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If You Think the Coffee Sucks, Wait Until You Meet the Owner Any feedback or questions? Send them to zyhperini@yahoo.com Jeongin cried for a long time; hard, gasping, wrenching sobs that seemed dragged out from his core. Jisung held him throughout, feeling helpless. After a while, he started crying too, albeit with less intensity and it was as much in sympathy as a release of the stress of the last ten minutes or so. He wished he could do more. He wished knew what more there was to be done. He wished he could roll back time and find a way for Jeongin to never talk to his family again, as ridiculous and impractical as that was. Soon enough, the entire closet was soaked in the scent of their mutual distress. Their tears began tapering off around the same time, though Jeongin took the longest to stop, having to calm down in the stages. When he was reduced to small sniffles, Jisung pulled a couple of t-shirts out of the clothing pile to clean up with. Jeongin accepted the improvised handkerchief and scrubbed his face. Jisung dried his eyes, wiped the smears of tears and skin oil from his glasses, and then blew his nose into the fabric. "Gross," Jeongin said, voice thick and congested. "It'll wash out," Jisung said, putting his glasses back on. He moved to a dry patch on the shirt and held it up to Jeongin's nose. "Blow." That got him such a look, but Jeongin blew his nose. "I'm not five," he said after Jisung pulled the shirt away. Jisung shrugged, wadded up the soiled shirt, and threw it toward the front of the closet. Actually, he was a little embarrassed by his own actions, but he tried not to let it show. "How're you feeling?" he asked. "Not so bad now," Jeongin said and sniffed. He leaned back against the wall too, no longer leaning as heavily into Jisung. "That went better than I thought it would." "Really? How much worse were you expecting, because that was pretty terrible from my perspective." Jeongin leaked a few extra tears at that and Jisung wanted to kick himself. "I thought they'd disown me and never let me come home again," Jeongin said, swiping his fingers under his eyes, "I wouldn't get to see my brothers any more." Hearing that shifted something in Jisung's head. It was easy enough for him to look at Jeongin's birth pack and decide they were bad people, to decide Jeongin would be better off never seeing or talking to them again, but Jisung had no stake in that familial relationship. Those people hadn't raised him, hadn't sacrificed their time and energy to teach him and bring him up. He didn't still have siblings under their care. He had no obligation to them and would lose nothing by treating them like they didn't exist. It was different for Jeongin. Letting go of family wasn't something done lightly. He'd already been making the first steps of putting distance between them and himself, but that wasn't the same as walking away entirely, nevermind being kicked out without his say. Especially since there was always a chance they could change. "Innie, what I said earlier…" Jisung swallowed. "Do you want to go back to your birth pack? Don't worry about ‘should', ok?" He added before Jeongin could say anything. "No ‘shoulds' allowed here. Just tell me if that's what you want to do." If he said ‘yes', Jisung would fight him on it. Or, well, he'd get Chan to fight for him, since Chan was so much better at being persuasive. Letting Jeongin live with people who looked down on him and wanted to off-load him on the nearest available pack would be terrible for his well-being, nevermind the baby's. But if, at the end of it all, Jeongin wanted to go, they couldn't stop him. It was his life and he had to be the one to decide what he did with it. Jisung would just have to find some way to stay in touch, in case he changed his mind again and needed an escape route. To Jisung's immense relief, Jeongin shook his head. "I don't. I really don't. I will if I have to, but I -- " He dragged both hands through his hair and let them fall into his lap. "-- I don't know if I could stand it." "Then we'll make sure you don't have to. Seriously," Jisung added, because he could tell Jeongin didn't buy it. "I just feel like I've been messing with you both," he said, to Jisung's surprise, "I kept going ‘let me talk to my parents, I can't do anything until I talk to my parents'." He pranced his hands through the air, mimicking the supposed act he'd been pulling. "Except I put it off and put it off until I couldn't anymore. Now that I know I can go back, it's like ‘oh excuse me, nevermind, I never wanted to return in the first place'." "Hey come on, no. You know it's not like that, right? Me and Channie-hyung seriously picked you up in a coffee shop, I mean —" Jisung laughed a little at the absurdity of their situation and not for the first time. "Of course you weren't going to tell us everything you were thinking or feeling. You weren't in a good enough place to even know what you wanted. Sure, all three of us were leaning on the idea that you had to resolve things with your birth pack before we could do anything else, but Innie, we never said what kind of decision you had to make after you talked to them. Even if we had, it's been a week since there. Things are different now." He took hold of Jeongin's knee and jostled his leg affectionately. "So you've talked to your family, you know what the conditions with them are, and now we can plan where to go from here." He paused in the middle of shaking Jeongin's leg. "And now we can wait for hyung to get home and then we can plan where to go from here," he amended, "I don't want to go making promises without him, but the one thing we're both serious about is that no matter what, we're not going to leave you in the lurch." Jeongin picked at the seam of his sweat pants. "Hyung," he said softly, "It's more than not wanting to go home. I don't want to leave here at all." Hearing that was far from a surprise at this point, but it still made Jisung's heart flutter. He shook Jeongin's leg again. "Yeah, I kinda got that impression from all the scent marking." Jeongin had the grace to look embarrassed, but it wasn't enough to stop him from looking up at Jisung through his lashes and asking, "And from the kiss, too?" "A teensy, tiny bit of an implication from the kiss, yes." Having no other outlet for the restless energy now surging through him, Jisung took hold of Jeogin's shoulder too and began rocking his torso in time with the leg shaking. "Our Innie-yah is not subtle," he half-sang. "You guys weren't saying anything though," Jeongin whined. Jisung had a second to worry they'd given him a complex by refusing to acknowledge what was going on before he added, "Stop, I gotta pee." Jisung jerked back both hands. Jeongin's expression changed and he scrambled to his feet. A minute later, Jisung leaned against the wall across from the bathroom, checking his messages while Jeongin dealt with his bladder situation. The crying jag hadn't lasted as long as it had felt. Bang Chan had sent a reply to his last comment about their sudden windfall via Seo Changbin a few minutes prior. Channie: Jisung chewed on his sore lower lip. Weird that Bang Chan was the one convincing him to be more greedy in this case. Usually it was the other way around. He typed out a belated reply. Sungie: The reply was gratifyingly fast. Chan must still be on his phone. Channie: Sungie: Channie: Jisung pouted, disappointed Chan wasn't going to let him make a game out of it. All right, all right, maybe they needed to treat this at least a little seriously. Sungie: Watching the little dots of Chan's typing pop up and vanish and pop up again, he couldn't stop himself from adding: [besides I'd rather save the tongue kissing for when you're here to watch] The dots vanished again and stayed gone for a good while. Jisung smirked, easily imagining his alpha's red ears and ridiculously shy mannerisms. Jeongin came out of the bathroom and let out a big, explosive sigh. "What?" Jisung asked, unconvincingly innocent. "Who are you talking to that has you smelling like that?" Jeongin asked. "Who do you think?" Jisung asked at the same time his phone pinged. It was a message from Changbin. Binnie: Hannie: He tapped back to his chat with Chan. Sungie: Channie: Despite the tone of the proceeding comments, Jisung knew Bang Chan meant that in a serious ‘something big and emotional just happened do you need me' way, not a ‘hell yeah lets fuck' way. Jisung thought about it. The three of them did have a lot to talk about and anticipating heavy conversations never did anything good for Jisung's stress level. In his ideal world, they'd get it all out in the open at once and then form a cuddle pile for the next three days or however long it took his brain to stop running in circles. On the flip side… He glanced at Jeongin. When Jisung had focused back on his phone, Jeongin had started to walk away, but the instant Jisung moved, Jeongin's head swung back around to look at him, hyper-sensitive to the other omega's slightest move. Maybe instead of jumping from one loaded talk to another, he and Jeongin should chill out a little more. "You want to watch a movie or something?" he asked in response to Jeongin's questioning head tilt. Jeongin made a motion that was some amalgamation of a shrug and a nod. "I guess." Absolutely not, in other words. "Let me finish up with hyung and then we can figure something out." Jeongin bit his lower lip, but agreed more decisively this time. Left to himself, Jisung went back to the chat. Sungie: Channie: Sungie: Channie: Sungie: Jisung checked his last comment to Changbin to make sure there wasn't actually anything — he did sometimes put his foot in it when he was trying to be funny — and by ‘sometimes' he meant ‘often' — but it was a pretty mild tease by their standards. Changbin should be able to handle a little ribbing at his single status. The dude was wildly popular. He had no excuse not to be swimming in omega tail if that was his inclination. And okay, maybe there was a tiny part of Jisung that was a teensy bit bitter about that. He'd had a big old crush on Changbin back when they were teenagers, but it'd become clear early on that Changbin had no reason to give Jisung a sideways glance. They hadn't even been that close as friends before Bang Chan came along, though if Jisung was going to be honest, he bore most of the blame for that. Changbin used to call him every other month wanting to catch up and Jisung would think "oh look it's the cool, sexy beta who only talks to me because he thinks I'm a sad pathetic baby with no friends, how great for my self-esteem" and reluctantly drag himself out to every get together. He hadn't been rude or anything, just overly formal and reserved, and Changbin had been equally cold and stiff in return, only fueling Jisung's conviction that he was acting out of pity or a self-aggrandizing sense of obligation. By twenty, Jisung was making a conscious effort to be less sensitive and give people trying to be nice to him the benefit of the doubt, and that included trying harder with Changbin. Things were already improving between them since he opened up to Changbin about his music, but his impulsive decision to bring along Bang Chan -- who he was just recently dating -- had been the real game changer. Bang Chan and Changbin got on like a house on fire and it opened up a whole new side to the beta that Jisung had never seen before. Turns out the serious, intimidating, and perpetually angry older guy who liked to nag at Jisung for wasting his talents had secretly been a silly, gregarious, and warm person the entire time. Who knew? Jisung's thumbs hovered over his phone keypad, debating internally over whether to send Changbin an apology just in case, and decided that no, his hyung was a big boy and could tell him directly if jokes about his sex life were off limits. He closed out the messenger app and returned his phone to his hoodie pocket. Jeongin had used the last few minutes to raid the kitchenette for the last of their snacks. He scowled at the array of shrimp fries and gummy candy dumped out on the table. "I don't want to eat any of this," he said. "Convenience store?" Jisung asked. "Convenience store," Jeongin agreed. They both stank of a major emotional meltdown and garnered no few worried looks from passersby on their way out, but enough of Chan's scent was coming through for people to leave them alone. The elderly omega lady working the counter sniffed at them critically and tossed a few free triangle kimbap and bottles of soy milk into their haul of mostly chips, deserts, and fruit sodas. They accepted the unvoiced scolding with many bows and thank yous and made their escape. "I'm sorry you had to hear my parents talk like that," Jeongin said once they were settled on the bed with their snacks. One of Jisung's low-key playlists ran on the big TV, filling the air with soft music. They'd bunched up the comforter and pillows into a half-assed nest around them and laid down some towels to catch any crumbs. "Hhm hmm." Jisung shook his head and cracked open another Fanta, having already drained his first. "Nothing they said is your fault." Jeongin made a doubtful little noise and shoved the end of his ice cream cone in his mouth. "I held a lot of the same beliefs," he mumbled around the mouthful, "I figured out some of them were wrong while I was growing up, but I didn't realize how awful they were until I moved out. I always feel bad remembering it." He crunched the cone and swallowed it. "But that's why you changed, right? You learned your beliefs were wrong, so you changed them. That's a good thing. Look." Jisung tapped Jeongin's leg to break him out of staring forlornly at his lap. "We all have wrong ideas about the world when we're young. Getting older just means looking back every year and going ‘oh my god I was such an idiot'." "How old are you again?" Jeongin asked. "Older than you. Now shut up and listen, this is quality wisdom. Nobody is perfect, not me, not you, not any of us. I've had some dumb ass opinions about things that I had to change up, too. What matters is challenging those perceptions and changing your mind when it turns out they're wrong. You're already way ahead of your birth pack when it comes to that, so don't beat yourself up about the past, okay?" Jisung's wisdom was not quite quality enough to win over Jeongin all at once, but as they continued chatting, his scent steadily lost that guilty, shameful tinge. They'd made it through half of their snack haul when Jeongin asked, "Can I tell you something?" Jisung's heart jumped into his throat despite the otherwise relaxed atmosphere. "Yeah, anything." "I lied to my parents." "I kind of figured." "About my alpha," Jeongin clarified, "I wasn't playing around with him at all. We met as teenagers in the chat room for an idol group we both liked." His face creased into an odd, strained expression. "My parents wouldn't have approved of it." "They didn't like you being into music or idols?" Jisung had heard of religions that were really stringent on that. Those were usually the ones that were super controlling about clothes and drinking and dancing, too. Jeongin's face somehow got more odd. "No, that was fine. It was more the way we… talked about the idols." Jisung slapped a hand to his chest. "Yang Jeongin, were you entertaining," His voice dropped to a stage whisper, "Lustful conversations about K-Pop idols?" He leaned forward. "Were you imagining fantasy dates with them?" He added a gasp this time. "Did you draw fanart?" The strained look turned deeply aggrieved. Sensing that Jeongin would shut down if he kept going in the vein, Jisung sat back and mimed zipping and locking his mouth closed. "Anyway," Jeongin said forcefully, "I hid it from my parents when the two of us started talking all the time. He was recovering from a major injury and the way he talked about the doctors taking care of him… it's what made me want to get into medicine. To have that sort of impact on someone's life. When I came out to Seoul, he introduced me to all his friends and helped me feel welcome. I don't know if I would've made it without him." "So you fell for him," Jisung prodded when Jeongin paused. He nodded. "We hooked up pretty soon after I moved here, but for various reasons, our relationship couldn't be public. No one knew about it, not even our close friends. For months, we hardly got together because it was such a chore to do it secretly. I think I spent more time with Hyunjinie-hyung than with him and hyung didn't even go to our school." "That would drive me literally insane," Jisung said. When he committed to someone, he went all in, and needed their equal involvement in turn. "I really liked it, actually," Jeongin said with a self-depreciating laugh, "I always thought that when I got a mate, I'd have to put all my time and energy into them. I'd have to be constantly paying attention to them and making myself look good for them. It just sounded so exhausting. With him, I could have fun when I wanted to and ignore him when I didn't. It was so freeing." He looked down, hands wedged in between his thighs. "But after a while, it started to get on my nerves. I looked around at everyone we knew getting into relationships and thought ‘why can't I have that? Why am I alone all the time?' It felt like getting a lover meant losing my friend. Finally, I just snapped. There must have been something specific that set me off, but I don't remember what it was. When he still refused to let us go public, I broke it off and slept with my beta friend that night." He looked up at the ceiling, voice going tired, as if he was done with himself. "Then I sent him pictures of us doing it." "Innie, oh my god?" He covered his face, cringing. "I know, it was so immature. I have no excuse." He peeked through his fingers. "Do you know what he replied with?" "What?" Jisung asked, wholly invested in the drama. "Congratulations." Jisung shrieked. "I was so furious." Jeongin laughed into his hands. "The worst thing is I knew I brought it on myself. He'd never been the jealous type." "I can't believe how savage you both were, holy shit." Jisung punched the bed in his excitement. "What were you two like together?" "Very boring," Jeongin said, "I swear," he added at Jisung's extremely skeptical frown, "All we did was watch dramas and have sex. We only went out twice and we never fought. Not any real fights, I mean. We did have a lot of stupids debates." Jisung sighed out his disappointment that there wasn't more tea to be had. "Sounds like a good time to me, not gonna lie." "Like I said, we had fun. It would've been fine if it wasn't for all the hiding." Jeongin waved a hand like he was swatting away a fly and picked up a bag of honey chips. "Honestly, the most annoying part was having to scrub his scent out of everything afterwards. Nothing is more insulting than needing to spend an hour cleaning up after a ten minute quickie." Jisung pushed his index finger into the divot below his lower lip. "Ten minutes, huh?" Jeongin shrugged. "Sometimes you just want to get off." Jisung pushed his finger up over his lower lip and decided that he wasn't going to brag about Bang Chan's stamina just because hearing about Jeongin's mystery alpha had kicked up his competitive streak. Instead, he said, "So, Innie. About that idol group." Jeongin went wary and Jisung's mouth stretched in a grin. "Who was your bias?" After the earlier teasing, it took some cajoling to get Jeongin to open up about the idols he'd bonded with his alpha over. It was an all omega boy group whose concept was of an indie rock band from the early 2000s. Jisung deserved an award, a goddamn fucking trophy, for keeping his mouth shut when Jeongin revealed his favorite member was the vocalist that played acoustic guitar. They got into watching music videos and behind the scenes content. Jisung always had mixed feelings about all omega groups. They were often expected to be demure, delicate, and cutesy, both to appeal to alphas and betas, and to serve as an example for other omegas. The boy ones were allowed to be more brash, of course, because boys of every dynamic generally were, but only to a point. It wasn't that Jisung was a knot-buster himself, he'd just been hassled enough over being too rowdy for an omega that celebrities that were intended to represent the Ideal of his dynamic put his back up. Thankfully, this group leaned into the folksy, jeans-and-button-ups aesthetic of their concept and avoided the adorable shy baby vibe he hated. He didn't anticipate getting as into them as Jeongin clearly was, but he didn't have a bad time listening to and watching them either. He even let Jeongin put on a lengthy, fan-created primer about the members, though he couldn't say he retained a single solitary detail of it. "Which ones do you think are sleeping together?" he'd asked at one point, just to be a brat. Jeongin made direct eye contact with him and went on a full thirty minute lecture about the speculated intergroup romances. Jisung did not retain any of that information, either. This kept them occupied until late evening arrived and with it, Bang Chan's message that he was returning home. [I hope you're both hungry Ridiculously, despite everything Jeongin had confessed to that day, the thought of having to sit down and tell Bang Chan his feelings made him want to grab his bags and run. He didn't want to go anywhere, especially not away from the cozy little apartment that had become his sanctuary over the last week, but he also didn't want to be here for the emotionally fraught conversation this was guaranteed to be. He'd already had one challenging confrontation today, wasn't he allowed to opt out of a second one? He knew things weren't going to be as rough with Bang Chan and Han Jisung as they had been with his family. These two had only been kind and patient with him. If they were going to blow up at him, they would've done it four days ago, when he first gave in to the urge to leave his scent all over Chan. He'd started marking with his wrist glands first; the more socially appropriate approach to staking your claim, the sort of thing you did when declaring a cup of coffee or a textbook or a preferred chair in the lecture hall as your personal territory. When Chan didn't react to his statement of intent and Jisung didn't give him the omega equivalent of "get off my lawn", he escalated to using the glands under his jaw, the ones that leaked out his scent the strongest, though he stuck to marking the clothes while Chan wasn't wearing them. Looking back, he wasn't sure how he would've explained himself if they had confronted him at the beginning. Was he falling for them? It certainly felt like it. Was the marking because of those developing feelings? Probably not at the start. That week alone in the hotel had been harder on him than he'd been willing to admit. He'd always been someone who enjoyed solitude, who needed space and time to be alone with himself. A week on his own shouldn't have been that much of a struggle, but whether it was the baby messing with his hormones or the stress of everything, he'd been drowning under feelings of abandonment, isolation, and lack of security the whole time. He hadn't eaten or slept in over a day by the time Bang Chan approached him. The relief of being welcomed into a pack — even a small, half-formed one — had been immeasurable and the thought of being separated from them again unbearable. That first instinctive scent mark had probably been more of a "please keep me" than an "I want you", as embarrassing as it was to admit that to himself. The later ones? He watched Jisung flit around the main room, collecting their trash and any stray dishes they'd used throughout the day. He stacked them together into one singular mess on the kitchenette counter, despite the sink being five inches to the left and the trash and recycle bins a foot to the right. Han Jisung had a fascinating selective blindness when it came to putting things where they belonged. He sang as he went, a silly little tune about cleaning your room so your trash won't turn into goblins that he must have made up on the fly. He'd spent the past few hours distracting Jeongin, listening to and engaging with everything he had to say, keeping him from falling into the mental pit of rehashing his parent's words over and over again. Yang Jeongin liked him so much it was kind of disgusting. But did he like him enough to want to raise a baby with him and his alpha? Jeongin hated that he had to consider that question and hated even more that right now, the answer was "well, they're a better option than the other ones." The kind of people who'd reach out to offer help to a desperate stranger were bound to be a better influence on his child than whatever hyper-traditionalist pack Jeongin's father managed to bribe into taking him off their hands. As much as possible, he didn't want his baby brought up seeing the world the way he had. He walked to the counter, started the sink filling with soapy water, and began separating out the dishes and the trash. "Yah, I would've gotten to that," Jisung said, having the audacity to sound offended "Hmmm," Jeongin hummed and tossed the soda cans in the recycling bin. He did not believe it for a second. As far as he could tell, Jisung forgot things existed the instant they left his hand. It reminded Jeongin, a bit painfully, of Hyunjin and his habit of leaving stuff behind him everywhere he went. Scarves, jackets, half-finished coffees, hair ties by the dozens, pencils, sunglasses, his shoes that one memorable time. In retrospect, Jeongin regretted his actions toward Hyunjin the most. The beta hadn't deserved to be used in Jeongin's petty bid for revenge and the strain it'd put on their friendship had been unbearable. He'd genuinely thought Hyunjin was a safe bet for a no-strings fling. Sure, Jeongin couldn't pry Hyunjin off of him most days, but Hyunjin, bless him, was all big, loud emotions; it should've been immediately obvious if he saw Jeongin as more than a friend. There was also that pack that was courting him, the one Hyunjin would not stop bragging about and that he always sounded so excited to be moving forward with. They'd both agreed it was just going to be a one time thing. They'd both agreed it wouldn't change their friendship. Jeongin still didn't know how things had gone so wrong. He could almost feel his phone resting on the table behind him, a glaring reminder of how easy it would be to reach out, if only to send one last apology. The likelihood that Hyunjin would just let it go and wouldn't talk to certain other people they knew was basically nil, however, so Jeongin couldn't risk it. No matter how much he missed the beta. How much he missed everyone. "Come on, now you're making me look bad. Scoot over." Jisung nudged him aside and took over at the sink. Between the two of them, the aftermath of their day together was tidied up just in time for Bang Chan to return. "Help, help," he chanted from the doorway. He was loaded down with multiple bags of takeout and had barely managed to work the keypad to unlock the door. They helped him get everything inside and then Jeongin took himself to the bathroom while the mated pair greeted each other. Unsurprisingly, he had to go again — seriously, kid, why this — but he'd mostly just wanted a moment to himself. He dawdled a while, washing his face, checking his hair. Taking deep breaths. Asking himself again if he was making the right decisions here. Nothing to be done but face it head on. Going back out to the little table with various take-out containers now spread across it in preparation for a Serious Dinner Talk gave him a wash of deja vu. Bang Chan looked over at him and smiled, pulse visibly jumping in his throat. So Jeongin wasn't the only one nervous as hell right now. Jeongin smiled back and some of his anxiety must have shown through, too, because Chan seemed to sort of… pull himself together. A shift in his posture and expression that made him appear more self-assured and calm. "How are you feeling, Innie-yah?" Chan asked. Jeongin shrugged. "Complicated. How much did Jisungie-hyung tell you?" "Well, I heard you've both gotten a lot closer," Chan said, lifting one eyebrow and passing a meaningful look between Jeongin and Jisung, who was popping open the containers, "And I know your birth pack called and it didn't go well, but I haven't got the details." "This isn't dim sum," Jisung said, saving Jeongin from having to respond to the unspoken question. Jeongin stepped in to check. It was chicken soup loaded with green onions, at least for the container in question. "Was it supposed to be?" "Oh, yeah, no. Changbin and I had dim sum for a late lunch and then went to the gym afterwards," Chan explained, rubbing at the back of his neck, "Bin wanted to treat all of us to dinner, but he thought homestyle would be best in case Innie's stomach got sensitive." Jeongin looked over the spread as Jisung uncovered more of it. Soft tofu stew, seaweed soup, stir fry noodles with vegetables, short rib, rice, a full array of side dishes. It smelled familiar, warm, and comforting. He burst into tears. "Oh my god," he complained. He turned away to wipe his eyes. "Hey, it's okay." Chan said, sounding startled. "Whoa, whoa, what happened?" Jisung demanded. "Your friend doesn't know me. He just knows I got myself in trouble, but he was still worried I'd get sick." Saying it out loud made the tears come harder. His own pack had refused to offer him any support in case it made them look bad to their neighbors and church community, but these strangers kept reaching out to him at every turn. He fanned himself with both hands as if that would cool down the need to cry. After a moment, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Chan stood beside him, a gentle smile on his face. Looking at him, Jeongin thought how funny it was that he felt so assured with Jisung, that in-spite of all his teenage fears and suffering, leaning over to kiss another omega had felt as right and easy as breathing, but with Bang Chan, he felt himself shying away. Maybe it was that he was older than anyone Jeongin had been with before, or maybe it was just the way Chan smiled at him, the warmth and care in it too much to take in at once. He ducked his head now and let Chan guide him to his seat at the table. Being among all the nostalgic scents of familiar dishes didn't help the crying situation, but Jisung started chattering about how big that hyung's ego would get if he found out about this and Chan was protesting and laughing in the same breath. Throughout it, Bang Chan's hand rested on his thigh, present without being invasive. All at once, it didn't feel so bad to be losing his cool over something so small. When he finally managed to calm down, they urged him into eating. The three of them ate out of the containers, passing them around to make sure they all got to have some, though there was more than they could finish in one setting. Bang Chan told the story of Seo Changbin's public meltdown over smelling a pregnant omega on Chan, to Jeongin's mortification. "Hyung, I'm so sorry," Jeongin said for the third time. It hadn't occurred to him that people would smell his scent marks on Bang Chan and think he was the alpha responsible for Jeongin's condition. Mostly because he hadn't thought about it in much depth at all. Jisung found the whole thing funny as hell, apparently, and kept sniggering into his stew. "It's okay," Chan repeated, "I have a working nose, too, you know, I could've prevented the situation myself." He could've prevented it by not wearing something Jeongin had marked out in public or by telling Jeongin to stop, both possibilities that made Jeongin's stomach roil in protest. The weight of unspoken words felt abruptly crushing. "Channie-hyung," he said, throat tight and pulse fluttering. Could he do this? "I like you, hyung. I like Jisungie-hyung, too. I like you both." Emotions Jeongin couldn't immediately decipher passed across Bang Chan's face. Jeongin checked on Jisung, who gave him an encouraging sideways nod but otherwise kept his main focus on Chan. It stung a bit, especially since Jisung hadn't voiced his own feelings or made any moves after the kiss, but it confirmed what Jeongin already knew; the alpha was the determining factor for where they all went from here. Jeongin kept talking, afraid of leaving too much space for a rejection. "I know it's really early to say this, but I want to be in your pack. I like you, but even if we're not together as mates or you don't feel the same — " The way Chan angled his head and looked up at Jeongin suggested his feelings weren't an issue on that point. "— or if anyone's feelings change, I still want to be in your pack." "And," Jisung interjected, "No matter how our relationship ends up." He gestured to include the three of them. "We gotta make sure Innie isn't forced to return to his birth pack. It's bad, hyung." Jisung and Chan locked eyes, and a moment of silent communication passed between them. Bang Chan nodded. "That's important, Innie," Chan said, not quite managing to look at him, "Please don't feel like you have to be in my pack just to have a place to stay." "I don't," Jeongin blurted out and it was true. A part of him did feel they were being overly optimistic about his options and he had been the one thinking of them as his ‘least terrible' choice when it came to co-parenting, so maybe they had reason to reassure him over and over, but aside from that cynicism, he trusted them to take care of him whether he was pack or not. "I want to be in your pack because it feels right." Chan exhaled hard and covered his face with both hands. Jisung placed a hand on Chan's forearm, not pulling it away from his face, just holding on lightly. Jeongin's stomach turned over and he regretted eating so much. It hit him that for all his gestures of affection and lingering stares and the heady lust that regularly flavored his scent, Bang Chan might not want Jeongin for his mate or packmate after all. "Jeongin-ah," Chan said, dropping his hands again. There was a telling redness to his eyes that stunned Jeongin, who hadn't yet seen Bang Chan upset enough to cry. "It would be my honor and my pleasure to have you in my pack, as my omega. But I'm — I'm afraid. This is about more than the three of us. I can't stand the idea of not being able to support you and the baby the way you need. Earlier today, I said it wasn't feasible for us to take you on. That it wasn't fair to you." Chan leaned his head back and blinked hard. Jeongin's stomach sank further. Chan wanting him, but not willing to take a chance on him because a baby was too expensive was… completely reasonable and logical. How could he argue with that? Jeongin had seen the amount of work they both did to support themselves. When a pack added new members, it was supposed to strengthen them, not add more weight, and that's exactly what he would be. More weight. "That's when my very loud friend," Chan tapped the half-eaten container of bean sprouts in front of him, "reminded me that we're not in this alone. That we have people willing to help. That I don't have to turn away someone special just because I'm afraid of failing them." He gave Jeongin the full force of his attention. "And you are special, Innie-ah. I like having you around. I want to get to know you more. I want to meet your baby. I want to help you raise them." His voice went softer and shook a little. "Be a father to them." Hope and adoration unfurled inside Jeongin. Oh, he really was falling in love. "I can't promise you it'll be an easy time," Chan stressed, "We're gonna have to work more, get a bigger place, just… get so much done before the baby is here. We --" He ran a hand through his short, curly hair, sending it sticking out in all directions, "-- we should probably start courting more packmates, too." He glanced at Jisung, seeking his agreement. Jisung, who'd been watching Chan with a fixed expression that fell somewhere between earnest sympathy and mild worry, suddenly heaved in a breath. "Yeah," he wheezed, hand to his chest, "Sounds great." Chan blinked at him. Jeongin fell into giggles. Jisung flustered, badly enough that Jeongin didn't think he'd meant to break the moment like that. "Sorry, I'm sorry, please continue. Don't look at me like, stop." He pulled his hood up over his head. The tension in Chan's face eased and he, too, laughed. "This," he said, breathless with giggles, and put a hand on Jisung's covered head, "This is what you're getting yourself into." "Aah, it's going to be very tiring, I'm sure." Jeongin made a show of sighing like a jaded old uncle. He watched Jisung peek out from under the hood and Chan's eyes turn up into happy crescents. "But I know it will be worth it." As much as Jeongin felt like he'd reached the limits of his emotional honesty for the day, there was more to be said. They caught Bang Chan up on the conversation with Jeongin's family and hashed over some of the challenges facing them. Jeongin wanted to try and get a job to help save up money, which dovetailed into a debate over who was the most clingy and unwilling to let Jeongin be alone in this situation, because Jeongin was pretty sure it wasn't him. Bang Chan steered them back on track only for things to dissolve again when he said he wanted to give Owner Chen one more chance to deliver on that raise before he went looking for another job. In the middle of all this, they collectively realized Jeongin hadn't been to a single doctor's appointment to check up on his condition. At three in the morning, Bang Chan put a pause on things. Jeongin was falling asleep in his chair and they'd long since detoured into flagrant flirting and discussions of which foods were best to eat at the beach. (Having gotten used to Bang Chan acting cute and shy whenever Jisung flirted with him, the first time Chan looked at Jeongin from under half-lidded eyes, smiled slow and sweet as honey slidding down a spoon, and said "Oh, our Innie has those kinds of tastes, does he?" had been like getting run over by a car.) When Jisung went into the bathroom to wash up, Chan caught Jeongin by the hips. "Do you want to sleep out here with us tonight?" he asked. Jeongin rested his hands on Chan's forearms, feeling along the prominent veins that snaked under his skin. "Just sleep?" Jeongin asked, as if he hadn't been passed out at the dinner table thirty seconds previously. He bent forward a bit over Chan, enjoying the height advantage he had on the alpha. Dimples popped out in Chan's cheeks, but despite the glimmer in his eyes and the heaviness in his scent, he said, "For tonight." Between this and that, Bang Chan had insisted that he wanted to take his time courting Jeongin. Jeongin, himself, preferred his relationships to move a lot faster and said as much, which had gotten him another one of those slow smiles before Chan changed subject. Bang Chan had not struck Jeongin as someone who was overly fussed about Proper Courtship, but the heated, smug look Jisung tossed his way made Jeongin think he had more wiggle room than Chan was implying. It'd be interesting to see which of them won out. For tonight, Jeongin was physically and emotionally exhausted, hyper-aware that Bang Chan had to got to work in two hours and not feeling all that sexy. He rested his forehead against Chan's. "I'll stay out here tonight," Jeongin said. Chan made a soft sound and brushed their noses together. He made no move to close the distance between their mouths and neither did Jeongin. They stood there, lightly holding each other, breathing in each other's space, until Jisung returned to hustle them into bed. Curled up between the two of them, Jeongin felt more optimistic about his situation than he had in a while. Maybe this would all work out after all. |