Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jimin ran away from the clearing to hide from the other children he was crying. Why couldn’t he just play with them? What did his omega mothers have to do with playing tag? Was the problem the fact that Jimin was adopted? But then why didn’t the rest of the village play with his mothers too? The adults certainly didn’t have the same games as the pups, but the two were excluded as well.

He ran, trying to get back home, but ran into a tree. Who had put a tree in the middle of the trail?

Jimin looked up, wiping clean his blurry vision. Oh, it was a person.

“Are you alright?” The man asked, and Jimin’s twitching and tingly nose made him understand that he was an alpha.

Jimin shook his head.

The stranger must have been a traveler, since Jimin had never seen him before. Not that he had much contact with the rest of the pack, but it was not difficult to notice an outsider. The alpha carried a bow, so he was most definitely a hunter.

The alpha sat on his ankles, standing at the same height as Jimin.

“You are crying,” The alpha said. “Did something happen?”

“I wanted to play, but they won’t let me,” Jimin said, a pout on his lips. Taking advantage of the fact that the stranger seemed inclined to listen to him, Jimin added: “So I feel sad.”

The alpha sighed and offered him a sad smile, as if sympathetic to Jimin’s pain.

“You know, I feel sad today as well.”

Jimin’s eyes widened, curious.

“Why? Did someone fight with you too?”

The alpha laughed.

“In a way” He looked at Jimin and farther behind him, where he had been walking on the trail. “Let’s make a deal, all right?”

“What deal?” Jimin said, his conscience asking him to be suspicious of strangers. The fact that he was kind was even more alarming.

“If you smile,” The alpha said, taking the bow off his back and showing it to Jimin. “I’ll give it to you as a gift.”

The bow was made of wood, with engravings on the surface. In addition, there was a shiny layer, leaving the wood glossy like nothing Jimin had seen or touched in his short life.

The pup gaped. Would he really win something so beautiful? He questioned the alpha’s request.

“If you smile, I will feel better,” the adult replied. “And, as a reward, the bow will be yours, so you can feel better too.”

Jimin cocked his head. He didn’t know his smile had magical properties. Would he make the alpha’s day better just by smiling?

He smiled immediately, without asking any more questions. All he wanted was to win the bow.

The stranger laughed at the sudden excitement. Perhaps the omega already forgot why he was crying in the first place.

“Here you are!” He said, leaving the weapon in Jimin’s tiny hands. “As promised. But you need to promise me that you will take care of it. It’s important to me.”

“Then why are you gonna give it to me, sir?”

“I planned for one of my kids to use it, but I haven't had any luck yet. My firstborn… He hates weapons like this.”

The bow was so contrastingly bigger than Jimin. The omega thought the alpha’s son must be a tall man to be able to carry it.

“Then I’ll keep it! I promise I’ll take good care of it.”

“I trust you” the alpha ruffled the pup’s hair.

“But what am I going to do with it?”

“Hunting, why,” the alpha replied simply, without blinking.

Jimin frowned.

“But omegas can’t hunt!” he explained, astonished that the adult did not know that.

“Oh, they can!” the alpha said, smiling at him with a sad look. “There are many territories, and in most of them, omegas can be hunters if they want.”

“So I want to,” Jimin decided.

“Let me see you using the bow, then.”

Jimin tried to imitate the position he had seen some hunters do, but his arms were too short. He looked at the alpha, asking silently if he was doing it correctly.

“I have to return home soon, but I’ll teach you how to use the bow. So you can practice and, when you’re older, you’ll be able to hunt on your own.” he said, rising from the ground and asking for the bow back. “I ordered this bow for my alpha son, so it’s a little big for a pup.”

Jimin spent some time with the alpha, trying to shoot arrows. The alpha said goodbye when Jimin managed to shoot one of them a foot away. He asked Jimin to continue alone, before disappearing back onto the trail.

Jimin never saw the mysterious alpha again, but he kept his promise. He took care of the bow with his own life, even though Seyoung, one of his mothers, insisted that he should not use weapons. So Sulhwa — the second mother —, made harmless, unpointed arrows so that the pup could play.

Over the years, Jimin forgot what the alpha’s face and even his voice were like. He would like to be able to thank him, but the only way he deemed possible was by becoming a good archer.

Jimin taught himself — after receiving the alpha’s tips — so he could hunt and no one else in the village would say his family was a nuisance anymore. Jimin contributed to the hunts as he could, although he was unable to hunt in groups along with alphas and betas.

Chapter Text

An arrow — he only needed one. And even if his presence was forbidden in that place, surviving the fearsome season to come was paramount for Jimin.

The sun was in the middle of the sky when he stretched the bowstring to his cheek, flexing his arm at its limit so that the arrow was steady; getting ready. There was still no specific target in the spans of tall pines, but Jimin patiently looked for something alive to shoot at.

Taking the life of an innocent animal was not something Jimin took pleasure on. He needed to eat, and Mother Nature was the only source of food that omega had — besides that meat could be stored for much longer than vegetables and fruits during winter. He never forgot, however, to pray for the souls of the animals he had hunted, receiving his vitality as a blessing for the survival of him and his family.

The vast lavender field was flush with the forest Jimin was watching meticulously. The dried branches of the flower — in a dead lilac color, withered now so close to the new season — created the ideal camouflage for him to hunt without being easily seen. For the most part, the lavender field had reached sufficient height to hide the lowered body of the omega. An effective cover spot of nature. Jimin was propped up on one knee, twenty meters away from the dense, enclosed forest. Waiting.

Except for the wind, which shook branches and other fragments of the oak and pine forest to the south, everything was silent. Then, the boy’s keen hearing captured the brittle sound of leaves left by late autumn. Jimin took a deep breath, remaking the position to shoot whatever was moving towards him. From the intensity of the noise the steps made, Jimin guessed it must have been a large and heavy animal causing it. And therefore, that would be an excellent hunt to bring back home.

Patient, he aimed for the sound source and waited. Pure concentration spread and took over Jimin’s nerves like an electrical charge in a matter of seconds. He just had to let go of the rope when a figure became visible on the horizon.

The arrow made a short parabola in the air, quick as lightning, before the figure swerved and it stuck in the rough trunk of one of the pines.

Jimin got up in a dash. He did not have the habit of missing a shot so close, but that detail was not solely responsible for his astonishment. He approached to survey the situation up close, only to find a boy lying on the floor, massaging his right ankle. Jimin’s eyes widened when he finally realized the facts. He had almost hurt somebody . In fact, a late reaction from the unknown boy and Jimin could have killed him.

“Good heavens, you…!” his voice got caught in his throat when the other stared back. “I could’ve hurt you…”

Jimin’s sense of smell identified the boy as alpha — although it was unnecessary to resort to the raw aroma of pine and touches of musk with lemongrass to understand that the sturdy and agile guy was one.

Despite continuing to lecture about irresponsibility, Jimin fell silent when the alpha frowned at him before smiling casually. There was no fun to be taken from that situation, Jimin thought.

“I was the one who almost took an arrow right in the chest, and you are the one in shock?” the alpha said, too relaxed for the omega’s taste, who tried to calm himself after noticing his own panic. “Good shot, by the way.”

“Are you alright?” Jimin asked, watching him get up with painful movements, limping slightly with his right leg, where his ankle became more and more swollen by the seconds.

The alpha looked at Jimin for a few seconds, studying his twisted countenance.

“You didn’t hurt me,” he said. “Actually, I tried to dodge it as soon as I saw the arrow, but…”

Jimin raised an eyebrow.

“But…?”

The alpha hesitated and bit the inside of his cheek, reluctant to concede.

“I stumbled,” he admitted after the brief pause, his voice reduced to crumbs of pride lacerated by a mistake so miserably silly, but saved him from being hit.

Jimin looked at the alpha’s leather boots, checking for himself why he had fallen and injured his ankle. Somehow, the omega felt no less culpable about the incident. After all, as much as it was the alpha’s carelessness, he would never have sprained his ankle had there not been an arrow flying towards him, in the first place.

All the guilt weighed on Jimin’s knees, resulting in him sitting on the floor in front of the alpha. His fingers were nimble to tie the laces of the two boots firmly so that the knots would not come apart anytime soon.

The alpha let him do the job, too static to demand the omega to stop and stand again.

Jimin finished and looked up, seeing a flushed face. He quickly turned on both feet.

“I’m so sorry.”

“There is nothing to feel sorry for, really…” the alpha said, with equal insistence. “I came here to collect myself and hunt too, but I didn’t think I would find anyone here. This is almost the frontier of the pack.”

Jimin could see that the alpha was sniffing him, trying to find something out about him. Probably because he had never seen him and, even though the Northern territory was one of the most populous, Jimin doubted that the alpha would be so foolish not to realize he was an intruder.

“By the way, my name is Jeon Jeongguk,” he added, given the silence of the omega, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck. “And you’re certainly not from my pack.”

Jimin nodded, although there was no open question. As expected, he was caught. Now he just had to be handed over to the head alpha and receive appropriate punishment. In late autumn, in particular, there were very few animals in the region. And hunting in the territory of another pack was grave, seen as practically stealing from them the chance to eat.

“My pack is to the south.”

“The territory we’re treading on belongs to the Jeon pack.” Jeongguk said in the same tone with which one reprimands children. “But I suppose you already know that.”

Jimin didn’t try to argue. He recognized his mistake. He sighed, looking away at the trees that, at the moment, were nothing but silent witnesses.

“My family has to eat,” Jimin said, although he didn’t expect nor want to receive compassion in exchange for his poor justification. “Only I know how to hunt in my house, so…”  he cut himself off while filtering the words spoken by the alpha just before. Jimin swallowed. “Did you say your name was…?”

“Jeon Jeongguk,” the alpha repeated, with a puffed chest and a similar archetype stamped in the timbre of his voice.

Jimin was, at last, with his hands tied. He shouldn’t have invaded another territory to hunt. It was against the most primitive laws that kept the world going; even a naïve pup would know that. However, the acid consuming him was not due to the guilt of his actions. No. Jimin was controlling the trembling of his hands because, out of so many people, he had been discovered precisely by the son — and heir — of the territory’s leader.

Even though the feeling of submitting to an alpha was degrading to Jimin, he bowed and lowered his head, leaving it bent to expose his neck, right where his jugular was. The act was primitive, it let one wolf recognize the other’s desire not to fight or challenge him. Jimin had exposed his neck probably two or three times in his life so far, only on the rare occasions that his pack leader had passed him, just as all the other members did in respect.

Bowing to an alpha who should have barely crossed maturity was humiliating. Jimin hated the idea, but he needed to show submission at that moment. Jeon could be a little more than a teenager, but he was still an alpha, the future Northern Great Wolf. He could hurt him in the blink of an eye — although Jimin would resist and fight until the remnant of his strength — and the alpha would still be within his rights, since Jimin was an invader.

The situation itself was dire, and the omega knew that his punishment was no less terrible.

“I’m so sorry,” Jimin repeated.

His fingers were trembling compulsively now, impossible to control even if he had intertwined them. The feeling was bitterly known to him. Fear. Not from Jeon Jeongguk. Jimin feared leaving his mothers without the support he gave them. He knew that the two women would be hungry and cold and had other reasons to be repelled by the pack itself. And the cruel winter was already knocking on their door. The village would not help them, just as it had not helped them even before Jimin was born and they simply needed food and warm pelts.

Jimin was studied by the alpha for the tenth time; his bent and bowed head, the short, disfigured shadow his body made on the rough, dry grass. The alpha definitely knew what was the right thing to do. He knew his duty to his pack, and the rules were what kept society just.

“Lift your head,” the alpha said, without any exaggerated authority. “Today is your lucky day, omega. You can go. I will not report your horrendous cold-blooded assassination attempt.”

Jimin gave up, looking up, meeting a playful smile that confused him from skin to bones. Would the alpha let him go? Out of the blue? He must have heard wrong. No alpha was so kind, no alpha did charity with strangers, even more omegas, with no intention behind it.

“What did you say?”

Jeongguk crossed his arms.

“No one will know you were here,” he proposed. “But you need to leave before someone less generous than I find you. Understood?”

Jimin’s eyebrows shot up.

“And what do you get out of it?”

Jeongguk pressed his lips together.

“Your gratitude?”

“I am afraid my gratitude should not be of any value to someone like you.”

The alpha bowed his head.

“Someone like me?” his eyes fixed on Jimin. “Do you suspect me that much? You almost killed me a few minutes ago, shouldn’t I be the one worried?”

What a strange alpha, Jimin thought. He managed to bethink a thousand favors or punishments that the Jeon could ask for or apply, but would the alpha just let him come home, unscathed?

“I already apologized,” he said, not getting carried away by Jeongguk’s weird humor.

“Then you can go.”

Unsure of the sudden demonstration of kindness, Jimin took blind backwards steps, until he had the courage and the distance safe enough to turn around and look for his abandoned bow in the lavender field.

While running with the weapon away, Jimin looked back one last time. And there was Jeongguk, standing exactly in the same place; the alpha hadn’t deceived him, letting him escape unscathed from the invasion. He was not chasing or mocking him; just smiling discreetly while letting him go. And Jimin just ran back home, into maternal arms that would welcome him not suspecting what had happened.

Back in the southern territory of Sanaun, Jimin was quick to enter his family's tent, where his mothers were anxiously awaiting him, because Jimin had been gone for days.

“Jimin!” Park Seyoung pulled him into a worried hug, while Kim Sulhwa patiently waited for the family reunion around the wooden table. “The head alpha announced the date for the mating season. We are going to leave for the North soon.”

Jimin’s eyes widened, although the news was expected.

“When?”

“In early September,” Sulhwa said immediately. Jimin wanted to be able to argue that a week was too early to have to go through all the stress again, remembering last year with bitterness. “The neighboring packs agreed that this winter will be milder, so it is hoped that there will be more resources to encourage the mating season.”

“I didn’t remember that this year we were going to the North…” Jimin said, looking down. How could he confess his little encounter with the future leader?

The two would have that season totally ruined by a mistake that Jimin should have never made in the first place. The pressure was always the strongest around winter. The villagers were more rude and eager to remember that the hut of the three omegas served more to appropriate the villagers’ resources than to help them with anything. It was always the same. As much as Jimin tried to hunt, he had to do it alone, while the other hunters had the privilege of groupings. He always managed to contribute to the stocks of meat, but that time was also always the most complicated.

Invading the territory to the North had been his last resort, the last effort for his mothers to have some peace, so that they didn’t have to hear how much they were a nuisance.

Park Seyoung patted her son’s hair, forcing him to sit at the table.

“I’m not surprised you don’t know the date,” she smiled at him. “This is the third year that you can actually attend the ritual as an omega.”

Kim Sulhwa nodded.

“And you were never interested in it,” she said, in favor of her wife. “But the tradition is so simple. Every winter one of the packs hosts the competitions to be able to mate our members. It’s a rotating system, remember?”

Jimin nodded, even though the memory was still distant for him. Everything that involved forming a bond or just approaching an alpha or beta in that sense, was information that he didn’t want to retain.

Hours later, Jimin rested beside Taehyung, on the sparse grass that would soon be submerged in snow. Taehyung was the only one Jimin told about the invasion in the Northern territory and about the encounter with the — newly discovered — eldest son of the local head alpha, with an equally attractive alpha sister. Taehyung had a sparse knowledge of the main members of the neighboring packs. Connecting with them was his job, after all. The pack under the command of the Kims had the assistance — and friendliness — of Taehyung to deal with the social and diplomatic issues required between the various territories in the region. And Jimin agreed with the decision. The beta was perfect for the job.

“You were so lucky,” Taehyung said, still amazed by the story.

“I know. But... maybe he’s just a dumb, desperate alpha. I’ve seen so many around this time of the year. They will lick the floor if you tell them to.”

Taehyung just laughed, unable to immediately refute his friend’s argument. Despite being a beta and being married to another beta, he knew alphas’ minds thanks to his coexistence with them in politics.

“It may be true, but you mentioned that he was a Jeon.”

“Yes.”

“I think future leaders are not just like any alpha, Jimin. They need to be more skittish, at least. It is strange that, in fact, a Jeon did not try to force his authority on you. Not that they are that kind of person, but they are also impartial when it comes to implementing the Law.”

Jimin sighed loudly.

“I think so too, Tae. He didn’t even try to intimidate me. Not that I’m complaining about it, I just think it’s pretty weird.”

Jimin also knew alphas. And all the memories were anything but pleasant, leaving him with a bitter taste in his mouth. He had reasons to disbelieve the good intentions of alphas.

Taehyung paused, deep in thought. Soon, he opened one of his boxy toothy smiles.

“Maybe he wants to mate and bond with you.”

Jimin frowned, his mouth twitching at the thought of belonging to an alpha.

“Impossible. He’d choose a hundred omegas before thinking of me as an option.”

“Nothing is impossible if fate wants it to happen.”

“Destiny, you say…” Jimin mocked the word, brushing it away with his hand to the distant mountains in the West. Destiny was a bad joke.