Chapter Text
Jimin sat facing the window, hands shoved beneath his thighs, his posture stiff with quiet defiance. The cold wind poured in through the fully rolled-down window, biting at his skin and drying his eyes, but he didn’t care. He welcomed it—wanted it, even. The chill kept him grounded, reminded him that this wasn’t a dream, that he was here—wherever here even was.
The road blurred into a smear of green and shadow, and beside him, the driver maneuvered the car with maddening calm. One hand on the wheel, the other on the gear, his presence was steady, almost too steady. It made Jimin’s chest ache in ways he couldn’t describe. Everything about him was infuriating—his silence, his control, the way he acted like nothing was wrong.
Jimin’s fingers curled tighter under his thighs. He refused to speak first.
For a heartbeat, a reckless thought lit up in the back of his mind—he could grab the wheel, just twist it sharply and let the car skid off into the trees. At least then the outside might match the mess inside his head. But the thought vanished as quickly as it came, leaving him hollow. He didn’t have the energy to act on it. Didn’t have the heart.
“Roll the windows up. It’s getting colder,” the driver said, voice flat, eyes still on the road.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not wearing enough.”
“I said I’m fine.” Jimin’s voice was clipped, each word more brittle than the last. Goosebumps rose on his exposed stomach, but he didn’t move. He would rather freeze than admit he needed warmth—from the air or from him.
The silence that followed was deafening. Heavy with everything unspoken, unscreamed.
He never thought this day would come. This place—his place, apparently—was supposed to be a destination, maybe even a beginning. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like exile. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t belong anywhere.
The only place he ever truly felt like he fit was on stage. Under the burning lights. In front of a sea of strangers who chanted his name like a prayer. The same strangers who devoured every rumor, every piece of him the media served on a silver platter. It was cruel, but comforting. At least it was real. At least there, the pain made sense.
What a strange contradiction—to find comfort in the very thing that made him question who he was. And now, sitting beside someone who once made him feel understood, Jimin only felt the sting of distance.
Not physical—emotional. The kind that no rolled-down window could ever fix.
*******************
The cool air from the air conditioner did little to stop the sweat from trickling down Jeongguk’s neck. The Eastern lands were suffocating—humid, relentless, and utterly unforgiving for someone from the crisp, dry North. He stood still, eyes trained on the humming drinks fridge in front of him, but his mind was somewhere far away, spiraling.
When had he become so volatile?
It wasn’t like him. Or maybe, it wasn’t who he used to be. These days, he barely recognized the person staring back at him in the mirror. They said it was normal—growth wasn’t the same for everyone, especially not for a leader in the making. He had already gone through puberty in his teens but these Hormones hit harder, deeper. But still, he used to find comfort in silence, in pages that smelled like old libraries and wisdom. Now? His eyes skimmed paragraphs only to reread them again and again, and nothing would stick.
Earlier, he'd nearly flipped a chair during the negotiations. His cousin had physically pulled him out of the room before he did something irreversible. They were here on official business—arms trading with one of the Eastern territories—and he was supposed to keep quiet, to learn. Observe. Be invisible.
But he couldn’t. Not when the tradesman reeked of dishonesty and twisted deals. Not when everything in his bones told him the man deserved to be thrown through the table, not spoken to.
His breathing started to quicken again just thinking about it.
“There are only two drinks. It’s not that hard,” a calm voice, warm and smooth like river stone, broke through the storm in his head.
Jeongguk blinked.
He hadn’t even realized there was someone else there. Standing next to him, a boy—no, a young man—dressed in a hoodie that clung to his slight frame despite the heat, was gazing into the fridge like it was a mystery he was determined to solve. He had chocolate-brown hair and eyes that were softer than they had any right to be in a place like this. An Easterner, through and through.
And yet, something in him sparked—no, snapped.
The switch flipped. His frustration evaporated like mist in the sun. He didn’t know how or why, but the sight of this stranger eased something sharp inside him. A strange sense of recognition bloomed in his chest, like meeting someone he'd been missing his entire life but never knew existed.
He just stood there, wide-eyed and frozen.
The boy yanked the fridge door open with a clatter and pulled out two bottles of soda.
“Here. If it’s too difficult to choose,” he said with a lopsided grin, eyes turning to half moons as he held one out.
Jeongguk didn’t move.
So the boy stepped closer, gently prying Jeongguk’s hand from where it hung limply at his side. One by one, he curled Jeongguk’s fingers around the bottle, sealing it into his grip. His touch was light. Heat crawled up his neck, rushed into his face. His ears were burning.
He was mortified.
How?
Why?
What?
Those were the only words his brain could process. He watched, stunned, as the boy walked toward the counter. Jeongguk’s feet moved before his mind could catch up.
He found him paying, sorting bills with an effortless grace that was almost infuriating.
“Your number?” Jeongguk asked, breathless, with no warning.
The boy paused, lifting a brow. “Huh?”
“How do I contact you?” Jeongguk’s voice cracked slightly with urgency.
The boy blinked, amused, then smiled again. “It’s Jimin.” He grabbed a pen from the disinterested shopkeeper and scribbled something down. “My name. In case you call.”
He handed Jeongguk the piece of paper—creased, slightly damp from sweat, utterly sacred now—and walked out with his noisy shopping bag, never looking back.
Jeongguk just stood there, still clutching the soda.
“Are you going to buy that?” a voice called somewhere in the distance.
He didn’t respond. The world had gone quiet, except for the racing of his own heart.
*********************
On the way back to the hotel, Jeongguk had called Namjoon, asking—no, insisting—that they talk. His thoughts were tangled, looping restlessly in his head. He expected Namjoon to be waiting when he arrived, but the room was empty.
The moment the door closed behind him, Jeongguk lunged for the desk, digging out a pen from the drawer. He carefully wrote Jimin’s number onto scraps of paper—hotel stationery, a napkin, the back of a receipt—and then saved it to his phone under multiple names. A strange sort of panic buzzed in his chest, irrational but unshakable. He couldn’t afford to lose it. Lose him.
He began pacing, barefoot on the cold tile, thoughts tumbling one over the other.
A mate.
It was the kind of thing most people only dreamed of. You could live a full life without one—many did. The body didn’t crave them, the heart didn’t ache in their absence. But for those who did find a mate, it was said life became something else entirely. Whole. Blissful. Rare. Sacred.
Jeongguk had never imagined he would find one. He wasn’t even sure he believed in the idea.
But when he’d looked at Jimin—just standing there in front of that old fridge, dressed far too warmly for the sweltering weather—something had shifted inside him. Like his soul had taken one step forward. A soft nudge, not a scream. Not “mine,” but… maybe.
Maybe.
And that was what terrified him most.
The door creaked open.
Namjoon entered, closing it behind him with the careful calm of someone ready to scold. His eyes were sharp.
“What you did at the meeting is not the sort of behavior expected of—”
“I think I found my mate.” Jeongguk’s voice cut through the room like a wire pulled too tight.
Namjoon blinked. “What?”
“I don’t know,” Jeongguk admitted, dragging a hand down his face. “I think I found my mate.”
That stunned pause settled again. Namjoon’s irritation began to falter, replaced by something warier.
“In the Eastern lands?” he asked slowly. “Jeongguk, you know how rare it is to find a ware out here—let alone a mate.”
“He’s not a ware,” Jeongguk said, shaking his head. “He’s… human.”
Namjoon stared at him. “A human?”
Jeongguk suddenly moved, locking the door and tugging the curtains shut, as if the conversation itself was dangerous.
“Yes,” he said, quietly this time. “He’s human.”
Namjoon sat down on the edge of the bed, his brows knitting. “A human mate is unheard of.”
“I know,” Jeongguk murmured, eyes fixed on the floor. “I know. It’s ridiculous. I just… the second I saw him, I felt something shift. I don’t know if it’s real or if I’m imagining it. It wasn’t like some… instant bond. No lightning bolt or blood-deep pull. Just—something that felt right. And that hasn’t happened to me in a long time.”
He looked up then, eyes searching Namjoon’s for something he couldn’t name.
“I’m not saying he’s my mate,” Jeongguk added. “Not yet. But I want to find out.”
Namjoon’s eyes fell on the hotel stationery, the neat scrawl barely dry. Then he noticed the other pieces—bits of napkins, receipt edges, torn paper—all bearing the same digits, written over and over again with the desperation of someone afraid they might forget.
Ever the perceptive one, he didn’t need to ask. But he did.
“Is that his number?”
Jeongguk nodded quickly. “Yes. Should I call him?” he asked, voice edged with urgency. He looked like he was about to wear a path into the carpet with all his pacing.
Namjoon blinked. This wasn’t the Jeongguk he’d known all his life—the calm, collected one who thought before he acted. This Jeongguk was restless. Impulsive. Uncertain. And that alone told Namjoon how deeply this encounter had rattled him.
“You should ask to meet him tomorrow,” Namjoon said gently, still watching him. “We need to be sure, Gukkie. I’ll go with you—”
“No,” Jeongguk cut in, the word sharp. “You can’t come with me.”
Namjoon raised a hand, not in defense, but in quiet reassurance. “I won’t come forward,” he said calmly. “I’ll stay where you can’t see me. I won’t interfere.”
Jeongguk hesitated, torn between instinct and pride.
“But we have to be sure,” Namjoon continued, voice softer now, more like an older brother than an advisor. “You feel something—but that doesn’t make it what you think it is. Not yet.”
The tension between them thinned, replaced by something more fragile. Jeongguk stared at the number again, his jaw tight.
“I just… I don’t want to scare him away,” he whispered. “What if I’m wrong?”
Namjoon offered a small smile. “Then you’ll know. And if you’re right… then we’ll figure out what comes next.”
Each ring struck like a hammer against his chest, loud and jarring in the otherwise silent room.
Jeongguk held the phone to his ear with both hands, like it might fall if he didn’t. His breath was shallow. Namjoon stood by the window, arms crossed, watching with a patience that had an edge of worry.
One ring. Two. Three.
By the fourth, just as panic began to crawl up his throat, there was a click.
"Hello!"
Jimin's voice came through, slightly breathless—like he’d just finished a run or was in the middle of dancing. It was raw and real, like he'd answered without thinking, without pretense.
Jeongguk’s eyes snapped to Namjoon, wide like a deer caught in headlights.
"Hello, Jimin, this is Jeongguk. We met at the convenience store," he rushed out, the words tumbling over each other. His voice cracked slightly at the end, as if his throat had forgotten how to form sound.
"Oh, hi!" Jimin responded, warmth slipping easily into his tone, like it wasn’t strange at all. Jeongguk could hear the glug of water being swallowed on the other end. "Didn’t think you’d call tonight."
Jeongguk swallowed. He hadn’t thought he’d call either. Not this soon. Not with Namjoon watching him like he was some strange creature he didn’t recognize.
Before Namjoon could motion for him to slow down or breathe, Jeongguk asked, "Can we meet tomorrow? I want to hang out."
It was clumsy, unpolished. It didn’t even sound like him.
Namjoon blinked slowly, as if he were recalibrating who this person was in front of him.
There was a short pause.
"Umm, sure," Jimin replied, casual but not dismissive. "Let’s meet at the coffee place near the convenience store. Around four? Is that okay?"
He sounded untouched by the hurricane spinning inside Jeongguk. Unaware of how loud everything had become in Jeongguk’s mind. Of how even the air felt too heavy now.
"Yeah. Four works," Jeongguk managed.
"Cool. See you then," Jimin said, and then the line went dead.
Jeongguk lowered the phone slowly, staring at it like it had just delivered a prophecy. His heart was still racing. His ears buzzed with leftover adrenaline.
“He said yes,” he murmured, as if Namjoon hadn’t been standing there the whole time.
Namjoon hummed, moving toward the table and picking up one of the many pieces of paper with the number scribbled across it. “Hanging out,” he repeated, voice dry but not unkind. Jeongguk rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted, voice tight.
Namjoon smirked. “Oh, that much is obvious.”
*********************************
Jeongguk stared at his reflection like it had personally wronged him.
“What am I even doing?” he muttered under his breath, tugging at the collar of his third shirt—black, plain, probably too boring. He tossed it onto the growing pile on the bed and reached for another.
Namjoon, seated on the armchair with a book he wasn’t really reading, glanced up. “Didn’t know coffee required a runway audition.”
Jeongguk scowled at him in the mirror. “I’m trying to look... normal.”
“Normal for you or normal for, like, society?”
“I don’t know!” Jeongguk snapped, running both hands through his hair until it stood in chaotic spikes. “That’s the problem. What if I show up and he realizes I’m weird? Or worse—boring. What if he thinks I’m some uptight northern heir who doesn’t even know how to order coffee?”
Namjoon raised an eyebrow. “Do you not know how to order coffee?”
Jeongguk paused. “...That’s not the point.”
He turned back to the mirror, now wearing a white shirt. Too clean. Too "first interview." Off it went.
“He’s not even… he’s not showing any signs,” Jeongguk said, quieter now. “What if I’m imagining this? What if it’s just me who feels something and to him I’m just that guy who froze at a fridge?”
Jeongguk groaned and collapsed onto the bed.
But even lying there, staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above him, the weight on his chest didn’t ease. His thoughts spiraled again.
People in the Eastern lands rarely ever saw a Northerner. To them, his home might as well be a shadow behind the mountains—full of strange customs, cold weather, and people who barely spoke unless necessary. The North had always been that place whispered about in passing. Unreachable. Untouchable.
And here he was—flesh, bone, mess—trying to figure out what shirt made him look least like someone from a secretive lineage of would-be leaders. What did Jimin see when he looked at him? A guy who nearly passed out in front of a fridge? A traveler with poor heat tolerance and zero social grace?
He sat back up abruptly. “What if I imagined it?”
Namjoon blinked. “Imagined what?”
“The... the feeling. The pull. Maybe it wasn’t anything. Maybe he’s just... attractive. Maybe I’ve been isolated too long and my hormones are playing tricks on me. What if I’m just a socially-deprived Northerner imprinting on the first person who smiled at me in 48 hours?”
Namjoon finally put the book down and leaned forward, calm as always. “Okay. Let’s say it was just that. Then you go, have an awkward coffee, thank him for his time, and we go home. Life goes on.”
Jeongguk frowned. “But what if it’s not just that?”
Namjoon smiled faintly. “Then wear the black shirt. You looked less like a panicked debutant in it.”
With a sigh, Jeongguk stood and picked the black shirt back up from the bed. He didn’t put it on just yet. Instead, he turned back to the vanity, to the number written on hotel stationery—and the many copies of it, scattered like tiny lifelines across the room.
“Do you think he’ll even remember me tomorrow?” he asked, quieter now.
Namjoon followed his gaze, his expression softening. “I think he’ll remember how you looked at him like the world suddenly made sense.” Jeongguk huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “I didn’t look at him like that.” Namjoon just raised an eyebrow.
Jeongguk picked up the shirt again. “Fine. Maybe a little.”