Chapter Text
Seokjin presented as an omega at eighteen years old.
The first time he brought an alpha home for a heat, Jeongguk punched a hole in the wall.
He was thirteen.
But that was not where their story began.
It began with a memory.
The truth was this:
Jeongguk had always loved Seokjin.
Jeongguk’s first unofficial memory was of his mother. He did not want to disillusion her, did not want to take away from her this fabricated tale, his first memory of her smiling face.
But he had a memory even clearer than that one, earlier than that one, of Seokjin, angel-faced even as a child, pink pouty lips and curious eyes. He squinted at Jeongguk, head tilting, no more than seven years old, and said, “He’s not much to look at, is he?”
Later, Seokjin aggressively denied that this had ever happened. “I would never,” he gasped, hand on heart, but Jeongguk remembered.
He would have been a baby still, just two years old, but he remembered.
And that was sort of the thing. Jeongguk remembered everything when it came to Seokjin.
Despite Seokjin’s early, critical appraisal, Jeongguk was an adorable child. Angelic, even, some might say, when he wasn’t causing trouble. Causing trouble, however, was something that Jeongguk seemed to like to do. He had an early disregard for authority, which only worsened with age, not helped at all by the fact that, contrary to what adults told him, Jeongguk was usually right about things.
He grew up in Seokjin’s shadow, always just on the wrong side of too little and too young for Seokjin to play with. Their mothers met twice a week for English Tea, but Seokjin managed to escape each time, darting off, and Jeongguk, unable to keep up, was left behind.
He remembered thinking that he would be old enough to play with Seokjin one day. But as a child he had no concept of time, no idea that as he got older, so did Seokjin, the gap between them always, completely, unequivocally the same. It was maddening, that gap, because Jeongguk could not figure out how to cross it.
Seokjin was always on the other side.
“The baby is following you again,” Yoongi mumbled, hopping up on the fence to sit beside Seokjin and Namjoon.
Seokjin turned, looking over his shoulder. He spotted Jeongguk, small and wobbly, ambling slowly toward them.
“He’s not a baby,” he countered, though Yoongi just shrugged his thin shoulders.
Namjoon leaned around Seokjin, staring Yoongi down. “I’m only three years older than Jeongguk. What does that make me, huh?”
But Yoongi just smirked. “A genius,” he said, and Namjoon blushed, grumbling to himself, even though it was true.
Namjoon was only friends with them because he had been bumped up to Seokjin’s grade, and Seokjin had taken him in, so to speak. Yoongi lived in a different school district. But his mother was in the same social circle as Seokjin’s mother.
Still, the three of them got along. Surprisingly well. Seokjin thought it was because they all balanced each other out.
But even he could tell that Yoongi’s patience was wearing thin with their five-year-old shadow.
“I’ll take Jeongguk back home,” said Seokjin, jumping down from the fence, brushing off his clothes and sighing heavily.
“You’re not responsible for him,” Yoongi drawled.
But Seokjin shook his head. “Someone has to be.”
He waved, and Yoongi and Namjoon returned the gesture.
Jeongguk stopped walking as Seokjin approached him, and Seokjin came to a halt with a sigh, holding out his hand for Jeongguk to take.
“You can’t keep following me, Gukie,” he said, gently chastising.
It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, rejecting Jeongguk. He was a cute kid. Small and compact, but round and soft with big eyes. He was cute. It made Seokjin sad, to see his chin tremble when he got in trouble.
Jeongguk lifted his small shoulders, trying to hide between them. “I want to,” he said, voice small and hesitant.
Seokjin knelt down and wrapped both of his hands around Jeongguk’s tiny fingers. “I want to, ‘hyung,’” he corrected, and Jeongguk smiled at him. He had his first loose tooth, and Seokjin could see him wiggling it with his tongue.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk mumbled.
Seokjin stood up, still holding onto one of Jeongguk’s hands.
“Come on,” he said, and started walking back toward the house. “I’ll teach you Mario.”
Jeongguk stumbled trying to keep pace with him, even though Seokjin slowed his gait.
“The first thing you need to know about Mario,” said Seokjin seriously, once they made it back to the house, and he was trying to fit Jeongguk’s hands around the Nintendo controller. “Is that it isn’t just a game. Okay? Mario is everything.”
Jeongguk blinked slowly at him, but nodded all the same.
“Also, I’m not going to let you win,” Seokjin told him. “I don’t care that you’re younger than me. I don’t joke around about Mario.”
Jeongguk nodded again. “Okay, hyung.”
Seokjin sniffed, lifting his chin a little. “Alright. Good. Here’s how you play. We’ll start with Rainbow Road.”
Seokjin didn’t know it at the time, but his mother snuck out of the English Tea gathering in the kitchen and snapped a photo of the two of them, Seokjin cross-legged on the floor, Jeongguk sitting up on two pillows, deeply invested in beating each other. Her camera caught the moment that Jeongguk won for the first time, a wide, joyful smile on his face, Seokjin looking utterly shocked and slightly betrayed.
Years later, Seokjin found that photo in a dusty box hidden away in his old, childhood room. He framed it, but not before printing more copies, one of which went to Jeongguk.
In a way, Seokjin thought it portrayed their relationship perfectly:
Jeongguk, wild, carefree, always wearing a smile as he crushed his competition. Seokjin, shocked, baffled, and always surprised at how easily Jeongguk upended his world.
The truth was this:
Jeongguk had always loved Seokjin.
But eventually, they both grew up, and, as a factor of that growth, drifted apart. Not too far apart. Their mothers were still friends. And, in a way, Jeongguk and Seokjin were still friends too.
But at ten years old, Jeongguk found his own circle of peers, friends his own age, who he could play with and have adventures with and explore the world with, when, at fifteen, Seokjin considered himself too old for those things.
Seokjin was more interested in destroying his mother’s kitchen by trying out new recipes than he was in being outside. He and Yoongi and Namjoon were all in high school now, though Namjoon was soon going to outpace his elders, and Yoongi spent all of his time, both in the classroom and out of it, with headphones looped loosely around his neck, one earpad up over an ear, always halfway in the music, leaving the other ear to catch what might be happening in the real world.
Seokjin made Namjoon and Yoongi taste-test his new recipes. This worked out well for him, and, he knew, for them too. Seokjin was a good cook, and even though his creations sometimes made Namjoon raise an eyebrow, for the most part he came up with pretty good stuff.
Sometimes, Jeongguk ended up trying his food.
Seokjin was never really sure how it happened, but occasionally he was coerced into babysitting. Neither Jeongguk or Seokjin thought that Jeongguk needed a babysitter, but their opinions hardly mattered.
So Jeongguk sulked, looking grumpy and cute, while Seokjin hastily threw together a bowl of ramyun for him to eat one afternoon when they ended up stuck with each other.
Jeongguk played with his food, dragging his chopsticks through the noodles as Seokjin tried to get his new kitchen torch to work.
“Are you allowed to use that?” asked Jeongguk, eyes wide as a jet of fire finally escaped the torch.
“Eat your noodles,” snapped Seokjin, without even looking at him.
Jeongguk pushed his bowl away and stood up. “What is that?” he asked, inching closer to the counter, head tilting curiously.
Seokjin sighed. “It’s supposed to be crème brûlée. It’s French.” He glanced at Jeongguk consideringly. “Want to try it?”
Jeongguk bit his lip, staring at the little dish that Seokjin had just torched. Then he shrugged.
“Sure.”
A minute later, Seokjin folded his hands nervously and watched Jeongguk dip a spoon into the dessert. He chewed for a minute, seeming adorably bunny-ish, and then looked up at Seokjin with wide eyes.
“Hyung!” he said. “This is so good!”
Seokjin beamed.
Neither of them minded much, after that, when Seokjin was tasked with babysitting Jeongguk. He generally just let Jeongguk do whatever he wanted, and then made him taste-test.
Jeongguk loved everything Seokjin made, and he wasn’t sure if it was because Jeongguk had the appetite of a young, growing boy, or if it was because he was just too nice to tell Seokjin when something didn’t taste good.
“It’s because he likes you,” said Yoongi bluntly, when Seokjin told him later.
Namjoon nodded, agreeing.
Seokjin’s face scrunched up. “No, he doesn’t.” He waved his hands, stopping the protests he could see forming in the mouths of his friends. “He doesn’t. He’s too young to even know what that means.”
Namjoon made a face. “You don’t give him enough credit.”
“He’s liked you for years, hyung,” said Yoongi, exasperation bleeding into a voice that had finally deepened and roughened a little. “Forever.”
Seokjin bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he denied, though with more hesitance in his voice. “Maybe.”
The problem was, Seokjin wasn’t very good at noticing things, at least, right up until they were pointed out to him. After that, he couldn’t stop noticing.
In the following weeks, he didn’t spend any more time with Jeongguk than was normal. They saw each other once, maybe twice a week. But Seokjin devoted extra attention to watching Jeongguk’s face, his body language, even the way he talked.
Oh, no, he thought. Yoongi was right.
It was all there, in Jeongguk’s eyes. He was too young to have learned to build a façade, and so there was none. His face shone with a sort of innocent adoration, directed entirely at Seokjin. He didn’t even seem to be aware of it.
Seokjin’s mind raced, reaching back through memory after memory, across the years that he had known Jeongguk. But in every memory it was the same. Jeongguk, bright, alive, open, staring at Seokjin like he was the sun.
Had there ever been a time, thought Seokjin, when Jeongguk had not looked at him like that?
When Jeongguk turned twelve, he had to read Romeo and Juliet for school.
He didn’t particularly care for Shakespeare, didn’t particularly care for reading at all, but the play settled into him softly, and he kept thinking about it long after finishing it, kept recalling moments, kept remembering star-crossed lovers.
“But, soft!” he murmured, leaning against his bedroom window, imagining that he could see Seokjin’s apartment despite the distance between them. “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
Jeongguk did not necessarily consider himself a romantic soul.
It was simple, really. He had always loved Seokjin. That wasn’t romantic. It was just true. It was woven into every aspect of his life, every fiber of his being, every breath he took.
In science class, they had begun learning about matter, about atoms and particles and cells, and the elements that made up everything.
Jeongguk thought that if he were to be pulled apart, if his body was separated into the trillions of cells that composed him, each and every one of them would love Seokjin.
The most confusing part about it, was that Jeongguk wasn’t always even sure why he loved Seokjin. Sure, Seokjin had the face of an angel. He was the most beautiful person Jeongguk had ever seen. He was funny, and friendly, and most of all, kind. He had a contagious, squeaky laugh, and the tips of his fingers never quite straightened out. It drove Seokjin crazy, but Jeongguk, even at twelve, had imagined what it would be like to kiss each of his fingertips.
But Seokjin wasn’t always perfect. He had a mean streak that didn’t come out often, but when it did, it was better not to be in the vicinity. He was going to be a great chef one day, but Jeongguk had seen him stuff ungodly amounts of food into his mouth. He could be a little controlling, a little bossy.
But Jeongguk loved him.
It was nearly a part of his identity, now.
He watched his friends experience their first crushes, and the jitters and the butterflies that went along with it. He watched them pass notes, feel heartbreak for the first time, and joy for the first time.
Jeongguk had only ever felt any of that for Seokjin.
Sometimes he wondered, was he missing out? Was he skipping some important part of his childhood by not finding a first love his own age?
But loving someone who wasn’t Seokjin didn’t make sense to him. It was a fleeting thought, entertained only for one second, dismissed in the next.
He would not be Jeongguk if he did not love Seokjin.
Romeo and Juliet died for their love.
Was it always tragic, contemplated Jeongguk, breath fogging on the window pane, when it was true?
“Hyung,” Jeongguk gasped, pushing his dripping hair back off his forehead. “Hyung, what does it mean, to fall in love?”
Seokjin stared at him. He was soaking wet and shivering, his clothes clinging to his skinny frame. Seokjin opened his apartment door wider, grasped the front of Jeongguk’s rain-drenched shirt, and yanked him inside.
“Are you crazy?” asked Seokjin, steering him toward the bathroom. “It’s pouring outside. Jeongguk, did you walk here? You’re going to get sick!”
“But, hyung—” Jeongguk began, before Seokjin pushed him into the bathroom.
“Dry off!” Seokjin commanded through the closed door. “I’ll find you some clothes.”
Seokjin pushed the smallest pair of sweats he owned and a plain white shirt through a crack in the door a moment later, Jeongguk’s hand darting out to take them.
“What were you thinking?” asked Seokjin, leaning against the wall, speaking to the crack that Jeongguk left by not bothering to close the door all the way again. “Does your eomma know you’re here?”
Inside the bathroom, Jeongguk rolled his eyes.
“Are you hungry?” asked Seokjin, without waiting for his answer. “Cold? I can make soup.”
“I’m not hungry,” said Jeongguk, pulling on the shirt and coming out of the bathroom. “I just want to talk to someone.”
Seokjin eyed him carefully. He had grown a little taller in the last year, but his face was still soft. His eyes, though. They were sharp. Always discerning. It made Seokjin nervous, that sheen in Jeongguk’s eyes. His eyes always looked so much older than the rest of him.
“Why do you want to talk to me?” asked Seokjin slowly.
Jeongguk shrugged. “I don’t know, hyung,” he said. “I trust you. You talk to me like a person. Not like a kid.”
Seokjin sighed. “Fine,” he said, giving in. “Sit down. I’m at least making you tea.”
Jeongguk knew better than to argue with that.
Seokjin didn’t really know how to not feed people, and Jeongguk knew enough about Seokjin to know that he cooked when he was stressed, or nervous, or angry. So he wasn’t entirely surprised to hear Seokjin making more than just tea in the kitchen, and because Seokjin hadn’t appeared stressed or angry, he must have been feeling anxious.
Jeongguk’s stomach tightened a little at the thought that he was making Seokjin nervous.
“Why do you want to talk about love?” asked Seokjin, leaving the kitchen a few minutes later with a pot of tea and a plate of street-style egg sandwiches.
Jeongguk wasn’t really hungry, but he picked up a sandwich anyway.
He decided that the best thing to do was to be completely honest.
“Because I’m almost a teenager,” said Jeongguk openly. “And I think about this stuff a lot and I have no one to talk to.”
“Well I don’t know why you’re asking me,” said Seokjin. He poured tea into a dainty, china teacup. His hands shook just the tiniest bit. He hoped Jeongguk didn’t notice. “I’ve never been in love.”
Jeongguk almost choked on his sandwich. His eyes went wide.
Seokjin laughed at his expression, but there was a touch of defensiveness in the sound. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” said Jeongguk, and then immediately amended his response. “Well, no. I guess not.” He paused, and a light that Seokjin did not like at all came into his eyes. “Are you waiting until you present?”
Seokjin licked his lips, ignoring the way that Jeongguk’s eyes followed the movement. “Not on purpose,” he finally said. “It’s just sort of worked out that way.” He looked at Jeongguk for a long moment, searching for something. “I know I seem dramatic most of the time, and I know I dream big, but it’s never seemed practical to be too interested in anyone before I present. So much could change, depending on my subgender.”
“But you’ll still be you, hyung,” said Jeongguk softly. “Your subgender won’t change you.”
“Easy for you to say,” Seokjin returned, a little waspish. “Everyone knows you’ll be an alpha.” He rubbed his temples. “I don’t want to get attached to anyone,” he admitted, “not when that attachment could so easily fall apart after I present.”
Privately, Jeongguk thought that was no way to live, even though he understood what Seokjin meant. Seokjin was probably going to present as an omega, and even though omegas enjoyed much more freedom now than they ever had historically, there was still a fear among many that heats destroyed true consent between the omega and their chosen partner, and as a result, also destroyed any chance at true, unconditional love.
I could be your alpha, hyung, thought Jeongguk. I could be the greatest alpha, if you choose me.
Jeongguk had learned not to resent the space between them, the gap in ages. But in that moment, seeing Seokjin’s downtrodden expression, Jeongguk hated that he was so much younger.
The idea that Seokjin had chosen not to love, simply out of fear… It made Jeongguk’s heart ache. Suddenly he felt as if he had experienced much more of life than Seokjin had, despite Seokjin already being seventeen.
Also privately, and in a way that made him feel quietly ashamed, Jeongguk felt a strange, possessive twist of pleasure that Seokjin had loved no one. That he had not yet given his heart away.
“Are we talking about me or you?” asked Seokjin, slightly more aggressively than he meant to, interrupting Jeongguk’s inner ramblings.
But Jeongguk just smirked. “You,” he answered. “Are you nervous about presenting?”
Seokjin stared at him. “No.”
Jeongguk raised an eyebrow. A smile curled his lips upward. “You’re lying. I can tell.” He tilted his head. “Why are you nervous?”
“I’m not nervous,” Seokjin lied. “And I’m not having this conversation. Didn’t you want to talk about falling in love?”
Jeongguk held his hands up, peacefully, conceding. “Yeah,” he said. “What does it mean, hyung? When you fall in love?”
Finally, Seokjin smiled a little. “Well, I obviously wouldn’t know.” He sighed, a tad forlornly. “But I’ve always imagined that it would be easy. That you would find someone you would do anything for, give anything for, and that you would wake up one day realizing that you weren’t totally your own person anymore.” He blushed prettily, tucked some loose hair behind his ear. Jeongguk stared at him, marveling at his beauty. “I guess that’s what I think. When you fall in love you give half of yourself away to someone else.”
Jeongguk daydreamed of poison kisses and daggers and thought, I don’t know how to tell you this, hyung, but you’re wrong. Love wasn’t half. It was never half. Love was everything, whole, all the time.
Jeongguk knew that better than anyone. He had given himself away a long time ago.
The truth was, Seokjin was scared.
He was scared of presenting.
He refused to talk about it with Yoongi and Namjoon, refused to talk about it with his mom when she called to check in on him. But he was scared, and it frightened him how easily Jeongguk noticed.
In a perfect world, Seokjin would be a beta. He hated that he wanted it so much, when he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
To Seokjin, being a beta meant freedom. It meant that he would have more liberty with his choices, that he wouldn’t be so reliant on alphas for his heats. He knew he was going to be an omega. He could already feel it, though his presentation was still a year or more off.
“Omegas aren’t weak,” Seokjin often repeated out loud to himself.
He knew they weren’t. And he knew he wouldn’t be.
But he was afraid. And he didn’t know how to tell anyone why, not when he could barely stand to talk about it.
He wanted a happily ever after. He wanted true love.
But as an omega, would he ever truly have it?
Seokjin wanted to give his heart to the right person. He didn’t want his subgender to have anything to do with it.
In a way, he envied Jeongguk, who loved so openly.
It hurt Seokjin to see him, to be around him, to know that that love was directed toward himself, when he had done nothing at all to deserve it.
It was not a love he could return, and that hurt most of all.
In a perfect world, Jeongguk would have been older, or Seokjin younger, still years away from presenting.
There was an old adage. Tennyson, Seokjin thought. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
It didn’t seem right to Seokjin. Wasn’t it better to never love, than to risk giving yourself away to the wrong person?
There was a different truth, and it was this:
Seokjin had not always loved Jeongguk.
Years later, he did not like to think about this truth, even though Jeongguk didn’t seem to care.
Seokjin fell in love slowly, one creeping day at a time. He did not love Jeongguk, until one day, unexpectedly, he did.
And by then, it was all so complicated.