Chapter Text
Today, out of all days, Taehyung wasn’t expecting to find himself where he was right now. Standing in front of Jeongguk’s door, fidgeting with the hem of his oversized shirt (though there was no reason for wearing them yet), and feeling absolutely petrified.
He knew the code for the door. He could just punch it in and walk in. After all, it was Jeongguk’s house. Not a stranger’s. But it was Thursday, and Taehyung knew that the alpha had his girlfriend over today. So he couldn’t make himself do it. No matter how important it was for him to talk to Jeongguk right away, he couldn’t… simply couldn’t barge in like that.
So he stood outside the door, waiting. Till his legs started to give up on him. Exhaustion hit him suddenly, out of nowhere, the week’s events taking their toll on him—he held the wall in front of him, and slid down to the floor.
And then he lost consciousness.
When Jeongguk opened the door after about fifteen minutes or so, to say goodbye to his girlfriend, Taehyung was still lying where he was, unmoving, having fallen into a deep sleep from the fainting, and with no strength in his body. Horrified, Jeongguk picked him up immediately, walked inside to lay him on the clean bed in the guest room, sensitive as always to the fact that Taehyung wouldn’t like waking up in a room that smelled like another omega.
He checked Taehyung’s pulse, to find it a bit elevated. Exhaustion, he realised, must be the cause of the fainting, and sat as close as possible, running his fingers through the omega’s hair. Whether his girlfriend had left or was still standing there watching the two of them in shock, didn’t even register.
Taehyung moved a little, surrounded by Jeongguk’s calming scent. The white musk always did wonders to calm him, making him feel warm and safe, and protected. For Taehyung, Jeongguk was always synonymous with home.
He stirred awake, his omega craving the alpha’s reassurance, especially given the vulnerable state he was in, as he weakly moved in closer to Jeongguk’s body. Jeongguk wrapped him up in his arms, slowly allowing the sound of his calm heartbeat to make Taehyung feel better.
“Jeongguk-ah,” Taehyung mumbled. Jeongguk could sense exactly how drained Taehyung was, from how weak he sounded. Though an omega, Taehyung’s voice had never been high-pitched, always a baritone, deep, low, guttural. It was just one of the things that made Taehyung one-of-a-kind. To Jeongguk, however, he never needed a reason to be special, he just was.
“Yes Taetae,” Jeongguk responded in his most soothing voice. If his girlfriend would have still been around, she would have been surprised at the way he handled Taehyung, the way he was talking to him. To the rest of the world, Jeongguk was the epitome of an alpha—muscular, tattooed, tall, broad shoulders tapering into an impossibly small waist, with a walk that spelled power, a stance that spoke of stability, and piercings that made him look like he could command an entire pack.
For Taehyung, he was always the softest, cuddliest, gentlest person of all times, the perfect black contrast to his vanilla white wolf, with the most boopable nose, a baby face, and cheeks he loved to squish (that nobody else dared to). Jeongguk’s face piercings did nothing to add any sharpness to his round features, Taehyung would joke while ruffling his hair. And Jeongguk, the alpha of everyone’s dreams, would whine and complain, and lean into that touch.
But his girlfriend had long left, right when Jeongguk had forgotten about everything and just picked Taehyung up. Normally, Jeongguk was very well behaved, polite, caring, and a gentleman. However, Min Ha had noticed that whenever it came to Taehyung, nothing much else would register with the alpha.
“He’s just my best friend,” he had explained once when Min Ha had asked, feeling insecure. “We’ve known each other forever, he’s… he’s family.” Jeongguk had shrugged as if that explained it all. And to them, it really did.
But not to the rest of the world who struggled to decipher what they were to each other.
“I…” Taehyung was trying to speak, but he was too weak, too emotionally distraught at the moment. Too sad. Too vulnerable. His cardamom scent burned slowly, making Jeongguk feel extremely worried.
“When did you last eat, Tae?” Jeongguk asked instead. He knew Taehyung needed time to share why he was really at his apartment on a Thursday. It must have been an emergency, otherwise Taehyung would never do it. He must have had hurried here, but stopped himself from coming in at the last moment. Jeongguk’s heart broke at the fact that Taehyung was waiting for him, while he was chasing a physical high.
“Don’t remember,” Taehyung said.
“Is that the right thing to do though?”
“Don’t scold me now Jeonggukah.”
Jeongguk sighed. There was hardly anything he could refuse when it came to Taehyung. “Will you be alright here if I go and get you something to eat?”
“Makguksu?” Taehyung beamed at him.
And that made Jeongguk laugh. Trust Taehyung to ask for specifics while he couldn’t even hold himself up properly. Someone this weak would just gobble down whatever was given to them. But Kim Taehyung? Always picky about food. Jeongguk was lucky that he liked eating anything and everything Jeongguk cooked.
“As you wish your highness,” he said and turned towards the door.
“Could you make it a little spicy?”
And he stopped before he could turn the door knob.
“What?” he asked, turning around completely. His eyebrows touching the top of his forehead.
“Just a little. Please. I need it…for… for,” Taehyung stuttered. “For strength.”
“For strength,” Jeongguk repeated, his eyes fixed on Taehyung’s face, looking for the cue for this to turn into a prank. Taehyung’s spice tolerance level was in the negative.
“Yes,” Taehyung nodded as vigorously as possible, in his feeble state. “Please.”
“Stop,” Jeongguk huffed, “don’t make that face for me, it doesn’t work. I’m not the alpha you’re trying to seduce.”
“Huh,” Taehyung responded, “I don’t need to seduce you to get you to do something for me.”
The joke landed really well. Except, it was a fact. Immediately, the tension left Jeongguk’s body and he felt better, because making the most savage statements with a straight face, meant that his Taehyung was back in his element. And anyway, there was hardly any lie in the fact that Taehyung only needed to say the word, and sometimes just think it, and Jeongguk would do his best to make it come true.
He threw a mock salute at the omega, now sitting with his back to the headrest, and went towards the kitchen.
The moment Jeongguk left and the room was empty, the fear grasped Taehyung again. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to say, he had no idea how to handle the situation. After whatever had happened a few weeks ago, and the way he had stayed holed up in his apartment for days, this morning he had woken up feeling like he needed to talk.
And the only person he could talk to was here. It was Jeon Jeongguk.
Yet he worried about how it would go. Yet he worried about a reaction from Jeongguk for the very first time in his life. Jeongguk, who had always been his rock. Jeongguk, who had never judged him, not for how he didn’t sound like a typical omega, not for how tall he was, almost like an average alpha, not for his mismatched eyelids, not for the way he didn’t choose a typical omega career, venturing into his own business instead.
But he was worried about what he was here to share with his childhood best friend.
Lost in his thoughts and apprehensions, Taehyung didn’t notice when Jeongguk had walked back into the room with a bowl of makguksu and a pack of milkis, a light, creamy milk-based soft drink. May the goddess bless Jeonggukie with abundance, Taehyung thought to himself. No matter how bravely he’d asked for the spice in the makguksu, he knew he needed something light and sweet to accompany it.
Jeongguk came and stood near the bed, looking around. Taehyung, suddenly realising that Jeongguk hated having people eat on the bed, tried to get up and move out, making the alpha gasp, put down his tray on the bedside table, and hold him steady before he could fall.
“What is wrong with you Tae?” he almost screamed, schooling himself at the last moment. Nobody shouted at Taehyung. Ever. It was an unwritten rule in the Jeon household. One that Taehyung’s father always called them out on, claiming that the reason why Taehyung had turned out to be a spoiled brat, was because of them. But no one really paid heed to it.
He bent and positioned Taehyung properly against the headrest, and while doing so, happened to spot the thing he was looking for.
“Stay like that,” he said, while he rounded the bed and picked up a short wooden folded table, and set it up in front of Taehyung, placing the food on it.
“But you don’t like it when people eat on your bed,” Taehyung protested.
Jeongguk shrugged. “You’re not people,” he said. “And you passed out in front of my door, Tae. If you think I’m going to let you get up any time soon, then I’m sad to say you don’t know me at all.”
Taehyung smiled, tiredly. The ‘ you’re not people’ was already healing wounds inside of him, wounds that Jeongguk hadn’t even created. And that was when he knew he’d made the right decision by coming to his best friend instead of talking to his parents or anybody else first.
Jeongguk stared at him while he finished his food. It didn’t bother Taehyung anymore. Not after they had spent over two and a half decades being neighbours and friends. Jeongguk tended to do that a lot ever since he was a child, especially with Taehyung. His gaze would get fixated on Taehyung whenever the omega was talking animatedly, or singing, or even just existing.
Their grandparents called it the ‘bond of the souls.’ They would say Taehyung inflected on Jeongguk as soon as they met as children—their souls naturally gravitating towards each other. Inflection, in their world, was a sort of an imprint. It was involuntary, happened very rarely, and could sometimes exist as a very strong platonic bond between two wolves, especially if they were of the same sub-gender.
The reason why Taehyung and Jeongguk never spoke about it, or addressed it publicly, was because an inflection between an alpha and an omega always ran the risk of turning romantic, making them less desirable for others. Till date, the two hadn’t felt anything romantic towards each other, and therefore, they found it easier to go by best friends, than tag themselves as soulmates.
It didn't mean that they denied the impact of the bond on themselves, just that they had learned to navigate life with it, rather than despite it.
Taehyung waited for a while after he finished his food and drink. He knew if he spoke before that, Jeongguk would not even hear him out, the worried frown between his eyebrows proof enough of the way his mind was in a frenzy. And then, steeling his heart, the omega called out to his best friend—”Jeonggukah.”
“Tell me, Tae," Jeongguk responded immediately, all of his attention on Taehyung. "What brought you here today, and what stopped you from entering my apartment? You know you can come here anytime. You’re the only person who has that blanket permission. And the fact that you chose today… well… I know it’s something serious.”
Jeongguk’s voice didn’t even have a trace of judgement in it.
“I didn’t… I didn’t choose today. It just got… too much. Only when I had reached here did I realise that today was a Thursday.”
“You lost track of the days?” Now Jeongguk was even more worried. Because Taehyung was not only the only omega in their pack who ran a business on his own, but also the first one to run a café managed exclusively by rescued omegas. He was so meticulous in his business that he never missed a single detail. For him to forget the day of the week…
“You know how I asked for some spice in the makguksu earlier?”
“Yeah I was quite taken aback by that.”
“So… I can explain why I asked for it…” Taehyung said.
“Silly. You don't have—”
“I am pregnant.”
“Huh?” Jeongguk wasn’t sure he heard right.
But Taehyung needed to rip the bandaid off. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to tell him why he was here.
“Jeonggukah… I am pregnant. I gave into Doyun’s request during our last shared cycle, and I… I know I shouldn’t have,” Taehyung rambled. “And then when... when I realised I was running late for my heat, I panicked and I took a test, and I am… I am pregnant Gguk.”
Taehyung broke down, sobbing—from the unexpected turn his life had taken or from the relief of finally being able to share his secret, he would never know. For a few seconds his sobs turned into panic, but immediately he felt Jeongguk’s hands around him, gathering him into a hug, and everything felt a hundred times better.
“How do you feel about it?” Jeongguk asked gently. He knew not to take the tears as sadness. He knew Taehyung too well.
Taehyung snuggled into him, seeking comfort, as his voice steadied a bit, “I can’t tell you how I feel exactly. But I can tell you that never even for a second have I felt that I cannot do this, or that I don’t want to. Never even for a single second have I wanted to not bring this child into the world.”
“Then that’s settled, right? We celebrate! Congratulations Taetae. You will make a wonderful parent,” Jeongguk was happy. If Taehyung was happy, Jeongguk was happy by default.
“But,” Taehyung whispered, “I am pretty scared of doing this alone. So I’m here to seek courage.”
“What do you mean alone?” Jeongguk had straightened immediately, holding Taehyung by his arms. “Where’s Doyun? You two want to do this outside of mating? What’s the point when you are serious about each other?”
Taehyung’s smile was weary. He had been battling with this for the past few days, and now he had come to terms with it. For days it was just a vacuum, sadness and endless wondering of how this happened. Today, he had realised that his life had changed, and had internalised and owned that change, and that’s why he had been able to step out.
“I’m doing this alone. Because Doyun has left me.”
Crimson rage took over Jeongguk’s eyes in an instant. “What the fuck Taehyung?”
He never called the omega by his full name.
“I am going to kill that bastard.”
He didn’t know what to do with the anger boiling inside him.
“How dare he leave you after impregnating you?”
He couldn’t fathom what his Taetae had gone through in the past few days and it killed him.
But he didn’t move from his position. He couldn’t. The bond told him, whispered in his ears, crawled through his veins, throbbed under his skin, that at this point in time, the only place he should be was by Taehyung’s side.
“He didn’t want the child,” Taehyung sighed, no emotion registering with him for the moment. “And I can’t let it go. It’s my pup, Ggukie. I… I can’t. I thought about it a lot, but I can’t. It’s not even about whether it is right or wrong… it’s just that I can’t.”
Jeongguk understood.
There wasn’t anything that Kim Taehyung ever said he couldn’t do. And if he was, it was to be taken seriously. Very seriously.
“When did he leave?” Jeongguk asked.
“About a week ago,” Taehyung whispered back.
“You were alone all this while? Didn’t even tell me? Tae… how difficult must it have been for you,” it was as if Jeongguk could feel his pain. And he probably could.
“I was trying to understand what had happened. I was trying to internalise it. I was thinking of options, trying to figure out who to share it with.”
“And you chose me?”
Taehyung shook his head. “I didn’t choose you,” he placed a palm on his stomach, “they chose you.”
Jeongguk’s eyes were curious, but he waited for Taehyung to continue. “I had a taemong (a Korean belief, that mothers dream of their future children or about their destiny before conceiving them) a couple of days before I took the test. In fact, I took the test because of that dream,” Taehyung paused to look into Jeongguk’s eyes. “You know what my dream was?”
Jeongguk shook his head a no, but his heart had picked up on its beats.
“There was a golden shower on a tiny wolf, Jeonggukah. The little pup was sitting all alone, and a golden shower was drenching it, as if to say that it was there for the pup. That the pup was not alone,” Taehyung was crying as he narrated his dream.
Jeongguk whispered, “the golden shower? Like my mother’s taemong for me?”
Taehyung nodded. “Last night, I was feeling extremely unwell, and I was alone. And I needed some strength. That was when I suddenly remembered this dream and realised that me and pup both needed to draw some strength from our golden boy. So,” Taehyung took a deep breath, “here I am, golden boy.”
Jeongguk stared at Taehyung for quite a few seconds before opening his mouth to speak.
“So this Doyun guy… he isn’t coming back?”
Taehyung shook his head a no.
“And you’ve decided that going to do this on your own?”
Taehyung nodded, his eyes lowered.
“Wrong.”
Taehyung’s eyes shot up. And the moment he saw Jeongguk’s expression, he knew that the words that would come out of his mouth in the next instant would change the trajectory of his life, forever.
It was the expression Jeongguk usually had when he was about to do something stupid. It was the expression Jeongguk wore when he had made a decision already. It was the expression Jeongguk held when nothing could change his mind.
“You won’t be doing this alone. Not when I’m here.”
Taehyung opened his mouth to stop Jeongguk from saying the next line, even though he knew it was already too late, but the alpha had beat him to it.
“Let’s get married.”