wasn’t much other space but in the middle of the bed was a tray and on it was food. So many types of food.

His stomach gurgled, loud enough to hear. The alien carrying him made a soft huffing sound that felt like a laugh.

Then he was passed into another lap. The other smaller alien, the one with dark hair and eyes that seemed almost feline. He gathered Jungkook close then the first small alien leant forward, taking a piece of food and bringing it to Jungkook’s lips.

Jungkook, not knowing what else to do, took it.

It was sweet, a fruit maybe. A little sticky. It seemed like maybe it had been fried. It was good, though he was so hungry anything would have been good.

They all took turns then, offering him pieces of food, pressing all sorts of things past his lips. Salty things, sweet things, rich things, refreshing things. He ate them all, not complaining, until he felt more full than he’d ever felt before. Full enough that he started to worry that he was going to be over-full, that his stomach wasn’t going to be able to handle any more.

They seemed to realise he was done, though, and moved quietly on to feeding themselves instead. He watched them, watched them eat, feeding each other bites, leaning into each other’s sides, talking in low voices.

They seemed to really like each other. They seemed to be a family of some kind.

He really hoped he survived whatever they wanted to do to him. He hoped they were really as nice as they seemed right in that moment, sat sharing a meal.

Eventually the food was gone and the tray was removed. Jungkook was moved up the bed and the terror settled in again, making his gut cramp, but the aliens only curled up around him on the bed, using their bodies to create a barrier between him and the world. They stroked his hair, his side, but their hands stayed above his clothes, never pushing or intruding.

And Jungkook was warm, and clean, and full, and so tired.

And even though he was still scared, he drifted into sleep.

*

The next morning, they let him use the bathroom, fed him breakfast, then the one who’d been carrying him most picked him up and that one and the one with the dimples carried him out of the room.

They carried him down through the space station again, and Jungkook got to see again all the different species mixing. When he was a kid, he used to use the data connection at school to read about different species. He didn’t remember a lot of them any more, it’d been a long time ago, but he felt some of that old wonder awaken as he was carried past an incredible variety of life. He couldn’t help but stare and nobody seemed to mind him so he didn’t really try to stop.

They went down to the main concourse then through an alley and into what seemed to be a waiting room, or at least a seating area. The holding alien sat down with him and the other went to talk to someone, then came down and sat with them, his hands finding their way to Jungkook’s body too, stroking in a soothing way.

It would probably have been more relaxing if Jungkook actually knew what was going on.

They sat there for a while, then someone approached them and spoke to the alien. They spoke together for a while, nodding, the two aliens touching Jungkook as he sat as stiffly as he dared in the alien’s lap.

Then they were standing, the alien lifting him again and carrying him though to a room.

Here, he was finally set down on something that seemed like a medical bed. The alien who’d been carrying him continued to hover, keeping on hand on Jungkook, like he wanted to be sure he knew exactly where Jungkook was.

It wasn’t like Jungkook was going to run away. He was stuck here, and he didn’t even have his shoes.

And at least these aliens wanted him. He didn’t know what for but they wanted him. It had been a long time since anyone had actually wanted Jungkook.

The alien they’d been talking to outside had followed them into the room and now he approached Jungkook. He held a few machines up to Jungkook’s head. One was very warm, the others didn’t feel like anything. The alien made thoughtful noises, they all spoke again, then the alien took something from a tray then turned and pressed it to Jungkook neck.

*

Jungkook woke with a start, jerking upright and instinctively shuffling back. He was lying on the bed in the aliens room, and they were watching him. All six of them. He took a quick inventory of his body. He felt fine. Better than find, almost. The bone-deep ache in his leg was gone. What has they done to him? They must have done something and carried him back? How long had he been unconscious?

He reached down and touched his leg. Even when he squeezed the muscle it didn’t hurt.
“How does it feel?”

Jungkook looked up sharply. He’d understood that. He looked around them, his eyes landing on the alien who’d been carrying him who was now smiling softly.

“Is it better?” the alien asked, and Jungkook moved back, pressing himself into the corner. They couldn’t… he reached his hand up and touched the back of his neck. It was sore. An implant, maybe? But they couldn’t give him an implant. Those things were so expensive and they couldn’t be taken out and used again. Why would someone waste one on someone like him?

“Is it sore?” He looked around again. This was the little one with the full lips, the one who’d spoken to him first. “Is it working? I’m Jimin.”

Jungkook paused for a second, then nodded. Somehow understanding them was scarier than not understanding them.

“And I’m Seokjin,” the alien who’d carried him said. “How are you feeling, are you dizzy?”

Jungkook shook his head and Seokjin smiled in satisfaction.

“Good. We hadn’t used that doctor before so I didn’t know how he’d do but we wanted to get an implant before we took you down to the planet.”

And implant, they’d really gotten him an implant. He pressed his fingers against it again. He heard that even most people in Upper Seoul didn’t have an implant. It was only the highest of the high. With an implant, the money they’d given him almost didn’t matter. He’d be able to speak to anyone, no matter what language they were speaking. He’d be able to work in government. The top companies would be fighting each other to employ him.

Somehow that didn’t feel real. As though, even with the implant, they’d see right through him and know he was useless.

“I’m Taehyung,” one of the other aliens, the one with the box shaped smile, said, shuffling forward. “We’re so happy to have you here. Thank you for accepting our job offer.”

The other nodded, clearly agreeing with Taehyung. Which was insane. How could they feel happy for him to be here? What did they want from him? Surely they weren’t going to spend all that money giving him an implant then kill him?

Though maybe to them the money wasn’t a big expense. The information packs he’d read as a kid didn’t talk about things like trade and net worth. Even if they had, he’d never have remembered that kind of thing. He was more interested in reading about weird bodies and strange planets.

“Yes, thank you,” one of them said, taking hold of Taehyung gently and pulling him back. This one was the one who’d come with him to the clinic, the quiet one. “I’m pack leader Namjoon. We’re really privileged to have you here. We’ve worked hard to make a nice place for you.”

“Why?” Jungkook asked, the word slipping out before he could stop it. The aliens turned to look at each other, exchanging uncertain glances.

It was Jimin who spoke next, voice soft and careful. “Well, we thought you’d like it. If you don’t though, if you want to change things to your liking, you can of course.”

They’d change things for him? In their own home? Things they’d worked hard to prepare?

What did they want from him?

He needed to know what a classified dependent was.

He wondered if they’d give him access to look it up if he asked. He wouldn’t have thought so the night before but now, maybe. But they’d have tracking software on anything they gave him, surely, so it wasn’t like he could avoid them knowing he didn’t know.

So maybe it was better to just ask.

They were all looking at him in concern. He turned to Jimin, who probably looked the least intimidating.

“What’s a certified dependent?”

The room was silent. For a moment, the aliens seemed like they weren’t even breathing. Jungkook shrank even further back into the corner. He hoped they weren’t mad. He hoped even more that they hadn’t thought Jungkook was special. Because he was starting to get the feeling, from the way they spoke, that they thought he was something special and he wasn’t.

“Did you not read the information pack before you signed up?” the one who was kind of feline looking asked.

“I couldn’t afford it,” Jungkook said. This was obviously the wrong answer. Jimin looked like he was going to cry. Taehyung was staring at his hands. Seokjin was biting his lip.

It was the one with the sharp features who stood up and came back with a data pad. He tapped on it, bringing it to life, then tapped around a little. Finally, he turned it and offered it to Jungkook.

It looked something like alien wikipedia.

Certified dependent.

A humanoid to live under the care of a pack on the planet Bora. The role of a certified dependent is to be cared for. The certified dependent will be maintained entirely at the cost of the pack. It will be their privilege to ensure that the certified dependent is comfortable, well fed, and cared for. By succeeding as carers for a certified dependent for ten years the pack may earn the right to become a guardian.

He paused, pointing to the word.

“What’s that, a guardian?”

They all looked at each other, but it was the feline one who moved forward to answer.

“I’m Yoongi,” he said. “Do you know anything about planet Bora?”

“Not really,” Jungkook admitted. Yoongi didn’t seem surprised by this, he just nodded.

“On our planet there are two native intelligent species. Your planet just has the one, right?”

“Right,” Jungkook agreed.

“Well, on our planet there are the Bora and the Hae. We’re Bora. There are lots of Bora. There are not many Hae. The Hae are small and weak, they need protection. They live only under the protection of the Bora, and caring for one is the greatest honor anyone can have. That’s what we want, what every Bora wants. But to achieve it, we must first prove that we can care for a certified dependent.”

“For me?” Jungkook asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” Yoongi said. “For you.”

Jungkook swallowed.

Caring for him?

It had been so long since anyone had cared for him. Even when he’d been a child, his parents had worked all the time, fighting to keep above the rising tide of their generational debt. His mother had died when he was five, his dad when he was fourteen, both dying in accidents at work.

He’d been alone for so long, did he even know how to be cared for?

But they were offering him so much money and for for? For him to sit there and be pampered?

How could he turn something like that down?

Slowly, uncertainly, he crawled forward. Jimin leant forward, eyes shining. He opened his arms and Jungkook jerked a little in surprise. He made himself still, though. Jimin didn’t want to hurt him. Jimin wasn’t going to make him labour or beat him or try to fuck him. Jimin just wanted to hold him, apparently.

He made himself carry on forward into Jimin’s arms and around him, the entire room seemed to let out a deep sigh of relief.

He’d done the right thing, apparently. He could let them hold him, at least.

*

They travelled to planet Bora on a large shuttle apparently composed of several private compartments. Jungkook wondered how many of those compartments had people like him in, certified dependents.

He slept a lot, and none of them seemed inclined to stop him. Yoongi, in particular, seemed to like to nap with him, curled around him on the bed. Jungkook wasn’t used to sleeping with someone but he adapted. He’d always been very good at adapting to new situations.

Whenever he was awake, there was someone touching him. Apparently the carrying thing wasn’t to do with his leg hurting, they just didn’t like to put him down. They fussed a lot over how much he ate, especially the one with the sharp face who was apparently called Hoseok. They didn’t go so far as asking him why he was so thin but he could see the question in their eyes some days. They wanted to know.

He didn’t tell them. He didn’t even know how to put the reality of life on earth into words for them. Whenever one of them stared too long, he’d just tell them he was tired and go back to bed.

And then were were on Bora.

Jungkook had, to an extent, let the fact that the aliens looked like giant, hot humans lull him into a sense of security. After all, how different could their planet really be?

Very different, apparently.

The plants were all entirely different, which both made sense and make Jungkook’s stomach twist in worry. There were wild animals just walking the streets, apparently entirely integrated with society. Everyone was richly dressed. Everyone was beautiful. The houses were made of some kind of warm peach coloured stone and their walls were all rounded. They didn’t seem to have fixed meal times but ate as and when they wanted, mostly fresh fruit and vegetables but also other things, which Jungkook had noticed on the trip there too but at the time he’d thought it was for his benefit and not just something they always did.

And everywhere they went people looked at Jungkook with envy. Because they wanted him. So many of them wanted him. Not for him, obviously, but for the thing they could get from him. The status, the proof, then they could leverage that to get what they really wanted.

They had to travel for several days to get from the space port to their home. They didn’t seem in a hurry. They’d bought Jungkook new clothes, light things against the heat of the planet, but still infinitely softer and more comfortable than anything Jungkook had worn before. They travelled on public transport, passing Jungkook between their laps, and he got used to sleeping in their arms, head against their chests.

And then they were home.

“Finally,” Taehyung said, dropping the bag he’d been carrying. “Ah, Jungkook-ah, we’ve finally made it home! Give him to me, Hyung, I want to show him the house.”

“Let him rest,” said Seokjin, who was carrying Jungkook. Jungkook kind of wanted to go see the house but he also didn’t want to argue. He was here to be cared for, after all, and nobody wanted to care for someone who was going to argue back and create problems.

“Yes, Hyung,” Taehyung said with a sigh. He slipped away and Seokjin carried Jungkook through instead. The gate of their home opened onto a paved courtyard where there were flowers and trees in pots. There were doors all the way around the courtyard and the others had gone over and started sliding them back, revealing rooms scattered with pillows and all sorts of other things. Jungkook’s eyes caught on something that looked a little like a guitar but Seokjin carried him past that and into what had to be the main living area, a sprawling room with a high ceiling absolutely peppered with cushions and comfortable places to sit and with what appeared to be the kitchen tucked into a corner.

“Here,” Seokjing said, setting him down on a cushion, “Sit there for a while and Hyungs will be back soon.”

Jungkook nodded and sat patiently on his cushion as the others moved around him. He felt like a child in a way that made his gut squirm, like he had when he was a real child and he’d spent most of his life either at school or with a local woman his parents paid to watch him, squashed in with so many other children that Jungkook wasn’t even sure she knew all their names.

And suddenly, sitting there alone, he felt every inch of the physical distance between where he was and where that woman was, the Earth he’d left behind. It hadn’t been a great home, but it was the only home he had and now he was in a place where he knew nobody and nothing was familiar.

Before he could work himself into a panic, though, Jimin appeared, dropping down to sit beside Jungkook and taking away even the mortifying ordeal of having to ask for physical comfort by scooping Jungkook up into his lap and resting his cheek on the top of Jungkook’s head.

“Welcome home, Jungkook-ah,” he said, voice so soft and kind. “We hope you like it here. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll show you everything.”

“I’m ready,” Jungkook said, then wondered if he should have waited, seemed less eager. But Jimin just chuckled and picked him up carefully, carrying him back out into the courtyard.

Taehyung trailed after them happily and, like that, Jungkook was introduced to his new home. One room was a music room, and one room for for exercising. They all slept together in a third room which seemed to be made mostly of mattress and there was a giant bright closet they all shared, at which point Hoseok joined them and started to talk about how much fun he was going to have finding clothes for Jungkook.

And then there was Jungkook’s room.

It was only a small room compared to the others, but the biggest space he’d ever had to himself in his life. It had a mattress for sleeping, though they made sure he knew he was always welcome in their bed, and sheets and pillows and a cupboard where he could keep his things. He hadn’t brought anything, hadn’t even thought to go back for his few worn pairs of clothes and no doubt by now one of the roommates he left behind had claimed them, but they promised they’d buy him new things soon. The walls were hung with dark, heavy drapes and it made the space feel small and safe and homely.

“It’s great,” Jungkook said, feet finally on the flood so he could explore. “It’s really all mine?”

“All yours,” Jimin agreed, smiling. “To do whatever you want with. And if you want to shut us out and get away from us, this is where you can go.”

“I won’t shut you out,” Jungkook said, blushing. He couldn’t lock them out of a room in their own house.

“But you can do if you want, Jungkook-ah. Anything you want.”

And the way Jimin smiled when he said it almost made him believe it.

*

Over the next few weeks, the aliens settled back into their normal life and Jungkook realised with dawning horror that he had no idea how to be taken care of.

He was trying. He was really really trying. He didn’t want them to realise this wasn’t going to work and send him back to Earth empty handed, after all. And they’d brought him here for a reason, to prove they could take care of someone delicate. If he messed this up, if they sent him back, would they even be allowed to try again?

He woke every morning with anxiety turning his gut. The slept in the middle of the bed and they seemed to have developed a system where they traded him between them so he never knew quite who but someone would pick him up and carry him to the wash room to clean him and wash his hair and Jungkook would try his best to stand nicely though it made him feel horribly embarrassed. Once he was clean and dressed he’d be carried back out and the day would start.

There was always food and there was normally music and there was always at least one alien and Jungkook was usually in their lap. And he was good. He sat there quietly. He let them feed him. The feeling was nice. He was starting to look less like a skeleton.

He’d never been so sedentary before in his life. He’d always worked. He’d never had the luxury to sit still.

He was starting to find that sitting still wasn’t actually really much of a luxury after all.

*

It was late afternoon. Yoongi was sat in the corner quietly playing something that looked but didn’t entirely sound like a guitar. Jungkook was watching him from his place on Hoseok’s lap. He wanted to play it. He wanted to learn. When he was growing up, one of his neighbours had a guitar. He never knew which neighbour but he could hear them playing at night when he was little and trying to sleep.

He’d never had one himself. He’d seen one once, picked up it from the pavement in Upper Seoul in a nighttime cleaning shift, but someone had smashed it to pieces and even without knowing a lot about it, he could tell stood there in the street that to rebuild it he’d completely have to start from scratch.

He’d thought about taking it home anyway but, in the end, it hadn’t been worth the hassle.

He wondered, if he was good enough, if Yoongi would teach him how to play the instrument he was playing. If that was even allowed.

Hoseok shifted beneath him and warm hands came to wrap around him, keeping him steady. He bit his lip, fighting the urge to fidget.

He wanted to dance. Yoongi’s music wasn’t really dancing music but Jungkook wanted to try anyway.

It’d be worth a lot just to try.

“Hoseok-hyung,” a voice called from the kitchen. “Can I get a little help, just for a second.”

It was Taehyung. Which was interesting as Jungkook was fairly sure he’d never seen Taehyung head into the kitchen before. Hoseok seemed to think it was odd too as he straightened.

“I’m holding Jungkook, Taehyung-ah. What is it?”

“I’ve… I’ve had a little accident with the pancakes I was making and the floor.”

“Can’t you just pick them up?” Hoseok asked.

“It’s a little more complicated than that, Hyung.”

Hoseok sighed, clearly put out. He stood up, lifting Jungkook with him, then seemed to realise that whatever he was going to have to clean up in the kitchen, he’d need his hands to do it. He looked down at Jungkook. Jungkook looked up, trying to give his best I’m very reliable and can be put down face. He’d really like to be put down, just for a minute. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the cuddling, but if they put him down he could actually move a little, fidget.

Slowly, Hoseok knelt down and sat him on the cushion. “Are you okay there Jungkook-ah? Just for a minutes.”

“Yes, Hyung,” Jungkook said. Hoseok smiled softly like they all did when he called them Hyung, then he stood up and moved to the kitchen.

Jungkook looked around quickly. Yoongi was still absorbed in his music. None of the others were there. He really did have just a moment to himself. He stood up slowly, watching Yoongi, and when Yoongi didn’t react he stretched, then shook out his arms and legs. He felt better already. Stronger. He did a few more quick stretches, working his muscles, ready at any moment to drop back down onto the cushion where he’d been left to wait.

Hoseok didn’t come back, though. Jungkook could hear his voice faintly through the walls. Taehyung’s too. It sounded like Taehyung was being scolded. It sounded like they might be a while.

Jungkook glanced around. It felt like too good a chance to pass up, the chance to actually move, so he took a few tentative steps. The floors were nice on his feet, wooden but warm, he wondered if they had under floor heating like in a traditional korean house.

And Yoongi was still playing.

Now he was free to move, he couldn’t help swaying slightly to the music. He glanced to the kitchen but Hoseok didn’t appear.

He dared to ease a little closer to Yoongi, treading as lightly as he could. When the world didn’t end he carried on, crossing the distance between them and slowly crouching down a little to Yoongi’s left.

Yoongi didn’t react, so Jungkook closed his eyes and let his body sway to the music, staying there, letting himself be caught in the moment.

And then Hoseok came back into the room.

“Jungkook-ah,” he said, clearly surprised. Yoongi turned then and met Jungkook’s eye and oh, perhaps he hadn’t been as inconspicuous as he’d thought.

“You’re all the way over there,” Hoseok said. And he didn’t sound cross, didn’t sound disappointed.

He sounded delighted.

Jungkook wasn’t sure what to say to that. Silence hung awkward for a few seconds until Yoongi saved him. “I think he was interested in the music. Do you want to try, Jungkook-ah?”

Jungkook nodded immediately. Yoongi went to hand the instrument over, then seemed to realise it was going to be awkwardly large in Jungkook’s arms. He paused then stood. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Jungkook nodded again and watched Yoongi leave the room. Then Hoseok come to drop down and sit behind him. Jungkook tensed, expecting to be pulled back into Hoseok’s lap but it didn’t happen, instead Hoseok laid a hand reassuringly on his back and rubbed gently.

It was weird. It was all so weird. Didn’t they want him to just sit there quietly and let them take care of him?

Taehyung appeared then, and seemed just as delighted when Hoseok told him Jungkook had crossed the room all on his own. As though that was an achievement. Did they think he was some kind of invalid who didn’t know how to walk?

But then Yoongi was back and he was carrying an instrument. Something like the he’d been playing but smaller, much better suited to Jungkook’s size. He sat down and put it in Jungkook’s lap and Jungkook took it, examining it, running his fingers over the wood, brushing them over the strings.

“Do you want to know how to play?” Yoongi asked.

“Please,” Jungkook said.

And Yoongi showed him.

He sat there, patiently showing Jungkook how to hold the instrument, how to make a sound, how to move his hands to make different chords. He talked Jungkook through a simple melody and when Jungkook managed to play it they all made impressed sounds and Hoseok squeezed his shoulders.

“Jungkook-ah’s talented,” Taehyung said. “I didn’t pick it up that quickly.”

“It’s not that hard,” Jungkook mumbled, stroking the instrument, but he couldn’t help but feel a little pride. It was a long time since someone had told him he’d done well at something. A long time since he’d had the opportunity to do well at something. Back on Earth, it just was backbreaking labour and nobody praised you for that. Or, if they did, you didn’t want that praise.

He played a few more chords, then he heard the sounds of the others outside and he turned and tried to hand the instrument back to Yoongi.

“You don’t need to stop,” Yoongi said, smiling at him gently. “The others would like to hear you play too.”

Jungkook shook his head, blushing. No, not yet. Not in front of all of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them, didn’t know they’d all be kind, but it just felt weird, the idea of deliberately playing in front of them.

“That’s fine,” Yoongi said. “But keep the instrument, yes? We can go and put it in your room and then you can get it when you want it. I can give you more lessons too.”

“I’d like that,” Jungkook said, hand tightening around the guitar. He could keep it. Nobody on Earth just gave you things to keep. Either they didn’t have anything to give or they didn’t have anything to give to a person like Jungkook. Everything Jungkook had owned on earth since his parents passed, he’d bought for himself.

And now he had a musical instrument.

“I can take it to your room if you’re not strong enough to walk that far, yet,” Taehyung said, holding out his hands for the instrument. Jungkook pulled it closer to his chest.

“No, I can do it.”

“Okay,” Taehyung said, as though it had been that easy all along, Jungkook had just had to ask.

He stood up, holding the instrument carefully, and carried it to his room. Taehyung followed, clearly expecting him to stumble. Jungkook wondered how weak they thought he was. He had been in a bit of a state, he supposed, when they met him. His leg had been a mess. But, still, that felt out of proportion of this.

But if they had thought he was that delicate and they didn’t just want him to be helpless that was good. Maybe he could work with that.

They reached his room and Jungkook set the instrument down. He hadn’t really been back here since the first day. He wondered if he’d get a chance to explore it soon. If, now they knew he wasn’t about to topple over, he’d be allowed a bit more freedom. A little more time to himself to explore.

He really, really hoped so.

*

Jungkook has hoped that them discovering he wasn’t actually so frail he couldn’t walk would reduce the hovering a little. And it did. A little.

“Jungkook-ah, what are you doing?”

It had probably been less than 5 minutes. Jungkook was in his room, which was currently fully open to the courtyard so it wasn’t like they couldn’t see him. But it was Taehyung, looking hopeful and like he wanted to drag Jungkook out to play.

“I’m just looking around,” Jungkook said. “You put so many cool things in here and I’ve not even looked at some of them.”

“Oh,” Taehyung said, apparently surprised by that. “You like the things we bought you? You didn’t really seem to be interested in them.”

He hadn’t been interested in them at first, really. At first he hadn’t been interested in anything but learning all the unspoken rules of his strange new home so he couldn’t mess them up.

Now he was kind of interested in the room. Not that he’d figured everything else out, he definitely hadn’t, but he hadn’t yet found a way to make anyone here yell at him or be mad like people always seemed to be back on Earth. They all just seemed to want to be around him. To talk to him or brush his hair or smile at him or feed him tasty little treats as though he might fall down dead if he went more than 30 minutes without a snack. And he figured if they weren’t going to yell at him or get mad at him for existing, he might as well try a few things.

“I want to look now,” Jungkook said, pulling a drawer open. He’d been through a big cupboard before which was full of comfortable clothes. He recognised some of them so this had to be where they came to get his things to dress him in the morning. He still hadn’t managed to bring them round to letting him dress himself and it was still kind of embarrassing every day but it seemed to make them happy.

This drawer, as it turned out, was full of tiny jars. He lifted one up and opened it and it was a coloured powder. He frowned at it, then glanced over to Taehyung.

“Paint,” Taehyung explained. Jungkook looked down at it again.

“How do I paint with this? It’s powder?”

“Well, you’ve got to mix it first,” Taehyung said, as though that was obvious. “There should be some oils in the drawer, and tools. Have you not painted before?”

Not since childhood. School. Another life entirely. Back then the paints had arrived as liquids in bright primary colours.

“Will you show me?” he asked, holding the jar out to Taehyung. Taehyung reached out and took it, looking down at it contemplatively.

“I can. We should go get Namjoon first though. Namjoon loves art. Not great at making it, but he loves it and knows all the technical details.”

“Okay,” Jungkook said, walking to the door of his room. He looked around the courtyard. Jimin and Hoseok were doing some kind of dance exercise. Yoongi was in a far room, Jungkook couldn’t really make out what he was doing. Seokjin was watering some plants in pots. It hadn’t rained since Jungkook had arrived on the planet, he was going to have to ask about that at some point.

Namjoon was sat in the main room reading a book. Jungkook took the lead and Taehyung followed him, trailing after him like a puppy. Which seemed like a good idea until he drew up to the cushion where Namjoon was sitting, until Namjoon looked up at him, smiling a soft dimpled smile, and waited to see what Jungkook was coming up to him to talk about.

And suddenly Jungkook didn’t know what to say. It should have been easy, can you please help me mix some paint, but what if it wasn’t easy? What if Namjoon didn’t want to be disturbed? What if he sighed like Jungkook was a burden, demanding?

“Namjoon-hyung,” Taehyung said, stepping up so he was right behind Jungkook. “We want to paint. Can you help us mix the paints?”

“Sure,” Namjoon said, setting his book down instantly. “What do you want to paint?”

“Don’t know,” Taehyung said, shrugging. “Jungkook just found the paints and wanted to play. Jungkook-ah, what are we painting?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook admitted, his stomach clenching in knots. He hadn’t known that he’d need to know what he was painting before he even started. “It’s okay, I don’t need to paint.”

“No, you should,” Namjoon said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “It’s fun. If you’re not painting anything in particular then we don’t need to fetch a canvas, you can use a sketch book. Come on, are the things in your room, Jungkook-ah? What kind of colours do you want?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Jungkook said, trailing after Namjoon. “I don’t know what I want to do yet. I don’t need to paint right now. Maybe I should think about what I want to do first?” That’s what they’d had to do back in school, after all. Resources were scarce, you couldn’t just throw around paint and paper and waste it.

“No, that’s fine,” Namjoon said. “I’ll teach you how to mix it, then you can make whatever colours you want when you need them. We have plenty, we can top up if you run out.”

“Oh,” Jungkook said, softly.

They had plenty.

They could just top them up.

Back in his room, Namjoon sat down on the floor and started to take things out of the art cupboard. Taehyung, who didn’t really have the patience for slow, meticulous work, wandered off and left Jungkook to kneel there next to Namjoon, watching him work.

Namjoon worked mixed the pigment with oil using some kind of blunt knife thing. He went slowly, explaining each step as he mixed red and then blue. It was strange to see him to confidently do such delicate work when Jungkook knew for a fact that Namjoon was the only one of them not allowed to cook for risk of injury (as opposed to Taehyung who preferred to just make other people do it for him and Jimin whose problem was more around producing anything that actually tasted good).

Once he’d done the first two colours, Namjoon handed him the palette and told him to try mixing yellow. He did, following as best he could from memory, just needing a few reminders to be able to mix up some paint of his own.

He sat there staring down at it when it was done. It had been easy.

He supposed it was the actual painting that was the hard part.

After all, for all they said there was more, that didn’t mean it was okay to waste their paint, their paper. He could still remember his teacher’s annoyed sighs when they’d messed up in class and needed to start again.

But, still, his fingers itched to try.

“Do you want to paint too, Hyung?” Jungkook asked. I’d be better if he wasn’t alone. Namjoon looked surprised.

“Didn’t Taehyung tell you I’m bad at it.”

“Well, I might be too,” Jungkook said, reasonable. “I haven’t painted since I was a little kid. We can both be bad at it together.”

Namjoon smiled at that and grabbed another palette, mixing himself some colours.

And they Namjoon handed him a brush and he settled in to paint.

The first piece of paper he ruined, his strokes far too thick, the paint splodging everywhere. The second he took his time, playing with making different marks with the paintbrush, controlling it, seeing how it reacted to different movements and different types of pressure.

By the time he reached the third piece of paper, he was more ready. It wasn’t great, he didn’t kid himself about that, but he managed to recreate something that looked a little like the mountains he’d been able to see out of his window on earth. He mentally edited out the city skyline and focused only on the peaks, their slopes, the soft colours of their vegetation, where it still grew.

When he finished, he looked up to find Namjoon watching him, something soft in his expression.

“It’s not very good,” Jungkook said, shuffling in place. “I can do better.”

“It’s really your first time painting in years?”

Jungkook nodded. Then Namjoon moved his own page over, laying it next to Jungkook’s. And somehow, Jungkooks was better. Namjoon didn’t say anything about it, just left them there then gently ruffled Jungkook’s hair, smiling like he wasn’t mad, like he’d just wanted Jungkook to see their work there next to each other.

And maybe Jungkook’s wasn’t so bad. Maybe, if he worked, he could get better at it.

“Am I allowed to paint again?” he asked, reaching down to gently touch the corner of the paper.

“Any time you like. If anything gets close to running out, tell me and I’ll get you more right away.”

“I shouldn’t be greedy,” Jungkook said, looking down at the page. He wanted to be greedy. He wanted to spend the entire day practicing his music and his art. He wanted to work at it until his hands bled and the work was perfect.

“It’s not greedy, it makes us happy to give you these things,” Namjoon said, warm and happy. “And if you want to share what you paint with us, we’d like that too. You don’t have to but you’re very talented, Jungkook-ah.”

That was certainly something he’d never heard before but, then, what did someone like him need with talent. Someone like him who was going to collect trash and sweep the streets until he dropped dead.

Only he was sitting on an alien planet so far away from Old Seoul that he could barely comprehend it and maybe that version of himself didn’t exist here.

Maybe here he could be talented.

“Thank you,” Jungkook said. “Can you show me how to clean up and put everything away neatly?”

“Well, Hoseok might be better for that, but I’ll try my best,” Namjoon promised.

*

It was a slow, lazy afternoon and Jungkook was in his room with his paints but he couldn’t focus.

He was, he thought, getting kind good. He’d been painting a lot. He’d already had to replace his paper and some of the coloured pigments he used more often but Namjoon had been as good as his word and replaced them with new ones without even commenting. The others had all been delighted with his paintings, too. Some of them were hung up around the house now. Sometimes he saw one of the others pause and smile at them.

But today nothing was flowing. He’d mixed his paints and sat down but he didn’t feel like sitting down. He didn’t even want to pick up one of the small collection of instruments he’d been gathering from Yoongi, who seemed delighted to teach Jungkook any instrument he was even vaguely curious about.

He didn’t want to be sat, he wanted to be moving.

He flopped over on his back, sighing. Outside, in the yard, Taehyung, Jimin and Hoseok were playing some kind of game. He wanted to be playing a game. He wanted to be running around. He wasn’t meant to be like that, though. He was meant to be good and sit politely and let them take care of him.

He’d tried to join in, once. Soon after they’d started letting him walk. As soon as he’d moved towards the game they’d stopped playing and turned to fuss over him instead, asking him if he was feeling well, if he was tired, if he’d like something to eat, something to drink.

Jungkook hadn’t wanted any of those things but he hadn’t wanted to disappoint them so he’d let them take him into the house and feed him.

But now he wondered about trying again. He scooted to the edge of his room and watched them quietly. The game they were playing involved a ball and a net. There were really only so many things you could do with a ball and a net. This net was set on the floor, a round frame holding it up, and the ball was smaller and they didn’t seem to be bouncing it but throwing it between each other. Or, rather, Jimin and Taehyung were. Hoseok was trying to guard the net, making little sounds as he did, throwing his arms around and jumping.

Jungkook smiled. It was very Hoseok.

And he wanted to play. He thought he’d figured out the rules. And if he hadn’t, he was sure they could help him.

And he wanted to play.

Slowly, he slid out of his room, easing his feet into the shoes that had appeared for him once they’d figured out that actually he could walk short distances without dying.

As he approached the others looked over and then slowly stopped. His heart sank. It was going to be just like the last time, where they turned him away and sent him back to the house. He was going to spend the day forced to sit nicely and be fussed over while itching to move.

“Jungkook-ah,” Taehyung called, once Jungkook was closer. “Have you come to watch? You can cheer on me and Jimin-ah. We’re going to beat Hoseok-Hyung!”

“I’m not going down without a fight,” Hoseok said, stomping his foot and making Jimin giggle.

“No I just…I was wondering,” Jungkook started, mumbling a little into his sleeve. The others waited quietly for him to continue so he took a deep breath and carried on. “I was wondering if I can play too?”

He looked up. They didn’t look angry, at least. They looked like they were thinking about it, maybe.

Jimin looked over at Hoseok. Hoseok shrugged. Jimin smiled.

“Have you played before, Jungkook-ah? Do you know the rules?”

“No,” Jungkook said. “But I’m a fast learner. Please, Hyung. I want to move.”

“Of course you can join in,” Taehyung said, his tone of voice daring anyone to disagree. “Come be on a team with me and Jimin, Jungkook-ah. We’ll teach you how to play.”

The rules, when they were explained to him, weren’t actually that complicated and, after a gentle start where they threw the ball so softly that Jungkook almost didn’t feel it as he caught it and moved as though they were worried they were going to step on him at any moment, they slowly settled back into the game. They weren’t, perhaps, as boisterous as they had been before but as soon as Jungkook proved he wasn’t about to crumple, they started playing again at least a little in earnest, passing the ball between them, trying to get into position, trying to dodge around Hoseok.

Jungkook threw himself into it entirely. He found himself laughing in exhilaration. It felt so good to move again, to do something with his body. He hadn’t realised how much he enjoyed just moving before. It has been so long since he’d done anything just for the joy of it.

Of course, he let himself get over-confident.

He realised a second before he fell that it was going to happen. He’s over-balanced, over-twisted. He wobbled for a second, then he was falling.

He went down facing forwards, scraping his knee and the hand he’d reached out to stop his fall.

Fuck.

His hand stung. He lifted it and, fuck, it was bleeding. They were never going to let him play again. He was going to end up sat in someone’s lap forever.

He pushed himself back up quickly, wanting to play it off, but the game had already stopped and by the time he was back on his feet, Hoseok was there taking his hand. He frowned down at the graze, then reached down and scooped Jungkook up into his arms.

Jungkook sighed in defeat and leant against Hoseok.

Fuck.

He hoped the only thing they’d decide he couldn’t do was playing. He hoped he didn’t have to go back to sitting in a lap at all times. He was starting to kind of appreciate sitting on a lap sometimes but, still, he didn’t want to do it ALL the time.

“Seokjin-hyung,” Hoseok called. Taehung and Jimin were trailing behind them and, when Jungkook glanced at them, they both looked guilty. “We’ve had a small accident.”

“Let me see.” This was Seokjin, stood in the main room. Hoseok carried him over and Jungkook held out his hand for inspection.

“It’s really nothing. Just a graze.”

“It’s bleeding,” Seokjin said, but he didn’t sound that concerned. “We should clean it.”

“He banged his knee too,” Jimin said, because Jimin was a little evil like that sometimes. Seokjin’s eyes moved down to his knee.

“How badly.”

“It’s fine,” Jungkook said. Though it did kind of sting. Seokjin snorted, then reached over and took him from Hoseok’s arms. He helped, transferring his weight from one to the other, and Seokjin carried him through to the bathroom.

“Let me see the knee,” he said, setting Jungkook down on his feet. Jungkook, a little surprised that he’d been set on the floor and not a counter, rolled up the leg of his trousers.

His knee was scraped but not bleeding. It’d be a little red and sore for a while but this was honestly nothing. He used to get banged up and scraped like this all the time when he worked on Earth.

Seokjin took his hand and rubbed something onto the wound. It stung a little but it wasn’t unbearable. Seokjin then lay a gauze over it and wrapped it carefully with a bandage, staring at it intently as though he could work out how bad it was through force of personality alone. Then he knelt down and looked at Jungkook’s knee.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, gently cupping Jungkook’s leg just below the scrape.

“A little,” Jungkook admitted, as he suspected lying wouldn’t be appreciated. “It’s not bad, though. I’ve had a lot worse.”

“I bet you have,” Seokjin said. He then took a little of the ointment he’d put on Jungkook’s hand and rubbed it into the graze on his knee. “We’d rather avoid some of the things I suspect have happened to you in the past happening here though. Can you walk without limping?”

“Yes,” Jungkook said, confidently, and when Seokjin raised a suspicious eyebrow he did it, easily walking down the room and back again.

Seokjin nodded when Jungkook made it back to him, then reached down and ruffled his hair.

“Okay, it’s not that bad. But rest today. You can come help me cook, alright? You can play more tomorrow.”

“I can play again tomorrow?” Jungkook asked, surprised. Seokjin smiled softly.

“It looked like you were having fun.”

“I was.”

“Then you can play tomorrow. Just give that hand a little bit of time to heal first, okay?”

“Okay,” Jungkook said. He couldn’t help but grin. He was going to get to play again tomorrow.

“Now, come help Hyung do some cooking, okay?”

“Okay,” Jungkook agreed.

And he followed Seokjin back out into the house and, apparently, into a future where he got to run around and play games.

*

The pleasant weather that had been the norm when Jungkook arrived blossomed into a heat wave that was distinctly unpleasant. There was hardly any breeze, the sun was relentless. Whatever it was he’d wanted to do, what Jungkook actually did was spend days lying on his back letting one of the others fan him. They seemed to have a little more tolerance for the heat than he did but they still grumbled.

And then, all at once, the weather broke.

Jungkook was sat in the main room with the guitar-like instrument in his lap, playing. He’d had a lesson with Yoongi earlier and now he was mostly just practicing, trying to coax the thing into versions of popular songs he remembered from back on Earth. It sounded enough like a guitar at first but there were subtle differences and nothing sounded quite how he’d remembered.

And then the rain started.

It started immediately and violently. One minute Jungkook was sat there with an open shirt trying to focus through the heat, the next it was torrential rain.

Hoseok, who’d been out in the courtyard, screamed. The others sprung into action, dashing out and shutting up the other rooms. Jungkook could only see them as shadows, the rain was so violent. It was enough to drown out his music so he put the instrument aside.

Yoongi was standing just in the dry, watching, so Jungkook went to stand next to him. The courtyard already looked like a very shallow pool, but it was draining off too. Jungkook had never noticed the drains before.

Yoongi put an arm around him, pulling him close, and Jungkook snuggled in against Yoongi’s side. On by one, the other drifted back in. Most of them were only damp, having stayed under the overhanging roof as they closed up the house, but Hoseok when he appeared was soaked to the bone and shaking.

“I hate the rain,” he said, yelling a little to be heard over the noise. Yoongi just grinned.

Once they were all in, Yoongi set about closing down the main room. Jungkook watched him carefully and once the shutters were down, it was at least a little easier to hear. The others, excluding Hoseok who'd gone to get dry, had all gathered around in the middle of the room, settling in on low cushions and passing around a plate of sweet cracker things. Jungkook slid over and, after a second’s contemplation, settled in Namjoon’s lap. Namjoon had a nice nap and, well, the rain made him feel a little unsettled. Namjoon seemed safe.

Not that he didn’t think all of them would do their best to take care of him but, well, Namjoon seemed safe.

Though it was quieter, it was still a little too loud to talk. Jungkook settled back against Namjoon and ate his cracker and watched them. None of them seemed too worried. Taehyung was playing with Seokjin’s hair. Jimin had stripped his shirt off and was busy arranging it over the back of a chair, presumably so it’d dry. It wouldn’t take long as, though the heat had dropped a little when the rain started, it was still too warm.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the rain eased. He could still hear it but lighter, now. More like the rains he was used to on Earth.

“Rainy season’s here,” Yoongi said in what was clearly a flippant tone. Jimin snorted.

“What’s the rainy season?” Jungkook asked, turning to look up at Namjoon. Namjoon was normally the best at answering a factual question. “Is this normal.”

“Very normal,” Namjoon promised, gently petting Jungkook’s hair in a way that was obviously designed to calm him. He was effective at it too and Jungkook let himself settle against Namjoon again. “After the heat of summer there’s always the rainy season. It won’t be like this all the time, it’ll ease sometimes, even stop, but the worst of the rains normally last about thirty days. Is it different on Earth?”

“Yes,” Jungkook said. “It rains I mean, obviously, but not like this. I mean, there are times of the year it rains more and I suppose it depends where you live but where I lived, in Korea, not like this.”

“That’s fine,” Namjoon said, softly. “It must be strange, then. But don’t worry, this is normal for us, for here. You’re safe.”

Jungkook nodded, snuggling a little closer into Namjoon’s side.

The rain seemed to make everyone a little subdued. They were used to having so much open space, now they were all confined. Yoongi went around opening doors between all the rooms, effectively turning he house into one long corridor, but it still felt a little claustrophobic, the sound of the rain always there, their voices quiet.

He stayed sat at Namjoon’s side and Namjoon stayed there with him, stroking his back, sitting with him as the others fetched snacks and wandered through the rooms.

In Lower Seoul, rain had never meant anything good. Sometimes it meant rain leaking into his room, growing patches of damp, the inevitability of mold. More often it meant hours trudging through the streets collecting garbage with only a thin raincoat to protect him. It never did very much and he was normally soaked to the bone by the time he got home. Rainy days were already bad pickings too, the residents of Upper Seoul staying inside.

Jungkook didn’t like rain.

The temperature carried on falling through the evening, at least, which was a relief. Eventually, Yoongi brought out an instrument Jungkook hadn’t seen before and started to play a song. Something new that Jungkook didn’t recognise but that blended nicely with the rain, making it seem more intentional, taking the edge off it a little.

Eventually, he pulled himself away from Namjoon’s side. He didn’t stray far, though. He didn’t leave the room, except when nature inevitably called, and then he hurried back as soon as he could.

He wondered if this house was protected against the rain properly? Surely it was, if this was normal. If was just that, on Earth, there were floods and mudslides and things. There were drains outside, he’d seen them, but what would happen if the weather was too extreme and the waters came up too high and the house flooded? How would they even go out in this to buy food and to work?

Taehyung must have noticed the worrying because he got out a game and encouraged Jungkook to join in but it wasn’t one they’d played before and Jungkook couldn’t focus or learn the rules. Eventually, he retreated back to Namjoon’s lap. And Namjoon seemed happy enough to hold him.

And the rain continued to fall.

Eventually they started heading to bed. Jungkook didn’t move.

He hated feeling like this. Lost and small. The downpour had started him and it seemed as though his mind was circling around all the worst things, the natural disasters he’d heard about, the days he’d been outside and cold and soaked and shivering with no way to protect himself for hours and hours and hours.

What would he do if something happened to them? Of course, he knew they’d try to protect him if there was a disaster but surely not at the cost of themselves? What if it came down to that? What if he died alone on an alien planet and there wasn’t even anyone left on earth to mourn him?

“I think it’s time to sleep,” Namjoon said eventually, stroking Jungkook’s spine. “Do you want me to carry you?”

Yes, Jungkook wanted that. It felt like too much to ask, though, so he just curled closer to Namjoon. Namjoon understood anyway, it seemed, and he lifted Jungkook gently in his arms then carried him down to the bedroom. Once there, he pulled back the covers and lay Jungkook down next to Hoseok and, when Jungkook didn’t let go, lay down beside him without making Jungkook ask and held him tight.

Once they were settled, Jungkook shifted until his head was on Namjoon’s chest and he lay there, listening to Namjoon’s heart. It was almost enough to drown out the sound of the rain.

*

The only good thing about panic was a body couldn't sustain it for very long. A few days after the rain started, Jungkook managed to go through an entire day without falling into a mood and going to curl up in someone’s lap. By the end of the first week, he almost didn’t notice the rain any more.

It still fell more or less constantly, but it varied in its intensity. Sometimes it would just be a light drizzle and they’d open the house to let some air circulate. These were also the days anyone who needed to go out went out, though Yoongi had assured Jungkook on the first full day of rain that people on Bora didn’t really work when the rains fell and that they had plenty of supplies set in. Jungkook had felt a little silly then, of course a planet that went through this every year would know how to deal with it. None of the others made fun of him, though, so he didn’t let it worry him.

It seemed that the rainy season was a time for storytelling and resting. They spent a lot of time lounging around together while one of them read out loud to the group. The stories were, of course, all unfamiliar to Jungkook and everyone else seemed to enjoy watching his reactions.

Still, by the end of the third week, he was bored.

He could still make his music, he could still paint, but he wanted something else. He wanted to move, to stretch. And he could hardly disturb them in the living area by doing that.

So he went to his room.

He couldn’t shut his room, the entire house was open, gaps in the walls normally covered with sliding panels and hangings now standing open to let them move around without being soaked, but his room was towards the end of the house so relatively peaceful and, since he was so much smaller than the others, if he just nudged the low table he painted at to the side he actually had quite a lot of space to work in.

The problem was, it had been years since he’d deliberately exercised. Since school, maybe. When he worked, work itself was so exhausting that by the time he got home he just wanted to curl up and sleep. And it was hardly like they had use of the gyms he saw when cleaning the streets of Upper Seoul. He knew that some of the people in Lower Seoul worked on their bodies, people who needed to stay strong for their jobs or who just found something in it that made it worth the exhaustion. Jungkook had never had the time.

Even at the bottom of society, there were levels of suffering after all.

Now, he ran through some half remembered stretches from his childhood. His body wasn’t used to moving in that way any more but it still felt good to stretch himself out. Then he tried to throw himself back into those half remembered gym classes. The gym in his school had been an echoing, cavernous space with a wooden floor and mold in the walls. It had always been too cold in there and some of the equipment had warning tape across it as it wasn’t safe to use.

His teachers had liked to make them run laps, and there wasn’t really room to do that in Jungkook’s room but he tried jogging on the spot and that helped. He did some jumping jacks, too, and some lunges, though he couldn’t quite remember how to do them correctly, then back to running until he started to feel the burn in his muscles, started to feel some relief.

That was when Jimin found him.

“Ah, Jungkook-ah,” he said, leaning in the doorway. “Feeling better?”

Jungkook felt his face flush. “I… yes. Sorry. I needed to move.”

“Don’t worry,” Jimin said, smiling sweetly. “I know the feeling. You didn’t have to come and hide, though. If you told one of us we’d have exercised with you.”

That would have been nice. He’d felt a little strange standing there running on the spot on his own but if there’d been two of them, it wouldn’t have been so bad. It would have been more companionable, at least.

He was starting to appreciate the company a little too much. Some day he was going to have to go back to Earth and be alone all the time again and he wouldn’t know what to do, not having people around all the time. Perhaps he’d have to go back to living in cramped shared rooms in Lower Seoul even though he could afford somewhere to live in Upper Seoul just so he wouldn’t have to be lonely.

He didn’t want to think about that, though. Going home way still a long time away and he wanted to be here with the people who seemed to want to be with him.

“Do you want to do some stretches with me then, Hyung, to finish?”

Jimin did, and he seemed to know more about stretching that Jungkook, working him through a more complete set than Jungkook had been able to remember.

And then they were done and Jungkook was sweaty and nasty and he wanted a shower. They’d more or less stopped hovering every time he went into the bathroom, which was good. There were some things he wanted to do alone and he didn’t need an alien to wipe his bottom. But it did mean, now, that he got a little lonely sometimes, and that there was nobody around to help him wash and brush his hair, that was getting pretty long now.

He glanced at the bathroom door. He could ask. He was sure Jimin wouldn’t say no. But if he asked, would they go back to doing it every time?

Still, he could ask.

“Jimin-hyung,” he said, uncertainly. “Will you help me bathe?”

And Jimin smiled a beautiful smile.

“Jungkook-ah, I would love to.”

Jimin lead him through to the bathroom looking very puffed up and proud of himself. He set the bath to filling and selected a range of bath salts and Jungkook came to stand at the edge of the bath and watch it fill. He didn’t normally bother, the tub was big enough to accommodate two of the Bora and he was so much smaller than them it seemed a waste, but it would be kind of nice to soak out his aches.

Once Jimin was happy with the mixture of bath salts he’d added, he turned and scooped Jungkook up in his arms and carried him over to the shower area then started to strip away his clothes.

“I can do this bit,” Jungkook protested, but Jimin just hummed and carried on helping him so Jungkook let him.

He had asked for this, after all.

Once he was naked, Jimin turned on the shower and washed him down, scrubbing him with a sponge. He was thorough with it, careful. Jungkook honestly didn’t take a lot of time with this himself. He liked to be clean but it always felt like too much of an indulgence to spend too long in the bathroom.

Jimin was thorough though and when he was done, Jungkook felt like a whole new person.

“I think I’ve lost an entire layer of skin,” he said, turning this way and that under the warm water. Jimin giggled at him.

“Have I unearthed a whole new Jungkook?” Some days, he did feel like that was what they were doing with him.

“Maybe a little,” Jungkook agreed. “Is the tub ready?”

It was. Or at least as ready as Jungkook needed, not full but up to a level where he could sit comfortably on the bottom and have his water up to the lower part of his chest. He could even lie back and float on it, given how big the pool was, so he did, closing his eyes and letting himself drift. The salts Jimin had used were nice, a little citrussy. It was comfortable, relaxing. He let himself drift, mentally and physically, Jimin there watching over him.

Eventually he was done with floating and let himself sink down to sit in the water again. Jimin was smiling at him indulgently and he smiled back, glad that Jimin was here, glad that he’d asked for this.

They talked for a while then, Jimin telling him stories from before he’d arrived while Jungkook gently steamed. Jimin seemed happy to just sit there and talk to him, occasionally stirring the water.

Jungkook had never had anything like this before. Anything like this attention, this care.

Eventually, the water started to cool and Jungkook stood up. Jimin lifted him out of the tub, saving him a scramble, then carried him back to the shower area.

“Hair, now,” Jimin said, setting him down. “It’s getting so long.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook agreed, reaching up to touch it. “I was never allowed to grow it out on Earth.”

“Not allowed to grow your hair?” Jimin asked, surprised. Jungkook shook his head.

“The people I wanted to work with wanted me to look smart. We could have our pay docked if we turned up not ready to work and someone with hair too long wasn’t ready to work.”

“Barbaric,” Jimin grumbled, directing Jungkook to a low stool. “Well, now you can do just what you want with your hair. Nobody here’s going to tell you to cut it.”

“I know,” Jungkook agreed. They all had longer hair themselves and he’d noticed they all seemed fond of his, touching it and stroking it. He liked it, mostly. Sometimes it was a bit distracting when he was trying to do other things but, well, it made them happy.

It made him happy too, a little bit. It was nice to be touched.

Jimin took his time washing Jungkook’s hair, applying different products and rubbing them in, leaving some of them to set in before applying others. Jungkook’s hair had probably never been so thoroughly washed. And of course the washing came with a scalp massage that just about made Jungkook melt. Perhaps he’d been wrong all along, he should never have been trying to wash alone, he only needed this.

Jimin even took the time to blow dry his hair, making sure it was all dry and then sitting there and brushing it out until it was silky smooth.

It was heaven. Jungkook felt like he was still floating in the water, drifting through life.

When Jimin was done with him he helped him into some new clothes then scooped him up and carried him through to the main communal room. Jungkook didn’t protest, flopping in Jimin’s arms.

“I melted Jungkook,” Jimin declared, sitting down with Jungkook in his lap.

“No fair, I want to melt Jungkook,” Taehyung protested.

“Look how sweet and floppy he is,” Hoseok said, appearing to stroke Jungkook’s cheek, and Jungkook felt a pleasant little curl in his gut. “Our cute little Jungkook. Come and sit in Hyung’s lap later, okay?”

“Okay,” Jungkook agreed.

Maybe a little lap sitting wasn’t so bad after all.

*

Once Jungkook had started to reach out, it became easier and easier to do it again. Easier and easier to climb into Namjoon’s lap and ask him to read for him. Easier and easier to let Seokjin carry him around or sit him on the counter and feed him bites of things while he cooked. Easier and easier to ask Hoseok for help with things and have Hoseok turn all that attention on him for a while. Easier and easier to cuddle up to Yoongi when he was feeling hungry and let Yoongi feed him all the best things. Easier and easier to go to Jimin for a hug or a hair wash or a pampering session. Easier and easier to find Taehyung for a game or something silly, to run giggling with him through the house, to tumble about and play fight knowing Taehyung would never really let him get hurt.

Things just got easier and easier. Just the seven of them in their little world with the rain falling down outside.

It was early evening and Jungkook, with the help of Taehyung, had dragged his painting things into the main room and all the others were lounging around. Taehyung was painting some kind of abstract face. Jungkook was trying to paint what he thought Earth must have looked like before. He’d been pictures in his textbooks but he’d never had enough money to leave the city and even if you could, apparently it was nothing like it used to be.

He was pretty sure his painting wasn’t anything like it used to be, either. He was pretty sure he’d invented some plants that didn’t exist, at least. And though he’d seen all the animals in various textbooks he wasn’t sure they all lived in this kind of environment.

Still, it didn’t really matter, and the aliens would never know the difference, they’d never go to Earth.

Yoongi was settled in the corner playing a quiet, peaceful song. Jungkook was in Seokjin’s lap, needing the boost to comfortably paint at the high table and also enjoying the contact. He hadn’t even realised back on Earth how much he’d missed skin on skin contact.

Namjoon was reading quietly. Hoseok was fixing up some clothes. Jimin was snacking, and occasionally reaching over to pop a snack into Jungkook’s mouth.

It was nice. Companionable. Good to just exist in the same space as them. He’d shared space on Earth for almost his entire life but it had never been like this, calm and comfortable. It had almost always been with people who didn’t really want to spend time with him. Other people right down at the bottom of the ladder who’d lay there with their backs turned to him while he curled up on his own bunk and wished himself anywhere else in the world. Sometimes they’d been mean, too. Or violent. He’d had people living in the same room who’d threatening him, stolen from him.

Something nudged his lips. He opened his month without thinking and let Jimin palace something inside which turned out to be a piece of fruit. He made a satisfied little sound as he chewed it.

“Look how talented our Jungkook is,” Seokjin said softly, looking down over Jungkook’s shoulder. “Is this what Earth looks like.”

“It’s what it used to look like, maybe.”

It was more or less all he painted, memories of Earth. He didn’t know what else to paint.

“When the rains have passed, we should start taking you out on adventures,” Seokjin said. The paintbrush fell from Jungkook’s fingers and he spun in Seokjin’s lap to look him in the eye.

“Out on adventures?”

“Yes,” Seokjin said, smiling. Please with himself. “I think you’re ready now. We can take you out with us a little. Show you things.”

“We can go to the sea,” Taehyung said, sounding almost as excited as Jungkook felt. “Namjoon-hyung, you love going to the sea!”

“I do love going to the sea,” Namjoon agreed. “But there are lots of places we go. You seem to draw a lot of mountains, Jungkook-ah. We can show you how the mountains look on this planet.”

“I do love mountains,” Jungkook said, turning back to look at his painting. “In Korea, there are mountains everywhere. In Lower Seoul, even when things were bad, at least you could always see the mountains. I don’t think there’s a place in Seoul, Upper or Lower, where you couldn’t see them. Though Upper Seoul had the best views, of course.”

“And you lived in Lower Seoul?” Jimin asked, carefully. Jungkook nodded.

“But Lower Seoul is boring. Tell me about the adventures we can go on!”

So they did, spinning stories for him of museums and parks and open lands and heading out to stay in the country and even travelling, visiting different continents, of deserts so dark you felt like the night sky was almost on top of you, of vast lakes and forests with trees so high that even a Bora would have trouble climbing them.

He wanted to see it. He wanted to see it all.

Eventually they lapsed into quiet again. Jungkook didn’t pick up his brush, just lay back into Seokjin’s arms daydreaming. How nice to go on adventures. How nice to live on a planet where it was safe to do that and where most of the land wasn’t ruined.

And then, suddenly, Jungkook realised something.

“Hyungs, the rain’s stopped.”

As soon as he said that, most of the others jumped to their feet. Only Seokjin, who was holding him, and Yoongi, who was under his instrument, stayed where they were. The rest of them pilled over, pulling up the shutter on the door and stepping out into the courtyard.

“Jungkook, come on,” Taehyung shouted. He was grinning like the sun and spinning in place in a puddle, sending water drops flying. “Come outside.”

Jungkook didn’t need any more encouragement. He climbed to his feet and ran out to join then, letting Taehyung take his hand and dance him in circles through the puddles, giggling madly. He nearly slipped a few times but every time he did there was a different pair of hands there, catching him, holding him up.

And the, out of nowhere, the rain started again.

The aliens shrieked and ran for cover. Hoseok paused to scoop Jungkook up and carry him, shielding Jungkook with his arms even as Jungkook giggled. The rain wasn’t that hard, it was almost refreshing, and the air was clear now at least and cool, the oppressive heat gone.

Back in the main room, they were all chatting. While they’d been playing, Yoongi had gone and gathered towels and Jungkook stood there nicely as Hoseok and Yoongi dried him and then let Seokjin carry him off for a change of clothes.

It felt good.

It felt like a new start.

And Jungkook was very glad he hadn’t run from the advert after all.

*

The end of the rains meant, apparently, the coming of a local festival.

Jungkook understood that. They’d all been cooped up inside for a while, of course they all wanted to go out and spent time together. Sadly, he didn’t just get to have his six all to himself for the rest of forever. But still, it’d be nice to go out. And they made it very clear that he would be going out with them, the seven of them heading to the festival together. Jungkook liked the easy way they included him in their plans, assuming that of course Jungkook would be there and bickering in a good natured way over who got to do what with him.

It was nice to feel wanted.

He told them a little about some of the festivals back on Earth. They hadn’t really had a lot, you didn’t get time of from work in Lower Seoul, but at times like Chuseok you might get a half day or you might get extra pay and people were always more generous with the things they threw away, though Jungkook didn’t tell them about his history picking trash.

And then sometimes on festival day in the evenings they’d have street parties. It was never a lot but people would drag out chairs and sit around and share what drinks and food they had. Sometimes there’d be someone with decorations. When Jungkook had been young, he’d lived in that kind of neighbourhood with his parents. And one or two days a year it would seem all the grown ups would appear, freed from their jobs, and everyone would gather to laugh and eat and sing. The children would roam the streets in wild gangs, laughing and playing. There’d be candy. It was the only time he ever really got candy.

The neighbourhoods he’d lived in as an adult, once his parents were gone, hadn’t been so nice. By then, the debt had been crushing enough to mean there were no nice street parties. No friendly neighbours.

But he had good memories, and he was happy to relive them.

Eventually, they had an entire day without rain. And then two. And then three.

On the fourth day, they held the festival.

Jungkook woke up early, too excited to carry on sleeping. He was curled up in bed between Namjoon and Jimin, having originally fallen asleep with Taehyung but woken up in the night, gone for water, and ended up curled up in a different space. The shutters were still down, they were still cautious that the rain might start again, but all Jungkook could hear was the breathing of the aliens lying in bed with him, no raindrops.

No rain.

Fourth day without rain, that was the festival.

Grinning, Jungkook wormed his way out of bed. Jimin made a little annoyed grunt but Namjoon didn’t even stir. Jungkook waited for a second to watch them curl into each other, filling the space between them where he’d been, then headed through the house to the main living area.

The air felt fresh which was his first sign that he wasn’t the only one awake. And then as he rounded the corner, there was natural light. The shutters on the main area was open and outside, the sky was clear and bright. Jungkook stumbled over and stepped out into the coartyard. It had been almost a pool for weeks and weeks and now it was finally dry, the water draining away as quickly as it had arrived.

It was a beautiful day and they were going to have a festival.

“Isn’t it a nice day?”

Jungkook turned and Hoseok was stood in the main room, watching him in amusement.

“Yes,” Jungkook said, turning and grinning. “Festival day.”

“Festival day,” Hoseok agreed. “But food first. Want to come help me and Seokjin-hyung?”

Jungkook did so he turned and walked back to the main room, climbing up the steps and letting Hoseok pull him into a hug then scoop him up and carry him. He didn’t mind the carrying at all now, not when he knew they’d let him run when he needed to.

Seokjin was in the kitchen humming to himself as he started the seemingly endless task of cooking for them all. Jungkook was far too short to reach the counters properly but Hoseok sat him on the counter instead and Seokjin gave him dumpling wrappers and filling and he got busy making dumplings. It was a job he enjoyed and you got delicious dumplings at the end of it so what was there not to love?

As he worked Hoseok and Seokjin talked, trading quiet stories about festivals they’d been too before and their days. You’d think two people who lived together all the time wouldn’t have a lot of say to each other, Jungkook’s parents had never seemed to have a lot of say to each other, but the aliens never seemed to run out of funny anecdotes and soft smiles.

Jungkook got about half way through the dumplings before his stomach gurgled, demanding food.

“Hyung,” he said, reaching out to snag Seokjin as he passed. “Can we steam some of these now?”

“Is our little Jungkookie hungry?” Seokjin asked, reaching out to pat Jungkook’s head. Jungkook just nodded and offered the dumpling in his hand. Seokjin took it willingly enough and went to start the steamer as Jungkook went back to folding.

By the time the dumplings were done steaming Yoongi and Taehyung had emerged and Taehyung came to steal Jungkook from the counter for cuddles. He was always cuddly in the morning and Jungkook was happy to go, wrapping his arms and legs around Taehyung and Taehyung carried him over to the most comfortable chair, sat down, and wrapped himself around Jungkook like a very cuddly teddy bear.

Jungkook didn’t mind, mostly because Yoongi followed them with a plate of freshly steamed dumplings and sat there, alternating between eating them and feeding them to Taehyung and Jungkook until the plate was empty.

And by then Jimin and Namjoon were awake and more dumplings were ready.

They passed the morning in a slow, leisurely way. They went around and opened all the shutters then swept out the rooms with a big broom because that was meant to bring luck. Jungkook had a go and they all giggled at him trying to use a broom that was taller than he was until he gracefully stepped back and let the others actually finish.

It was fun, though. And he liked that that were including him.

He liked them.

It wasn’t the first time he’d thought it, not really, but it was the first time it’s hit him so suddenly. He liked them. He liked all of them, and he liked his life here. He liked having enough to eat and making art and cuddling under the blankets to avoid the rain and playing games. Of course he did, it was better than what he’d had before, struggling to survive.

It was more that that though. He liked THEM. He liked Jimin’s care and the way Namjoon took all his questions seriously. He liked Seokjin’s jokes and the way Hoseok fussed so much because he cared. He liked Teahyung’s free spirit and the way Yoongi was so solid and dependable.

He liked them all so much he wanted to shout about it. He wanted to sing.

He didn’t do that, of course, but he did throw his arms around Taehyung’s middle and pout until Taehyung let him stand on his feet and danced him around the courtyard, giggling the entire time.

It was about midday when they finally left for the festival.

It was the first time Jungkook had been out of the house since they’d brought him back with them, and back then he hadn’t exactly been in the right headspace to appreciate where he was. Their home was set back from the road surrounded by what looked like farm land. They had to walk quite a long way just to get to the nearest village. He enjoyed the walk, playing games with the others as they went, challenging them to races and teaching them to play hopscotch.

Once they got to the village, Seokjin insisted on picking him up so he didn’t get hurt and Jungkook indulged him, using the height advantage from being lifted to check out what was happening around him.

The town was surprisingly large given it was so rural. Or, at least, there were a lot of people there for the festival. They made their way to a sprawling town square which was lined with tables piled high with sweets. Seokjin carried him straight over and started handing him delicacies, tiny dense pastries and rich fruits, beaded with juice.

They quickly lost the others in the crush but Seokjin didn’t seem worried so Jungkook tried not to worry either, just clung on tight and leaned into Seokjin’s arms.

It wasn’t like the others had gone far, after all. He kept catching sight of them through the crowd.

He just liked it better when they were all together and he knew where they were.

He tried to talk to Seokjin but it was hard over the noise of the crowd. Seokjin seemed to notice he was feeling a little uncertain and carried him over to the side of the courtyard where it was quieter, finding them a corner to hide in.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Seokjin asked, his voice warm against Jungkook’s cheek. Jungkook nodded, then shrugged.

“Where is everyone? I thought we’d be together.”

“Oh we will,” Seokjin promised, stroking his back gently. “Soon. But we have other things to do too. Yoongi’s performing music and Jimin’s dancing, we’ll get to see them on the stage later. The others are seeing friends and checking in but they’ll be back soon. We’re not leaving you, Jungkook-ah.”

“I know,” Jungkook said, but he curled his body closer to Seokjin. “Just stay with me.”

“I will. I won’t put you down, I promise. We’ve promised to look after you, haven’t we?”

Jungkook nodded because they had. The entire point of his being there on an alien planet was for them to look after him.

Still, he wanted the others. It was better when they were together.

“Shall we go and find them all?” Seokjin asked, pressing Jungkook closer against him. Jungkook nodded, and Seokjin gently squeezed him then set off into the crowd.

They found Taehyung first, he was playing some kind of game that involved kicking a beanbag around which he immediately abandoned to run over and join Jungkook and Seokjin. Jungkook freed a hand from Seokjin to cling to Taehyung for a moment, while also watching the game out of the corner of his eye. It looked fun. He wondered if he could convince the others to play later.

“Is it time to gather up already?” Taehyung asked, pressing close so they could hear him over the music and the crowd. “I didn’t think it was that late.”

“Jungkook wanted to find everyone,” Seokjin said, and he made it sound as though it was a perfectly reasonable request and that Jungkook hadn’t been clinging to him like a scared child. Jungkook couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed at that and forced himself to ease his hold a little but Seokjin didn’t let go of him at all.

“Ah, well, it is nice to be all together,” Taehyung said, apparently abandoning his game and his friends just like that. “Shall we look for the others?”

And at that, his easy agreement, the smile he gave as he followed them away, Jungkook’s heart beat just a little faster.

They wanted to be with him, just like he wanted to be with them.

Hoseok and Jimin were easy to find as they were with a group getting ready to dance. They both pet Jungkook’s hair and promised they’d come find him as soon as the dance was done and he did kind of want to see them dance so that was fine. Namjoon was hanging out talking to a group of people and seemed very happy to abandon them to come and talk to them instead.

They found Yoongi last, by the side of the stage with a group of others waiting to play music.

“Ah, here you all are,” he said, as though he’d been expecting them and they were late. “Jungkook-ah, come here. I’ve been telling everyone how clever you are and how well you’ve been learning our music.”

“Hyung,” Jungkook whined, turning to hide his face in Seokjin’s shoulder, but Seokjin only laughed and, when Yoongi approached, handed Jungkook over to him. Jungkook begrudgingly let himself be transferred, letting go of Seokjin to cling to Yoongi instead.

“Do you want to show them?” Yoongi asked, carrying Jungkook over to the instrument he’d brought with him. It was a long board with lots of different strings and Yoongi had been teaching him this one but it’d been slow going because it was really far to big for him.

“I’m not good with this one,” Jungkook complained, but when Yoongi folded down to sit cross legged on the floor, arranged Jungkook so he was sat in the fold on Yoongi’s legs then pulled the instrument over and set it across his lap, Jungkook felt a strange tangle of excitement in his guts. The other unfamiliar aliens, Yoongi’s bandmates, were crouching down, crowding closer to listen. He swallowed. He wanted to do this. But more, he wanted to do it well. He wanted to make Yoongi proud.

He positioned his fingers carefully, just like Yoongi had shown him. The instrument was played by plucking the strings but quickly, and in the right place and in the right order. He took a deep breath then, wanting to try the hardest thing he was sure he could do, played the tune Yoongi had been teaching him the week before, something that Yoongi had described as a folk tune.

He must have done it right as all the aliens gathered around made little noises of approval, nodding their heads. When he’d finished, one of them asked, “Has he really just started learning? Most pupils don’t play like that until their third year at least.”

“I told you he was a genius,” Yoongi said, smugly, and perhaps Jungkook’s playing hadn’t been going so slowly after all.

“Keep playing like that and next year you can come up on stage with us?”

“Really,” Jungkook blurted, then looked down as the alien was joking. Probably. He had to be joking as there was no way anyone would invite him up on stage.

But the alien didn’t laugh or take it back and Yoongi rubbed his side reassuringly.

“I don’t see any reason why you can’t,” Yoongi said. “If that’s what you want to do. We can work hard on it together.”

“I’d like that,” Jungkook said, and Yoongi leant in and gently rubbed their cheeks together.

And Jungkook felt so warm and full. Held wrapped up safe in Yoongi’s arms, loved, thinking about a future where he got to perform and play music. He’d never thought that was the kind of thing he could have in his future but now he couldn’t help but feel hopeful.

Then someone shouted for the musicians to get ready and Jungkook was taken quickly by Seokjin again so Yoongi could head up onto the stage.

Where they were stood wasn’t a perfect view but it was good enough to watch as Yoongi took the stage and began to play. He was good. Of course he was good. Jungkook felt a surge of pride watching him. He reached out to catch hold of Namjoon’s arm and keep him close.

And then Jimin and Hoseok and their dance group emerged onto the stage.

They were both beautiful, moving fluidly to the music Yoongi was making. Jungkook felt his mouth drop open, the others press in closer around him. They were amazing. The crowd appreciated them too, loudly stamping their feet and yelling praise.

Which was as it should be. Jungkook’s aliens were the best. Sweet and kind and talented and tolerant and he wanted to stay with them forever.

He wanted to stay with them forever.

As soon as the thought hit him, he felt as though the bottom had fallen out of his stomach.

He wanted to stay with them forever.

And they wanted him to stay with them for ten years.

And then they’d get something better.

*

On Earth, Jungkook had been very good at hiding his emotions. He’d been scared and frustrated and angry but he’d learnt to greet the world with a blank face, letting it wash over him.

The thing was, he didn’t know how to hide his emotions when everyone expected him to be happy but suddenly he didn’t feel it. He’d never had to fake happiness before, nobody had ever expected it of him.

“Jungkook-ah,” Jimin said, softly. He was loitering by the open front of Jungkook’s room. Jungkook was sat at his table with his painting things out. He’d found the paper and mixed the paint and had been sat there for perhaps half an hour with his loaded brush pressed to the page, leaving a large circular stain and nothing else.

“I’m just a little tired,” Jungkook said, cutting off the question about his health before it could arrive. He’d already fielded it twice that day. Of course he had. He obviously wasn’t okay.

He didn’t want to go home.

He knew he was being dramatic. He hadn’t been been on the planet for a year. He had so much more time. He should be enjoying it. If they started to hate him because he was moody he was only likely to be sent home earlier.

But every time he thought about going back to Earth his stomach clenched. Every time he thought about being alone. And what was he going to be like after ten years? After ten years of affection and support. He was going to get back to Earth and crumple. He’d need every penny they sent him with just to stay grasping to life while he fell apart and missed them.

He didn’t want to go home.

But if he had to, maybe it was better to push them away now. To create the space now, so that when he did go, perhaps he’d still have a little of the defences he’d built up all those years ago to hold him up.

“Would you like some food?” Jimin tried. “I can go fetch anything you like.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jungkook said. His stomach was too twisted to eat. “I think I’m just going to lie down. I’ll clean up the paints, first. I won’t ruin anything.”

“I can clean up the paints, if you want to lie down?”

“No, I’ll do it,” Jungkook said, standing. He kept his eyes down so he didn’t have to look at Jimin as he started gathering the paints he’d just mixed and tidying everything away.

Eventually, Jimin left. Jungkook tried not to notice. He just carried on cleaning then, when it was done, crawled into his bed and pulled the covers over his head.

*

He got away with his plan to put distance between them all for five days before someone snapped.

He should have known it would be Seokjin. He hadn’t been thinking about it, though. Just about the low churn of hurt and panic in his gut. The same low churn of hurt and panic that he’d felt to some degree every day on Earth and that he hadn’t even really realised was gone until it was back and he was curled up uselessly in his bed, not knowing how to be the person they wanted him to be.

The day before Taehyung had crept into the room and tried to cuddle him, tried to feed him. He’d eaten a few mouthfuls just to make Taehyung smile but he hadn’t wanted it.

He wanted to stay.

If he told them, they’d laugh at him. They didn’t want him. He was just a trial, a proof that they could keep something alive, a pet.

It was hard to believe that when Yoongi came quietly into the room, set a plate of crackers with a savory topping down next to Jungkook, then settled on the floor and played music for him for over an hour.

And Jungkook’s heart ached. All he wanted to do was to crawl out of the bed and into Yoongi’s arms and let Yoongi hold him as he played and let Yoongi teach him and make him smile. He wanted to make them all smile. He wanted to be good enough that they’d keep him.

They didn’t want to keep him.

He was busy driving himself mad by thinking how much they’d never love him as much as he wanted them to when Seokjin came into the room. He didn’t creep like the others. He walked with purpose. He walked right up to the side of the bed then, without any warning, pulled away the covers.

Jungkook blinked up at him, suddenly exposed. Seokjin threw the covers to the floor.

“That’s enough,” he said, stepping forward and scooping Jungkook up into his arms. Jungkook made a little noise in surprise and threw his arms around Seokjin’s neck.

“Hyung,” he said, but Seokjin didn’t stop or ask questions, he just turned and carried Jungkook through to the bathroom.

He’d clearly been preparing for this as there was already water in the tub. He set Jungkook down on the counter then set about stripping him. Jungkook squirmed, tried to push him away, but Seokjin was both stronger and insistent, peeling Jungkook out of the clothes he’d been rotting it and dropping them into a hamper.

“Hyung,” Jungkook whined, curling his legs up to his chest. “I want to go back to bed. Please.”

“No,” Seokjin said, firmly. “I told you I was going to take care of you and I’m going to do it with or without your permission. Shower.”

Jungkook’s mouth dropped open. Surely Seokjin couldn’t just make him? Surely if he yelled or fought the others would come and help him?

He had an horrible suspicion they wouldn’t.

“No,” Jungkook said, curling into himself even more. “I don’t want to. I want… leave me alone. I want you to leave me alone.”

“Well, that’s not happening,” Seokjin said, firmly. He reached over and scooped Jungkook up like a naughty child, ignoring his squirming and his attempts to get away, then carried him across the room to the shower area and dropped him on a stool. Jungkook climbed up again but by then Seokjin had grabbed the shower head and aimed it at him and Jungkook stood there in disbelief as he was soaked, mouth hanging open.

He was so damn angry.

He supposed it beat feeling sad.

“Hyung!” he exclaimed, stamping his foot. Seokjin approached with a bottle of soap.

“Sit down, Jungkook-ah. Hyung’s going to take care of you.”

“I don’t want you too,” Jungkook said, trying to step out of the way of the shower head, but Seokjin just followed him. “Hyung, stop.”

“No,” Seokjin said. “Jeon Jungkook, I received you broken and beaten and half starved and terrified and I nursed you back to health and I’m not going to watch you destroy yourself again over whatever is bothering you. I’m going to clean you and feed you and then you’re going to tell Hyungs what’s wrong and we’re going to fix it!”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t broken,” Jungkook protested, though his hand was shaking.

“You were terrified of your own shadow, we could count all of your ribs, your leg was broken, you winced every time we touched you,” Seokjin said. And, yes, he supposed those things were true. He supposed he had been so scared, at first, until he realised how good they were, how kind. He had been thin, worn, on the edge of giving up.

Perhaps there was a reason beyond their need to coddle him that, at first, they hadn’t even let him walk.

Perhaps he had needed it a little more than he realised to rest and be cared for.

“Let Hyung take care of you,” Seokjin said, again, his voice softer now Jungkook was frozen, thinking about those first days instead of trying to run away. “Come and sit here and be a good boy for me, Jungkook-ah. We’ll get you clean and then we’ll fix it, we promise.”

“What if you can’t fix it?” Jungkook asked, his voice shaking.

“Sweet boy, I don’t think there’s anything in the world we wouldn’t try to fix for you. Now come let Hyung wash you.”

“I don’t…” Jungkook took a faltering step forward. He wanted that. He wanted Seokjin to take care of him. He wanted them all to take care of him. He stumbled forward another step and Seokjin reached for him, sweeping him up in his arms and holding him close.

And Jungkook could feel tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. He was small and scared and naked and Seokjin was holding him and he never wanted Seokjin to let go.

So he leant in and he let himself cling like he hadn’t since the night of the festival.

Seokjin sat down, pulling Jungkook into his arms and tucking Jungkook against his chest and Jungkook pressed his face into Seokjin’s broad shoulders.

He was shaking. Seokjin had to feel he was shaking.

“Tell me what’s wrong, sweet boy,” Seokjin said, voice so gently. “Tell me what’s wrong and Hyung will move the planets and the stars to make you happy again.”

And Jungkook told him.

“I don’t want to go back to Earth.” He whispered the words into Seokjin’s shirt, eyes closed as though that would make it less real. “I don’t want to go back to Earth. I want to stay here with the six of you forever.”

Seokjin was quiet for a second, then he laughed.

“Silly boy,” he said. “Who said you’re going back to Earth?”

“Not now, I know,” Jungkook said, feeling his cheeks flush. “But in ten years. And I know it’s greedy, I’ve got almost ten entire years left yet to have you all to myself, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough, Hyung. I want to stay here forever.”

“Of course you’re staying,” Seokjin said, as though that was something obvious, something Jungkook should know. “My sweet boy, do you think after all the trouble I’ve taken to undo the harm your planet did to you that I’m just going to send you back there?”

Jungkook pulled back at that, looking up at Seokjin. Seokjin was smiling down at him, clearly happy that Jungkook’s problem was so easy to solve.

“You… my contract is for ten years,” Jungkook said, slowly. “And Yoongi said, back on the space station, that it was training. So you could get a Hae. That’s what you want.”

“What’s what we wanted,” Seokjin corrected. “We were going to tell you for a while yet, we didn’t want to scare you, but we want to keep you, Jungkook-ah. We weren’t going to but then we got to know you and how could anyone know you and not love you? How could we not see how sweet you were and how talented and how perfectly you fit in with us and how happy you made us? Why would we want to try bringing someone else in when we already found the perfect person for us?”

“Hyung,” Jungkook said, voice thick with tears. Seokjin reached out and stroked his cheek and the tears started to fall, his shoulders shook as he cried, and Seokjin just gathered him in tight and rocked him.

And he’d never felt so safe, so loved.

Seokjin had said he loved him.

That they loved him.

“Sweet boy, you couldn’t have really believed we’d let you go,” Seokjin said, softly. “Not when you make us so happy. We adore you.”

“I love you too,” Jungkook said, voice shaky. “All of you. Want to stay here with all of you forever and make music and art and be happy.”

“We want that for you too,” Seokjin promised. “Do you want to go talk to the others now and let them reassure you? Then we can shower?”

Jungkook nodded, and Seokjin stood with Jungkook clutched tight to his chest. He turned of the water then carried Jungkook to the counter and helped him dress in some new, clean clothes before carrying him out.

Jimin was lurking in the corridor outside, looking worried.

“Ah, Jimin-ah,” Seokjin said, stepping close so that Jungkook could reach out and tough Jimin, which he did. “Our Jungkook was worried that we’re going to send him home and he wants to stay here with us forever instead.”

The change in Jimin’s expression was magical, from worry to delight in a matter of seconds.

“Really, Jungkook-ah? You want to stay?”

Jungkook nodded, feeling a little shy now, but Jimin reached in and crushed him and Seokjin in a hug, pressing Jungkook between their bodies.

“I’m so glad. I mean, we weren’t going to let you go, of course, but we were afraid you might want to. That we might have to fight you. But if you want to stay that’s so much better! Ah, Jungkook-ah. We have to go and tell the others.”

“I was just on my way to do that,” Seokjin said.

And so Jungkook was carried through to the main room, where Seokjin announced that Jungkook was staying and was met with cries of delight. Jungkook found himself crying again as they swarmed him, stroking his hair and cuddling him and tell him how special he was, how he was theirs.

He’d never belonged to anyone before. Not really. Not like this. He wanted them to never let him go.

And, for the first time, he felt like maybe they wouldn’t.

Eventually, the excitement died down and Seokjin carried him back to the bathroom. The water had gone cold but Taehyung and Jimin had come with them and Jimin ran a new bath and Taehyung and Seokjin showered Jungkook, not letting him lift a single finger to clean himself.

From there he was shuffled into the bath and the others appeared, carrying plates of his favourite food. Seokjin sat in the tub with Jungkook on his lap and the others gathered around, hand feeding him, talking, laughing, making promises about the future he was going to have, the future they were going to build for him where he got to make music and art.

And where he was going to be loved every single day.

Eventually the water started to get cold again so Jungkook let himself be dried and pampered and wrapped up in his favourite clothes and carried to the main room where he spent the rest of the day being passed from lap to lap, all of them taking it in turn to tell him how precious he was, how much they wanted to keep him.

And that night as he lay between them all, on an alien planet an unthinkable distance from where he was born, and really let himself dream of the future, he finally felt like he was home.

THE END