Chapter Text
The soft morning light filtered through the blinds, painting stripes of gold across the rumpled sheets. Jimin stirred, his cheek pressed against Yoongi’s bare shoulder, one arm slung possessively across the alpha’s chest.
Something small and impossibly heavy settled on his hip. Then another weight, lighter and more insistent, began to press rhythmically against his side.
Jimin cracked one eye open. Two luminous, round, yellow eyes stared back at him from a small, furry black face.
“Tangie,” he whispered, his voice thick with sleep. “You have a bed.”
Tangie, their void-with-a-tail, chirped in response. She’d deemed her expensive, plush cat bed “unacceptable” exactly two days after Yoongi brought her home. The only acceptable sleeping arrangements, she had decreed, were either directly between their pillows, or using Jimin’s hip as a stepstool to get there.
Yoongi, who had slept through Tangie’s entire ascent, finally shifted as she settled into her final loafing position, her purr a low, contented motor. He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, a slow, sleepy smile spread across his face as he felt the cat kneading his ribcage. One hand came up from under the covers, finding Jimin’s arm and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Morning,” he rasped.
“Morning, hyung,” Jimin whispered back, his smile audible.
This was their normal now. Waking up tangled together, with a tiny, demanding third party who ruled them both. A year since the first not-date, six months since Yoongi had moved into this sun-drenched apartment, and three months since Tangie had adopted them with the imperiousness only a rescue cat could muster.
Jimin’s dance gear was a colorful explosion in the corner of the bedroom, next to Yoongi’s sleek, black production desk. The fridge was a study in contrasts: strawberry milk cartons stood guard next to bags of expensive coffee beans. And on top of the bookshelf, surveying her kingdom with slit-eyed judgment, was Tangie, next to the sombrero-wearing penguin figurine she occasionally swatted to the floor for fun.
Later that day, they were due at a family barbecue at the Min residence. As Jimin fixed his hair in the bathroom mirror, Yoongi leaned in the doorway, Tangie cradled in his arms like a baby. The cat, who tolerated only Jimin’s carrying, was purring loudly, her head butting against Yoongi’s chin.
“She’s going to miss us,” Jimin said, grinning at the sight. The fearsome Min Yoongi, utterly helpless against three kilos of black fluff.
“She’ll sleep on my studio chair and plot her revenge,” Yoongi mumbled into Tangie’s fur before placing her gently on her cat tree. “Be good for Hobi-hyung,” he told her sternly. Tangie blinked slowly, the feline equivalent of “I make no promises.”
At the barbecue, the scene was one of chaotic, warm familiarity. Jungkook was manning the grill, their parents were laughing at the patio table, and the scent of sizzling meat filled the air.
“Jimin-ah! Yoongi-yah! Where’s my grandkitty?” Mrs. Min called out the moment she saw them, her arms open for hugs.
Jimin laughed, accepting the embrace. “She’s holding down the fort, Auntie. She sends her regards.”
Yoongi was immediately pulled into a debate with Jungkook about grill temperatures, but his eyes kept finding Jimin. Jimin, who was now laughing easily with his mother, who accepted a drink from his father without a trace of the old, trembling anxiety. He was completely at home, no longer a guest or a source of worry, but simply Jimin. Yoongi’s Jimin.
As the sun began to set, painting the sky in brilliant orange and pink, Jimin found Yoongi by the old swing set, away from the noise. He slipped his hand into Yoongi’s, their fingers lacing together naturally.
“Okay?” Jimin asked, leaning his head against Yoongi’s shoulder.
“Perfect,” Yoongi murmured, pressing a kiss to his temple. He nodded towards the house. “Remember when you fainted right there?”
Jimin groaned, hiding his face in Yoongi’s neck. “Why do you like bringing that up?”
Yoongi’s chest vibrated with a quiet laugh. He wrapped his arm around Jimin, holding him close. “Because it’s the before,” he said softly, his voice serious and fond. “And this,” he squeezed him, the gesture saying you, me, our home, our cat, this life, “this is the after. And the after is so much better.”
Jimin looked up at him, his heart so full he felt it might just glow. He thought of the terrified omega and the confused alpha, the fainting spells and the strawberry milk truces. It felt like a prologue to a story he now got to live every day.
“The after is the best,” Jimin agreed, standing on his toes to kiss him.
When they returned to their apartment that night, it was to a disgruntled Tangie sitting in the exact center of the entryway rug. She gave them a slow, deliberate blink of reproach.
“We’re home, baby,” Jimin cooed, scooping her up. She went limp in his arms, purring instantly, her earlier offense forgotten.
Yoongi slipped off his shoes and walked over, scratching under her chin. “Did you terrorize Hobi-hyung?” he asked, his voice low and affectionate.
Tangie chirped, as if to say “Obviously.”
As they got ready for bed, Tangie zoomed through the apartment in a final burst of nighttime energy, a tiny black blur against the wood floors. She eventually leaped onto the bed, performed her intricate kneading ritual on Yoongi’s stomach, and finally settled in her spot between their pillows, a small, purring sentinel.
Jimin turned out the light and curled into Yoongi’s side, one hand coming to rest on the cat’s soft back. In the dark, surrounded by the sounds of Yoongi’s steady breathing and Tangie’s contented rumble, he felt a peace so profound it was almost dizzying.
The monster was gone. The fear was gone. All that was left was this: a man who wrote him songs, a cat who stole his socks, and a love built not on a shaky arrangement, but on a million small, chosen moments of understanding, laughter, and coming home.
And as he drifted off to sleep, his fingers linked with Yoongi’s over Tangie’s warm body, Jimin knew with absolute certainty that every moment of the before had been worth it. It had all led them here.
To this. To their happy, purring, beautifully ordinary after.