Chapter Text
It reeks. No, really — it absolutely stinks. And Jisung can’t stand it anymore. The whole damn apartment reeks of alphas.
He’s just about to flee to the balcony when the scent gets worse, and honestly this one might be the worst out of the three. Hyunjin obviously can’t do anything about it, having just finished his first ever rut, but still. He is pushing out the most pheromones and Jisung is having none of it.
“Sungie, where are you going? I asked if you were home an hour ago. Why didn’t you answer?” Hyunjin whines at him the second he sees Jisung step out of his room.
He had seen the message, had even thought about responding but he just couldn’t stomach the thought of what Hyunjin might be like, what he might be thinking, now that he was out of his rut. Either they were both going to pretend nothing happened or — if for the worse or for the better, Jisung hadn’t decided yet — he’d continue on with the casual intimacy.
Hyunjin had practically been attached to his gland the whole time during his rut, and had been scenting him relentlessly to the point Jisung still feels like he’s carrying mocha and cinnamon with him. If Hyunjin would try to scent him now, Jisung doesn't know what he’d do. Chan’s rejection, as much as he’d like to shove that down deep, was still at the forefront of his mind. The sting and embarrassment Jisung had felt at being denied that simple gesture does not want to leave his body.
He’d been so deeply affected by the hurt, that even now he couldn’t really face Chan. His only saving grace is the lack of schedule thanks to Hyunjin’s rut, so he wouldn’t have to spend more time in Chan’s presence than was absolutely necessary. Changbin had asked Jisung if he wanted to come to the studio with them to work on some projects, Jisung had to decline the invitation as soon as he caught Chan’s guilty eyes.
Smoke still stung his lungs when he inhaled.
“Ah…Jinnie, I didn’t see it. I was asleep.” An easy lie.
Hyunjin narrows his eyes at him. “You’ve been asleep all day?”
“Yeah. I was tired.” Jisung shrugs and pushes past Hyunjin out of the hallway. Like a lost puppy, Hyunjin trails behind him. “You don’t look tired, you look a bit-”
“What?” Jisung snaps, a bit sharper than he meant to. “What do I look like Jinnie?” He lets the irritation show on his face. Unlike the others, his scent can’t do that for him. Hyunjin blinks, taken aback. “I just meant… Well, you look upset. Did I do something?”
Jisung just sort of blinks at him, expression blank. It’s not that Hyunjin did something but all the pheromones in the apartment are driving him crazy. He just needs some fresh air, just a few minutes to clear his head. He doesn‘t want to push Hyunjin away, especially not when he is obviously still vulnerable and unsure about his rut.
Maybe he was unsure about Jisung. Unsure if all they’d done might have been something decided purely out of hormonal impulsivity. A mistake. Maybe Jisung was a mistake. Maybe that’s what Hyunjin thought.
He just speeds up his pace towards the balcony door but then there’s a hand clamped around his wrist. “Sungie, please?” The cinnamon is bitter and heavy through the espresso. He frowns at Jisung and Jisung just glances down at where his wrist was still circled by Hyunjin’s hand. When he looks back up, Hyunjin takes that as some form of permission, lifting his wrist up and bringing it to his face to scent.
Jisung almost feels bad about how aggressively he rips his hand away, flinching back.
“Don’t.” He says, sternly.
The cinnamon’s bitterness spreads just like the frown on Hyunjin’s pretty lips. “Don’t what?”
Jisung steps back further. “Don’t scent me, don’t touch me, don’t-” Jisung’s voice breaks halfway through his worked up speech. “Just stop hovering for once, god!”
Hyunjin’s face falls, confusion flooding his features. “I’m not hovering, Sungie. I’m- I’m worried about you. You’ve been weird since my rut and I-”
“It’s not about you, just fucking leave it. Let me be.”
“Jisung, if this isn’t about my rut, then why are you avoiding me? I don’t want things to be awkward now. I need you to tell me the truth. If something happened during my rut that you weren’t okay with, I need to know. Sung, please!”
Jisung turns away from him shaking his head with an exasperated sigh. Hyunjin swallows harshly and looks down to the ground, defeated. “If you want, we can just pretend it never happened.”
It takes a few moments for him to tack on, “Whatever fixes this.” He almost sounds hurt, Jisung really needs that fresh air.
“Jin, it’s not about you or your rut or anything that happened there. Just drop it.” Hyunjin throws his arms up, clearly annoyed. The cinnamon in his scent turns from bitter to spicy so fast, it gives Jisung whiplash. “What the fuck? Jisung, just be honest with me! If it’s not about that, then why are you being like this all of a sudden? I just want to figure out how to help you-”
“I said drop it. Why can’t you just listen? It’s none of your business. I just don’t want to be scented, I want some peace and quiet away from all of your stupid alpha scent. Stop ‘helping’. All you’re doing is fucking suffocating me!”
The words hang between them, harsh and cruel. The cinnamon is back to bitter, pouring out so intensely that even the espresso is hidden beneath it. Hyunjin’s mouth opens, then closes again. His eyes go glassy and he turns away.
“Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll let you be.”
For a moment Jisung is struck with guilt. Without thinking, he reaches to stop him from leaving, even though just a moment ago that’s all he wished for. “Jinnie wait… I didn’t-” Hyunjin snaps back around and stares at Jisung wide eyed, back to spicy cinnamon curling around Jisung’s lungs.
“I don’t get what you want from me! You’re upset, I try to comfort you, I need to stop. I try to get you to talk to fix things, it’s not about that, drop it. I try to help, I’m suffocating you but also I have to stay?” He’s almost screaming at him now. The sound claws down Jisung’s spine. “What the fuck do you want me to do? Make up your damn mind!”
Jisung can hear the rumble of an incoming growl in Hyunjin’s voice, so he decides to beat him to it. He lets go of Hyunjin and sets his own festering sound loose, before tuning and ripping the balcony door open. The fresh air hits his face but it’s not enough; the apartment still reeks of alphas.
He barely even thinks about what he’s doing next before stomping past a frazzled Hyunjin to open every window he can find. He only stops when there’s a distinct jingle of keys at the front door. As soon as the two older alphas step in, something inside him just snaps.
“Leave. Just- all of you, get out! You’re stinking up the whole place with your stupid alpha scent and pheromones. I’m airing out the apartment and if either one of you comes back before your smothering scents have been neutralized, I’m kicking you out to the other dorm for at least two weeks!”
Chan is frozen in the doorway, staring at him in shock. Changbin hasn’t even gotten the chance to step foot in the apartment. Good, Jisung thinks. Hyunjin keeps looking from Chan to Jisung, as if waiting for a hint on what to do. They don’t look offended, but rather hurt at his words.
“Oookay…yeah, just gonna grab a sweater then I’m out-” Chan takes a couple steps in but stops dead in his tracks at the absolutely feral growl Jisung lets out at him.
That had probably been a bad idea.
He can see how Chan is visibly collecting himself and shoving down his own instincts that want to respond with an even meaner sound. Then he just jerkily nods at Hyunjin, who quickly scampers over and then the door is shut firmly behind them.
Jisung takes a relieved breath.
For the first time in what seems like forever, the air feels breathable. He waits for the open windows to do their job and carry the offending scents out with the breeze. He can finally breathe again — just air, just himself, not a single trace of espresso, patchouli or rosewood assaulting his senses. Nothing there to clog his mind and lungs. It’s quiet too. So quiet he can hear the faint hum of the city, the shifting of the curtains as they flutter softly through the wind. For a fleeting second it almost feels… peaceful.
His shoulders drop and he leans against the wall next to the balcony door. Just standing there, eyes closed and breathing deeply until his chest aches from the cold air.
This isn’t right. Very quickly and very intensely, a heavy feeling of wrongness settles in; his heart clenches. The scent is gone, the noise is gone — but now the apartment is empty. Too big for just Jisung to exist in.
Where moments ago the air had felt refreshing, now the coldness bit into his skin making him feel numb. Jisung rubs at his arms, trying to shake it off but the loneliness sits heavily in his chest. He didn’t mean to yell. He didn’t mean any of it. And oh god, they looked so sad and hurt. Fuck.
Something compels him to move; without really thinking, he starts off to find something that smells like his members. He picks apart the living room first. A pillow from the couch, the one from Hyunjin’s usual spot. Warm espresso clings to it. Next is Changbin’s scarf and hoodie, both plucked from the back of an armchair. Rosewood and incense, thick and slightly musky. Then he finds a discarded t-shirt, courtesy of Chan who can’t go a day without his shirtless state giving Jisung a heart attack. Mainly patchouli, but there is a faint hint of warmth from the tobacco.
He dumps them all on his bed, that mind you, is already overflowing with scented items he’s accumulated over the last few weeks. It’s not enough.
The next few minutes are spent in a daze. He isn’t quite sure how he comes from a to b, but now he has an arm full of stolen items from various members, taken straight from their rooms. There might even be a cardigan from Felix that the blond had forgotten in Changbin’s room.
Jisung tries, really he does, to push the guilt away. But the loneliness is chased away by the scent of all the people he so deeply cherishes, and now he wants nothing more than to properly organize them into a nest.
Although he doesn’t quite realize it, he spends hours in a haze pushing around the clothes on his bed, sorting them and placing them where they feel right to him. By the end of it he’s surrounded by the members’ scents, in his cozy and soft nest. A real one. A perfect nest.
He tests it by squishing his face into the pillow he had collected from the couch earlier. Yeah, this will do just fine. Better than fine. He fully crawls into the nest and it doesn't take much until he’s fast asleep.
—
Three things are wrong when he pushes the apartment door open with a slight creak.
They’d gone out to eat before spending a few hours at the other dorm to give Jisung the space he obviously needed to calm down. Over dinner, Hyunjin had told them about the argument with Jisung that him and Changbin had just missed.
The first thing Chan notices when he steps into the apartment is how freezing cold it was. The windows are still all open, continuously letting in the breeze.
The second thing he noticed is the lack of basically everything. Well, everything soft, that is. It is as if the apartment had been stripped of all the soft and fuzzy things they’d owned. The pillows and blankets are all gone from the couch, their scarves and hoodies they keep near the door have just disappeared.
The third thing he notices, and by the surprised sounds behind him the others have gotten a trace of it too, is the most concerning out of three. The apartment is dripping in tangy orange and sweet thick honey. Under all that, there is just the faintest hint of Jisung’s usual gentle black tea. Now, the other scents swallow it almost completely.
Fuck.
Chan scrambles into the apartment, quickly kicking off his shoes. Changbin and Hyunjin both do the same before each taking off into a different direction to shut all the windows.
When he carefully pushes open the door to Jisung’s room, he’s hit with such a heavy wave of orange and honey that he has to close it again. He leans against the door and takes a few deep breaths, although they don‘t do much to clear his head. On the second attempt, Chan actually manages to make it inside the room. But there he’s forced to pause again.
Sprawled out, right in the middle of his bed — his nest, Chan corrects himself — Jisung lays fast asleep. Even from here, Chan can see the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the angry flush of his cheeks.
Jisung had not only presented, but had fully gone into heat while they were out.
Double fuck. Minho is going to kill him.
Chan takes a few more moments to just admire Jisung and his beautiful nest. Well, at least that clears up the mystery of where all the missing things had gone.
Reluctantly, he shuffles back out of the room, careful not to disturb Jisung’s sleep, his thumb already swiping to Minho’s contact in his phone.