Chapter Text
ARMY Fans Speculate About BTS’s Golden Maknae Jungkook’s SubGender As the Idol Turns 24
Jungkook celebrates turning 24, and his agency BigHit still hasn’t released a statement about his — or any of his fellow members of BTS’s — subgenders (SGs).
Many agencies elect to keep their idols’ SGs private, but netizens continue to wait (and hope) that BigHit will release a statement about the members of BTS. BigHit has never been a company to follow tradition, so fans were hopeful that they may break the mold of tradition and confirm the members’ subgenders.
“Well, I just think it’s important for [BTS] to be transparent with us,” says twitter user @tangerinesuga, age 25. “They ask us to support them, but how can we if we don’t really know them?”
“I respect BTS’s privacy,” says another fan, twitter user @jksaline, who asked for their age not to be published. “But it would be nice to know, especially if there are omegas in the group. Omega representation is a big deal.”
This statement may refer to a recent scandal involving the Kpop group, Exo. A private conversation between Exo singer Baekhyun and a friend was leaked. In this screenshot of KakaoTalk messages, Baekhyun mentions being on heat suppressants — despite agency SM releasing a statement in 2014 confirming all members to be betas. This sparked online discussion about the representation of hybrids, especially omegas, and why celebrities keep omega identities private.
“I just want BTS to know that ARMYs support them no matter what,” says a third fan, @s3xyom3g4, age 31. “If they’re all omegas, we’ll support them even more for overcoming everything that comes along with that.”
While BigHit stays silent, ARMYs will continue to speculate about member subgenders and love BTS.
Comments
bangertan: lmao y’all really blind, huh. namjoon is an alpha. why else would he be the leader?
↳ jhopeswife: you do realize you’re implying only alphas can be leaders??
bigborg: you all are so hybridphobic. why does it even matter? let’s just respect their privacy and move on. it doesn’t make a difference anyway!
↳ savebangtan: lol found the anti!!!
↳ savebangtan: i bet you just hate your own sg, that’s the only reason people say stuff like that
↳ 97xo.i: i’m not hybridphobic, i’m allowed to have preferences
megtheomega: i hope jungkook is really an alpha… i thought we would find out their sgs once they were all legal :( but now i just have to speculate :(
↳ starbb99: he’s def an alpha. i mean look at those muscles
↳ megtheomega: i know, that’s why i think he’s alpha, but idk. what if he was an omega lmao
“Ugh, Jungkook-ah,” Hoseok scoffs from the couch. “They wrote another article about your subgender.”
“What am I this time?” Jungkook sighs, folding himself over the back of the couch to look down at Hoseok’s phone.
“The article itself doesn’t speculate. Just commenters. You must be an alpha because of your scary tattoos,” Hoseok says, smirking.
It’s early afternoon, a slice of quiet between a morning meeting and some practice this evening. Hoseok is barefoot and curled up on the couch, too bored to want to be alone, bothering any member who ventures into the room with conversation. Bright winter sunlight clamors in through the open curtains, white and abrasive as the frosty weather itself. Jungkook has just gotten out of his post-gym shower, and he smells good and clean and fresh, and not for the first time, Hoseok wonders what he smells like to hybrids. Do they just smell the soap, too? Or is Jungkook musky? Sweet?
He will never know, something he laments at length.
“Oh, are alphas scary now?” Jimin asks, striding into the room, looking put-together in the way he always does on schedule days. His ashy hair is brushed back on both sides, a dark turtleneck taut against his slim body. He looks handsome, muscular, and honestly, a little dangerous.
“I didn’t say alphas were scary,” Hoseok says as Jimin comes up behind Hoseok, brushes Hoseok’s hair back, and says, “Roar.”
They both giggle; Jimin ruffles Hoseok’s hair and wanders off to the kitchen.
Before becoming part of the family that is Bangtan, Hoseok hadn’t known many hybrids. None of his immediate relatives were hybrids; most of his friends were betas. He knows that when his classmates started presenting in junior high, some of them would have heats and ruts and have to be out of school for a few days a few times a year. He didn’t know what that meant, not really, not in any tangible sense, not until second year of middle school when the boys’ tennis club turned up in classroom 2C before the club sponsor had arrived and started gossiping.
“Would you knot her?” one of Hoseok’s seniors, a third year named Siwu, was giddily whispering to the rest of the group.
A kid named Yunseo from Hoseok’s grade, wide-eyed and tinged red, gasped, “Hyejin? Yang Hyejin?”
“Who else?” Siwu asked. “She was out three days this week. I heard she’s an omega.”
“I dunno,” Yunseo stuttered. “Well, would you? Kn-knot her?”
Siwu smirked. “Obviously.”
Hoseok stood in the doorway, ears ringing. He didn’t know what everything meant, but he knew from the way they were whispering, heads tucked together conspiratorially, that it wasn’t nice or good. When he got home, he almost asked his sister Dawon what knotting someone was, but then, thinking better of it, he snuck to his room and asked Naver instead (for which he was immensely glad, later).
After that, Hoseok did find alphas a little scary for a while. Not because of their personalities, but because the idea of a knot freaked Hoseok out a lot. Like, to the point where he stopped touching himself for almost six months out of fear that he was a late presenter and would pop a knot.
He got over that, eventually, and at some point decided to “familiarize” himself more with alpha and omega anatomy because what if he ended up with a hybrid? He didn’t want to be judgy. He didn’t want to be afraid of others. He spent a lot of time in late high school getting comfortable with hybrid anatomy via the internet.
(And at some point, knots stopped being scary so much as they were… kinda hot? Kinda?)
As far as personalities went, as much as he tried not to, he did find himself studying alphas and omegas he knew to see if the stereotypes held true.
Siwu ended up at the same high school with Hoseok, where he found that Siwu was a bit of a hothead, but maybe Siwu was just like that. His omega classmates weren’t particularly different; sometimes he thought they might be a little quiet, but maybe he was projecting that onto them? Anyway, Hoseok decided that it was probably all bullshit and that hybrid status had nothing to do with personality.
After all, Hoseok was a beta, but he wasn’t all boring and apathetic. At least, he didn’t think so.
“Do you ever think we might be boring and apathetic?” Hoseok asks Jungkook, who has by now rounded the couch and plopped down half atop Hoseok, tucking his toes under Hoseok’s legs for warmth.
Jungkook pulls away from Hoseok to look him in the face, squinting hard. “Us?”
“You know,” Hoseok says, “betas.”
Jungkook frowns. “Hyung, I don’t think any of the stereotypes about subgenders are true. Do you?”
This flusters Hoseok, knocks him a degree crooked. “No, no! Of course not. I just… wonder if being a beta would affect how people would see me, if they knew.”
Jungkook softens back against Hoseok, nuzzling into his neck. “I don’t know, hyung. I don’t think anyone who would care matters. Or anyone who matters would care.”
“Oh, Jungkook-ah,” Hoseok sighs, squeezing Jungkook against him. “You’re so wise and so kind. Your hyungs have raised you so well.”
Strolling back into the room with a peeled tangerine in hand, the sharp scent of citrus permeating the air, Jimin hums. “You’re cute like that,” he says to the both of them. “You look like you’re scenting each other.”
This piques Hoseok’s interest. Anything on the topic of hybrids always seems a bit racy to him, a little taboo, which is what makes it so damn fun to talk about. “What would that smell like?” Hoseok asks.
As an alpha, Jimin’s sense of smell is keener than the betas’. He can, ostensibly, consciously detect their pheromones and the shift in their scents with strong emotions. It’s a kind of superpower, one Hoseok envies. How good of a moodmaker could he be, if only he had that kind of gift?
Jimin inhales deeply, nostrils of his button nose flaring. “Hard to think about it when all I can smell is this tangerine, honestly,” Jimin says, popping a slice of tangerine in his mouth. “But Jungkookie always smells… kind of earthy. In a good way. Like summer. It’s pretty faint, though.”
Jungkook preens, just a baby wiggle on top of Hoseok.
“And me?” Hoseok asks.
“Like…” Jimin chews, considering. “Roses.”
“Roses?”
“Yeah,” Jimin confirms. “You ever smelled fresh roses? Kinda like that.”
Hoseok bites his lip. The new information is a little thrilling to hear, learning something about himself which was previously unknowable to him. “Is that a good thing?”
Jimin laughs. “Yeah. It’s a sweet smell. Not overpowering and very natural. Smells like you, hyung.”
Smells like you, hyung. Hoseok doesn’t know what that means, but the way Jimin says it is enough to convince him that it really is a good thing.
“Well… cool,” Hoseok says. Roses. Sometimes when Jimin sneaks into his bed late at night, curls around him, presses close, Hoseok gets a whiff of what he imagines Jimin smells like to other hybrids, sharp and sweet. Something about the cloying scent reminds Hoseok of honey and apples, the sour tang of a crisp apple picked early in the fall, rounded off with thick, sugary honey. Thinking of it now, Hoseok’s mouth waters.
Then he wonders aloud, “What does everyone else smell like?”
“Namjoon-hyung and Seokjin-hyung smell the strongest, and Tae-Tae. Namjoon-hyung smells sorta sweet and woodsy, like wildflowers. Or honey. Seokjin-hyung uses a lot of scent blockers so I can’t always tell, but he kinda smells like candied nuts, or something. Sweet and a little nutty.”
“Huh,” Hoseok says, absorbing the new information. It’s weird that Jimin has a whole other layer to his experience of the world. “Taehyung?”
“He kinda smells… meaty. Not in a bad way!” Jimin laughs again. “Probably because he’s another alpha and I’m not supposed to be attracted to him. He just smells… powerful.”
“Meaty,” Jungkook snorts.
“I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe it,” Jimin admits with another quiet chuckle. “It’s just what I think of.”
“Interesting,” Hoseok says, then his watch buzzes. “Oh shit, it’s three. I gotta get ready for practice.”
Jungkook stretches in Hoseok’s lap, then groans into his neck. “Wanna ride together?” he asks the both of them.
“Sure, as long as Jimin-ah doesn’t mind our smells,” Hoseok teases, and Jimin rolls his eyes, shoving the last piece of tangerine into Hoseok’s mouth.
“Shut up, hyung,” he says. “You asked.” His thumb lingers on Hoseok’s bottom lip just a split-second too long, and then he’s gone.
It’s not that Hoseok has never talked to the hybrid members about what it’s like to be a hybrid, it’s just that… he’s not always sure about the etiquette. He thinks if he were a hybrid, he’d be comfortable enough with the members to speak openly about it, but he’s not a hybrid, so his opinion doesn’t really matter.
Most of the conversations he’s had with the hybrid members have been sort of clinical — Taehyung mentioning early-on and off-hand that he doesn’t like taking pills so he’s not taking rut suppressants, Namjoon cursing when he realizes he forgot to pick up a refill of his heat suppressants, Seokjin complaining about his suppressants making him moody, then clinging to Taehyung just to smell him, Jimin stocking their bathroom cabinet with pheromone blocking soaps and lotions and always running his air purifier in their room. Taehyung telling them, along with the managers, that he was probably going to rut soon and would be at his friend’s for a couple days. Jimin vomiting after trying another new rut suppressant, looking queasy all practice, and quietly struggling for six months before deciding that enough was enough and if the three main types of suppressants all fucked him up this badly, he’d be better off without them.
Jimin apologizing profusely and asking Hoseok if he could bunk with another member for a few days, just once every few months, so Jimin could privately work through his ruts.
When Jimin first asked him, Hoseok was nonplussed. He had just never thought about the logistics of sharing a room with a hybrid. He wanted to ask, Is it that bad? and then, How is it? and then, What does ‘working through’ a rut look like?
But all those questions were increasingly invasive, so instead Hoseok croaked, “Of course!” and slipped away to ask Jungkook if he wanted a hyung to cuddle with for a few days every quarter (which of course he did, actually more often than that, hyung, stay and cuddle me now?).
And besides those times when it comes up, it’s really just not that big of a deal to any of them. They live normally in their big apartment, have relative privacy now, and Hoseok assumes that if anyone wanted to talk about it, they would.
Besides, it doesn’t come up all that often.
Usually, they’re more focused on other things: concerts and recording and dancing and interviewing and sleeping and staying fit and writing and improving and working hard, harder, navigating the woes of living and working together, of being famous in their mid-20s, of having far-away families they care deeply about, of the ever-present loneliness of celebrity.
That alone is too much for any person to handle, which is why Hoseok strives to live in the moment.
He kicks those thoughts away when he dances; he’s here, he’s hearing the sounds of sneakers and boots clapping against the hard laminate floor, he’s watching the angle of Taehyung and Namjoon’s feet as they dance, he’s tasting the staleness of the coffee he downed before practice, he’s feeling his own body stretch and strain with effort.
It’s enough to exhaust anyone.
“Alright, break,” Sungdeuk calls when the music ends.
Following Yoongi over to the wall where they’ve all got their waters, he offers Yoongi some pointers on the current choreo, ways to keep too much pressure off his healing shoulder. Hoseok stretches in front of the mirror, then meets eyes with Jimin, who is on the floor, doing the same. As he stretches, his thighs bulge in his leggings, and he pats his hands against the practice room floor.
Hoseok scoots across the room to stand behind Jimin, then folds over to push on Jimin’s shoulders, pressing until Jimin’s nose touches the tops of his thighs.
“You’re flexible,” Hoseok says.
“You’re sweaty,” Jimin laughs, shrugging Hoseok’s hands off his shoulders. “Gross. Don’t touch me.”
Hybrids are on the brain today. Especially Jimin’s hybrid status. That’s all Hoseok can think to justify it when he says: “I thought I smelled good.” He presses against Jimin’s back again, this time harder, teasing.
“I said you smelled like roses! Not that your sweat doesn’t smell sweaty!” Jimin giggles, worming around so he can see Hoseok, grab his hands, and push back.
Hoseok leans his weight harder into Jimin, who falls onto his back as Hoseok attempts to crawl on top of him, hands climbing up Jimin’s stomach to his shoulders.
“Don’t hurt yourselves or Sungdeuk will murder you both,” Seokjin chides. “We can’t perform with our two main dancers out of commission.”
With that, Hoseok rolls off to the side, landing on his back next to Jimin, all three of them laughing.
“Geonbae!”
Perhaps they party too much.
It seems to be at least once every few weeks that someone is booking a private room at a bar, claiming they all need to get together to celebrate finishing an album or naming a single or mastering a dance or planning a tour. But, considering the relative tameness of their parties, what with how almost half of them don’t drink, none of them do drugs, and they don’t risk promiscuous sex, maybe partying isn’t so much of a problem.
It certainly doesn’t feel like a problem when Hoseok finds himself at a table at a restaurant, crammed in so closely between Yoongi and Namjoon that he can barely breathe, all seven of them plus managers and the staff who’d helped mix the next title song shouting and chattering and stuffing their faces with sizzling-hot pork belly and spicy, sour kimchi and chewy jeon.
Yoongi’s leg, tight against Hoseok’s, is vibrating; it’s a thing Yoongi started doing when he quit smoking years and years ago, and though it’s rare now, it tends to happen when he drinks. He says it’s because he used to mix the two a lot, and the only time he ever misses smoking now is when he’s drinking alcohol.
They’re all drinking tonight, Hoseok a dark beer (because it’s what Namjoon ordered and Namjoon knows beer, so he probably ordered something good), while Seokjin, Yoongi, and Jimin chose liquor. Taehyung tried a sip of Namjoon’s beer, made a horrified face, and confirmed that he was just sticking with juice. Jungkook has some fruity concoction he ordered because the picture on the menu looked nice, and he’s twirling the tiny drink umbrella between his tattooed fingers as he chats with his personal manager, Yeona, who’s next to him and talking about her kids.
Hoseok feels at home. His stomach twists every time he sips at his beer, but he’s filling up on rice and greasy strips of samgyeopsal and spicy squid, which helps the drink hit his oversensitive system a little more gently. Red-faced Jimin, sitting across from him, animatedly tells Yoongi and Seokjin about what he walked in on Jungkook doing the other day, and everyone is laughing.
Jimin is like that, Hoseok thinks. He’s not the center of attention—not always, and rarely on purpose—but he has a way of capturing people regardless. When he drinks it comes into greater prominence, the way he can be so funny and so sweet, complimenting the staff every time they bring more food, asking Jungkook about a project he only mentioned once, making sure everyone else feels attended to. Hoseok doesn’t even realize he’s been dazedly musing this to himself for nearly five minutes, chin on his palm with his elbow on the table, gazing vacantly towards Jimin, until Namjoon elbows him in the ribs and then knocks over his own beer when he turns to apologize.
The whole table erupts into laughs and friendly jeers as Hoseok jumps up to find something to clean up with. Once the table is mopped off, Namjoon and Hoseok each with some beer-stained pants and shirts, they settle back down and Namjoon orders a water; “At least it won’t stain anything,” Namjoon laughs.
Bellies full and all a little tipsy, Seokjin makes a big show of handing his credit card to the staff and footing the entire bill, all of them intensely aware of how much a meal like this costs relative to what they each have in their bank accounts. It’s a drop in the ocean, really.
The air outside is still, frozen as the ground itself. Their breath spilling out like fog almost disguises it when Taehyung takes a fat rip of his vape pen and releases the vapor among them, but the cotton candy scent gives him a way, earning him a reluctantly lighthearted scolding from a manager.
Eventually, they end up back at their big shared apartment. Without a busy schedule the following morning, they can sleep in, but the relatively short time off won’t justify any of them separating to their own respective apartments for the night. They file out of the cars and march up to the apartment, all being probably just a few decibels too loud to be polite.
“Hey, hey!” Jimin says, eyes alight, when they all file inside and remove their shoes and jackets. “We should play some games.”
Namjoon yawns, stretching his arms above his head with a few cracks of his spine. “Like what games?”
Jimin yawns after Namjoon, then laughs. “Do we have a deck of cards? How about Slap?”
Yoongi guffaws, jumping in at the mention of the game. “You and Jungkook got into a screaming match last time we played Slap!” Sinking himself down in the comfiest armchair, he fluffs his hair and adds, “It was pretty funny though. I’d watch it again.”
“And it was a night for the records,” Jimin says haughtily. “How’s about it?”
“I prefer Spoons,” Seokjin says. He crosses his arms and gets comfortable right in the middle of the loveseat.
“Because you have longer arms,” Jimin says. “No.”
Seokjin shrugs. “I’m great at any game. Try me.”
“Maybe I will!” Jimin challenges.
Seokjin laughs, a high, humorless thing that’s all part of his facade. “Oh ho ho, Park Jimin. You seem to have forgotten that in addition to my dashing good looks, I was gifted with lightning-fast reflexes and an uncanny ability to win games.” With this, he strikes an attack pose, two hands arranged in front of his face.
Hoseok is giggling, hanging onto Jungkook’s side. “Doesn’t Taehyungie have a nice hwatu deck?”
Taehyung nods, lips pursed like he’s serious. “Oh, I do. But I’m only getting them out if we make Jungkookie shuffle.”
Jimin balks. “Why?”
“First of all, he’s good at it. Secondly, he’s too pure to cheat.”
In a handful of moments, time has thickened as Hoseok passed through it; high stress and a great deal of arguing had Hoseok wondering whether BTS would survive as a unit. These moments abounded in the early years. Now, they aren’t so many — but now, Hoseok wonders.
This third round of hwatu, as Jimin flips over a useless card from the deck and wails, makes Hoseok wonder.
Seokjin stands on the brink of winning again. If he pulls the right card, he can sweep the win out from under Taehyung. In agony, Jimin rolls on the floor.
“I’m fucking fucked! Motherfucker!” Jimin sobs.
Jimin’s strong competitive streak shines through in moments like this, spurring Hoseok to wonder whether it’s part of being an alpha. At the thought, Hoseok’s eyes find Taehyung, staring intently down at his own hand of cards, biting his lip. He, too, has an intensity about winning that might be attributed to being an alpha.
That being said, Seokjin, one of their two omegas, also gets intense and competitive in games like this. Yoongi can, too. But they both carry a humor about it that Jimin and Taehyung can’t always seem to.
How many times have Jimin and Taehyung fought over games, sworn that their friendship was dead over a game of rock-paper-scissors? And how many times have Hoseok and Yoongi and Namjoon and Seokjin all intervened to pull their heads out of their respective asses? Is that the way a pack cares for its alphas?
A pack.
In technical terms, Hoseok supposes that they could describe the group as a pack.
On one day of curious weakness, Hoseok had researched the subject. The Korean National Hybrid Foundation described a pack as a group of hybrids who cohabitate and fulfill each others’ emotional and/or physical needs. A list of conditions followed, outlining that most packs consist of a mixture of alphas, betas, and omegas; that packs often contained mates; and that packs may contain romantic and/or platonic relationships. Beyond that, the webpage dispelled some common myths about hybrids and packs.
For one, a pack doesn’t need “an alpha”; alphas are often not providers or protectors. Alphas do tend to score higher on assessments of aggression, possessiveness, and determination, but they score equally high on loyalty, emotional intelligence, and dependability.
Pack omegas are also not submissive mistresses. They do not need alphas. Omegas tend to prefer being in groups, however, and score extraordinarily high on measures of sensitivity, introvertedness, and self-preservation instincts (though the site did note the qualitative nature of many of the studies into this profiling).
The webpage on betas was remarkably bare; rather than describing what betas are, it focused largely on what they aren’t.
Betas do not experience heats like omegas or ruts like alphas.
Bulbus glandis does not occur in the penises of male betas, and male betas do not possess the evolutionary remnants of a womb, which is observed in most male omegas.
Beta olfactory senses are, on average, 67% the strength of that of omegas and alphas.
The whole thing left Hoseok feeling kind of icky and invisible.
The very same webpage had said that nearly 63% of the population of the Republic of Korea was made of betas. So where was the data about them?
Data or no data, however, Hoseok wonders what being a beta of their pack (if they are indeed a pack) means, and what bearing their respective hybrid statuses have on the dynamic of this night. Regardless of what any of it means, Namjoon can be extraordinarily perceptive and is often the peacemaker.
Now is no exception.
He’s laughing right along with everyone else, but as Jimin gets progressively hysterical, his hand lands on Jimin’s thigh and he squeezes gently. Hoseok notices the way Jimin leans into him and wonders what he smells on Namjoon — earlier, he’d said woodsy. Is there something about that woodsy scent that’s comforting in situations of high stress? Does that explain the way Jimin squeezes in closer against him on the couch?
Not that Hoseok cares.
Not that he really believes on any level that being a beta means he has less to offer anyone in his life.
The following morning, Hoseok and Taehyung are the only two to have escaped the inevitability of a hangover. As he always does, Hoseok blinks open his crusty eyes 10 minutes before his alarm is set to scream at him, rolls over, and snatches his phone off the nightstand before it has the chance. Yawning and stretching and smoothing a hand through his fluffy bedhead, he opens his phone to catch up on notifications and procrastinate on starting the day.
That only lasts a short while, though, because Jimin groans from a few feet away in his own bed, voice hardly a raspy whisper as he says, “Hyung?”
Propelling himself upright, Hoseok looks over to find Jimin looking slightly green and very sweaty in his bed. “You okay?”
Jimin winces. “I told you never to let me drink that much again after the last time,” Jimin whines.
Hoseok kicks off his covers and starts digging through his nightstand for medicine. “And I told you that I wasn’t responsible for raining on your parade while you’re having a good time. How much you drink is your responsibility and no one else’s. Now drink up.” He forces a water bottle into Jimin’s hands and shakes the Tylenol bottle in Jimin’s pallid face.
“Stupid responsible hyung,” Jimin grumbles, but pushes himself up onto his elbows to comply.
Hoseok laughs, petting Jimin’s head. “I’m gonna go see if we have the ingredients for bean-sprout soup.”
“I love you, stupid responsible hyung.”
While Hoseok waits for Hyunsoo (the first of their managers to respond when Hoseok messaged them asking who could bring them bean sprouts and a few other things) to drop off their groceries, he crawls into each of his dongsaengs’ beds to check on their physical and emotional condition under the guise of being annoying.
Jungkook refuses to move, and Namjoon is quietly reading with his glasses on, eyebrows pinched in the way they get when he’s in pain, but Taehyung is stretching in bed when Hoseok finds him and promptly flops on top of him.
“Taehyung-ah,” Hoseok wails. “Come help hyung make breakfast for all of our hungover babies.”
Grouchy and sleepy but always full of love, Taehyung mumbles, “I’ll make rice.”
Fortunately, everyone’s mood seems to be lifted by Hoseok’s rare excursion into cooking for them all, and nearly an hour later, they’re scattered across the kitchen, slurping at hot soup at various levels of consciousness.
“Best hyung,” Jungkook whimpers into his soup.
“Are you crying?” Seokjin asks. He’s still in his pajamas, but looks somehow put-together, skin clear and dewy, despite Hoseok being 100% positive he was asleep all of three minutes prior. The only indication of the fact, however, is the way a clump of hair on the back of his head sticks at a strange angle, oddly flat in another place.
Jimin curls an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder. “I think he might still be a little drunk.”
Jungkook coughs in a way that sounds almost sob-like. “No, ‘m just really hung over and I don’t know if I’d be alive without hyung’s soup.”
With Hoseok’s soup and a hint of luck, every member is upright and ready to roll for their afternoon meeting. It’s one of the more informal ones, just the managers and a couple other company reps, a couple dozen doughnuts, hot coffee for everyone, and a big shared planner, enough people and movement inside a conference room for them to be mostly comfortable despite the icy winter weather.
Regardless, Hoseok’s hands start to pinken from the chill, and Jimin catches him blowing on them and rubbing them together to try and warm them up. Jimin rolls his chair closer to Hoseok’s, grabs both his hands under the table, and stuffs them in his hoodie pocket where it’s deliciously cozy. Jimin’s other hand is still in there, too, and he brushes his warm fingers over Hoseok’s palm absent-mindedly.
They’re mostly just going over scheduling today. They have these meetings often, because BTS would fall apart both as a group and as individuals if they couldn’t fit their schedules together like gears of a well-oiled machine.
“It looks like we’re still on track for a comeback in late March, and another in October,” Soyeon, one of the company reps, is saying. “I know everyone has been working really hard on the music and choreography, and we should be ready to start filming in a few weeks.”
At the mention of choreography, Soyeon looks at Hoseok. “In your opinion, will the dance be ready soon?”
Hoseok startles. “Oh! Well, I think Sungdeuk-hyungnim isn’t quite happy with it yet, and we still need Bang PD-nim’s approval for it, so… I think we can be ready in a few weeks, though.”
Soyeon nods, pleased. “And I know Jimin-ah and Taehyung-ah will need some leave soon, so everyone remember to plan that time into your schedules. We would like to film a few episodes of Run! BTS before next week in case the leave comes early, as you’ve seen on the calendar. You’ll be provided outfits so no need to dress up.”
Indeed, the digital planner has thin pink stripes across certain dates that read, “BTS - Park Jimin - Medical Leave” and “BTS - Kim Taehyung - Medical Leave” for the projected dates of their respective ruts. It’s not talked about in such explicit terms as a group, but before any hybrid signs to a company, terms are negotiated in private. Law requires a minimum of 15 days of leave be provided to hybrids each year by their employers, as working through heats and ruts can range from dangerous to downright impossible. Hoseok has heard that some companies furnish them with a few whole weeks.
Needless to say, no member of BTS gets extra weeks. There just isn’t time. As it is, the two or three days that Jimin and Taehyung steal away every few months can be a strain. Scheduling tours and any other travel proves difficult when a quarter of the group fall out-of-commission for a few days at a time, and even when they’re domestic, they struggle to do much of anything productive.
When Hoseok chances a glance at Jimin, the younger’s eyes look straight ahead, solemn. Hoseok wonders whether it’s guilt that’s weighing down his facial features. Guilt for being different, for having different needs, for being a burden on the team. Hoseok knows - he saw the breakdowns, the sickness, the crying and resignation in Jimin’s eyes, so he knows how hard Jimin fought to be on suppressants and not need this time off.
If only Jimin could see it how the rest of them did: if it was hurting Jimin, it was hurting them all. No one held any resentment for Jimin for not tolerating suppressants.
It’s part of being a team. It’s what makes them work as well as they do, that unending support and love.