Chapter Text
The wind blows through the trees, and Jeongguk can smell everything. He lifts his gray and white muzzle in the air and inhales deeply. He can smell the scent of new growth, as spring brings new life to the forest. He can smell the rain that finished falling in the night, giving the forest a damp, heavy quality. And, most exciting of all, he can smell wolves. As he keeps inhaling deeply he can tell: not just wolves, shifters. Their scent is faint, so they’re far away. There are several different scents mingling together, but one stands out, fresh, not merely the territory markings he scents on the wind. This wolf is there now. Jeongguk sniffs the air again, turning his head north. That way.
He takes off at a trot, the pads of his paws light on the forest floor. He’s quiet, picking his way around sticks and mushrooms, listening to the swish of the leaves above his head. It’s early, only a little after nine in the morning, and the sun streams in from overhead. He glances up to take in the beams of light shining through the canopy. Everything is green and quiet, and excitement thrums in Jeongguk’s blood. As he continues north, the scent grows stronger, and Jeongguk slows down. He doesn’t want to scare the other wolf away. Regular wolves would likely have scented him already and either hid or gone on the offensive, but shifters are different. Their human instincts are just as strong as their canine instincts, so they react to people and other shifters differently. Jeongguk just has to hope that this shifter is friendly.
He slows to a walk as he gets closer, the scent so strong now that Jeongguk can smell it all around, and then he spots the wolf up ahead. He’s smaller, narrow, his fur black and dark gray. He’s walking at a leisurely pace, his nose to the ground. Jeongguk deliberately starts making noise as he walks, wanting to alert the other wolf that he’s there before he gets any closer. The black head flies up, his eyes open wide and his hackles instantly raised. He spots Jeongguk and backs up a step, his tail out straight behind him. Jeongguk lowers his own head, and tucks his tail. He takes a step toward the other wolf, who doesn’t move. Encouraged, Jeongguk slowly closes the distance between them, keeping his head and ears down, and his tail tucked. He’s not particularly submissive, but he doesn’t know this wolf and wants to show him that he’s not a threat.
When he’s only a few yards away, the other wolf backs up another step and bares his teeth, a low growl escaping his chest. Jeongguk stops and drops down to his belly, resting his head on the ground. He doesn’t want to roll over, but he doesn’t have to. The other wolf sniffs the air between them for a moment and then turns and runs away. Jeongguk whines, but doesn’t follow. That would be seen as an act of aggression - he’s an unfamiliar wolf, clearly approaching that wolf’s territory.
He waits until he can’t hear the wolf running away any longer, and then pushes himself up so he’s sitting. He scents the air again, committing the black wolf’s scent to his memory. A little closer now, he can also smell the other scents better. He can make out six total, including the black wolf’s. A pack, there’s a pack here, he thinks. Excitement wells in his chest, bubbling up until he can’t sit any longer. He leaps up, yipping in excitement and bounding in a circle. Then he takes off back in the direction he came. He’s been alone so long now…
His car is a couple miles southwest, on the edge of the small town he stopped in called Lupine Falls - the name being the reason he decided to stop here. The possibility of wolves potentially living in a place called Lupine Falls was too much to pass up. He’s been here for a few days now, camping. He explored the forest to the south of the town first, and only today ventured north, which is the only reason he didn’t know there was a pack here - but now that he does? He will stay.
He reaches his car, and shifts back to his human form. His clothes are in the backpack he hid just behind one of the wheels and he dresses quickly before getting in and making his way back toward the town. There’s a small inn almost as soon as he reaches town and he parks there, taking his backpack and reserving a room. A few minutes later, he, his suitcase, his guitar, and his backpack are in the room. He lies down on the bed, still smiling.
It’s been a long time since he encountered another pack. They’re not as common anymore, as many wolf shifters prefer to stay in their human form and live their lives as humans. Jeongguk can scent that they’re shifters, even in their human forms, but… He wanted to find a pack who enjoyed their abilities to their full extent. He’s been traveling for months now, searching for a place he likes, a place where wolf packs live. Packs he might join.
He thought that finding wolves would be the hard part, but as he lies there he realizes just how wrong he was. “How the hell do I go about joining a pack?” he whispers, his brow furrowing. He absently fiddles with his lip ring, using his tongue to push it back and forth. He frowns, sighing. This is a question he might ask his parents, except… They’re the reason he has to find a new pack. That, or accept life as a lone wolf, a life he vehemently doesn’t want. He wishes he could at least call them. Heaviness settles over Jeongguk then, a prickling behind his eyes as he tries to keep the tears from welling up. You can’t ask them, Jeongguk, he tells himself, scrubbing a hand angrily over his face. They’re gone, and you’re on your own.
Not wishing to let himself spiral further down, Jeongguk sits up. He inhales deeply - his nose wrinkling slightly as he takes in the slightly musty scent of the old room - and then exhales a long breath, centering himself. “First things first. If you’re going to stay here, you need to find a job, and a place to live.”
Finding both a job and a place to live in such a small town proves more difficult than Jeongguk thought. He spends the next few days searching online, calling various realtors who live and work in the surrounding area - he learns that there are several other towns further south, as well as one further east that is within a thirty minute drive. There are more towns further north, but it’s a long drive to the next one. Nearly a week after his arrival, Jeongguk still hasn’t found anything. It would appear that there aren’t often newcomers in this sleepy little forest town, so there aren’t often new jobs or new homes built.
Feeling dejected, he goes to the town’s only grocery store. It’s a surprisingly large market for the size of the town - which boasts only a little more than five hundred residents - and it’s well stocked. Jeongguk has spent a lot of time here in the last week, considering he doesn’t have a kitchen or a fridge in which to store perishables. He’s been forced to buy only enough ingredients to make single meals he doesn’t need to cook. He could go to one of the several restaurants, but it’s cheaper to buy the ingredients and make the food himself - it’s a lot of sandwiches and salads, which is fine, but Jeongguk would kill for a hot, home cooked meal right about then.
He heads toward the produce section, intent on buying a couple apples, and the fixings for a big chicken salad. There’s a tiny old woman unloading a fresh shipment of onions, and just as he passes her, she stops him with a withered, arthritic hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me young man,” she says, and Jeongguk immediately stops and smiles at her. “Could you help me for a moment?”
“Of course, what do you need?” he asks, smiling at her. She radiates the aura of grandmother, and Jeongguk finds he feels instantly calm in her presence. He thinks she must be the owner - the only employees he’s seen seem to be her and an older man, likely her husband.
She apprises him for a moment, looking him up and down. He shifts, feeling just a bit self-conscious. His piercings and tattoos have garnered him more than a few sidelong looks as he’s familiarized himself with the town. Then she smiles sweetly, and takes in a deep breath, one hand going to her tiny waist. Everything about her is tiny in the way that only old women seem to achieve. “Now, don’t think I’m busybody or anything, but I have a hunch that you need a job.”
Eyes wide with surprise, Jeongguk nods. “I- uh. Yes, I do. How did you know?”
“It’s not often that we get newcomers around here that stay, I noticed you the second you came in for the second time. Lots of passersby come in on their way through town, but not a lot hang around. I also noticed that you don’t buy many groceries at a time.”
Jeongguk shifts his feet, glancing down at the floor. “Um. Yeah, I’m staying at the motel, trying to find an apartment or a room to rent or something.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jeongguk Jeon, ma’am.”
“Call me Mrs. Greene. I have a job here if you want it. My husband and I have owned this place for almost thirty years, and we’re both getting old. It’s hard to do some of the heavy lifting, so a strong young man like you might be just what we need.”
Jeongguk’s smile grows so wide, he thinks that his cheeks might split. “Oh my goodness, Mrs. Greene, that would be amazing!” He can hardly believe his luck.
“Let me talk to my husband. Come back tomorrow at 7am sharp, and we’ll get you sorted. Now, just for now, could you put these onions in the middle of the pile?” She gestures to the onion pyramid she was building in the display box. “I can’t hardly reach the top anymore, I’ve shrunk so much.” She laughs and Jeongguk joins in, immediately setting to work in piling the onions onto the display. As soon as he’s done, she thanks him, pats his arm again, and ambles away mumbling something about too many tattoos for such a handsome young man, and Jeongguk laughs again as he races out of the store, so excited about having potentially found a job that he forgets to buy his food.
Full of excited energy, he drives out to the edge of town, parks his car, undresses and shifts before bounding off into the forest to run off his excited energy. He doesn’t go very far, still stumped as to how to introduce himself to the pack, and not wanting to encroach on their territory before he figures out how to do that. Instead, he races around in a large arc, ending on the beach. He slows to a stop and sits down facing the Pacific. The beach is empty right here, and Jeongguk is glad for it. He contemplates his next move, feeling stymied and frustrated by it.
Once again, he curses his circumstances. He wishes desperately that his parents had better educated him as to the subtleties of their culture, but they had no reason to. For his whole life it’s just been the three of them in their small family pack, and his parents didn’t particularly follow a traditional lifestyle that a family of wolf shifters might - they went for runs occasionally, but they didn’t have shifter friends, no other packs in their town, and they spent most of their time in their human forms, just the three of them. Jeongguk resented it, but they were his parents, and he loves them, wanted to be near them. None of them planned on that changing. And then it did change faster than any of them could have anticipated and suddenly, Jeongguk was on his own.
He explores up and down the beach and then back into the forest for a few hours, until the gnawing hunger in his belly forces him to head back to town. He decides to say screw it, and goes to a restaurant. There’s a steakhouse in the town to the east, a slightly bigger town, and Jeongguk’s mouth waters at the mere thought of steak and potatoes.
Jeongguk arrives at Greene’s Grocery the next morning a few minutes before seven to find that it’s not open yet. It’s a gray morning, fog hanging low over the trees, but not quite reaching the ground. It’s chilly, late April, and Jeongguk stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. Everything smells wet and heavy, and Jeongguk’s finding he loves it a lot more than he ever thought he would. Coming from the mountains in North Dakota, he didn’t think the mountains in Washington would be much different, but he was glad to find he was wrong. The trees were so dense, the forest massive, it’s everything a wolf could want. It’s a wonder to him that there aren’t more wolf packs around. Then he thinks that there probably are, they’re just not right here. They could be anywhere.
He gets out of his car and locks it as he heads toward the front door. It’s still locked, and he peers inside, finding it empty. Confused, and a little anxious, he goes back to his car a few yards away and leans against the hood, settling in to wait. Not two minutes later, however, an older pickup truck rumbles into the parking lot. He recognizes Mrs. Greene in the passenger’s seat beside the older man that Jeongguk has seen around the store, whom he thinks must be Mr. Greene. He stands up straight and smiles as he waits for them to exit the truck.
“Punctual! I love it. Welcome to the team, son,” Mr. Greene says, his voice deep, though full of the quality that only old men’s voices seem to have, a slight quaver that belies how many years they’ve been in the world. “When Lydie told me about you I knew immediately who she was talking about - ‘oh that boy with the long black hair and tattoos and metal in his face?’ I said. You’re easy to pick out of a crowd!” He laughs, and Mrs. Greene smiles fondly, shaking her head behind him and rolling her eyes. “Wonderful, wonderful, well come on in, we’ve got a lot to do, and I think we’ll need you to fill out some paperwork.”
Jeongguk follows the two of them inside, and the next hour is a whirlwind of filling out some paperwork - “For the taxes, you know,” Lydia says apologetically and Jeongguk shakes his head, assuring her it’s no bother - and getting the rundown of how the store works, the hours, when the deliveries come. It’s so much that, by the time the store actually opens at 8, Jeongguk feels like his head will burst from all the new information. Thankfully he doesn’t have to worry about learning the cash register yet - the Greenes tell him they’ll give him a few days to get accustomed to everything else before they give him one more thing to learn. Mr. Greene leaves, as he typically takes the afternoon shift, and Mrs. Greene opens the store.
From there, however, it proves to be a very simple job. Jeongguk makes sure the produce displays look nice and are stable - the last thing he wants is an apple or onion avalanche to clean up. He puts items back where they go if someone puts them in the wrong place, mists the vegetables occasionally, checks expiration dates on dairy items, making sure the ones closest to their dates are in front so those get chosen before the newer ones. He cleans up the occasional spill, and sometimes helps bag groceries.
By the end of his shift at two o’clock, he’s sitting in the small back office where he put his jacket during the day, enjoying a snack courtesy of Mrs. Greene. He didn’t even think about a perk of working at a grocery store being free food, but he is quite happy about it. “Jeongguk, where do you live, honey?” Mrs. Greene asks, sipping her own tea as she takes a break.
“Um, well I’m just staying at the inn. There aren’t really any apartments for rent around here.” He sighs softly, feeling a little anxiety about the long term - the inn owner agreed to give him a small discount when he explained that he’s trying to find a place to live, but he can’t do much more than that - it’s not quite summer yet, when tourists typically come, and he needs the business.
“Wait here,” Mrs. Greene says, standing abruptly - or as abruptly as her old knees will allow - and leaving the back office. She comes back less than five minutes later, and sits back down in the swivel desk chair across from the old loveseat Jeongguk’s currently resting in. “We have a finished basement room, complete with kitchen and bathroom, and its own separate entrance.” Jeongguk perks up at her words, sitting up just slightly. “Our son lived there for a long time, but unfortunately he passed a few years ago. Leonard and I want to rent it to you. $400 a month. What do you think?”
“Why would you offer me a room in your home? You don’t know me,” he asks before he can stop himself, flustered by her abrupt kindness. Mrs. Greene smiles at him, a little sadly.
“Well honey, I was raised to put kindness into the world. You’re a good boy, I can tell, and… well, it’s not often that a young man such as yourself leaves home to start over. I won’t ask what happened, that’s not my business if you don’t want to tell me, but it’s clear that something happened. I want to help you. So long as you pay your rent on time, keep the room clean, and keep being such an eager helper, then we will have no problems.”
Slightly overwhelmed, Jeongguk sets his paper plate and sandwich on the couch beside him and stands. He hugs Mrs. Greene, who laughs, surprised, but hugs him back. “Thank you so much,” he whispers. “You don’t know what this means to me.” The huge weight of where to live lifted from his shoulders, Jeongguk feels light enough to fly.
Mrs. Greene, who’s heading home for the day as Mr. Greene takes over at the store, gives Jeongguk the address, and tells him to get his things and meet her there, so Jeongguk does just that. He thanks the inn owner profusely for the discount, and turns in his key. The next thing he knows, Jeongguk is standing in his new room.
The basement apartment of the Greene’s house is huge, with a bedroom fully furnished, a bathroom off the bedroom with a full tub and shower, and kitchenette with a moveable island counter and a small breakfast table. There’s also a washer and dryer stacked on top of each other right next to the kitchen area. He’s pleased to find that the house is built on a hill - Jeongguk was ready to have to go down some stairs into a dark basement with only small windows - but the whole back of the house is open to the view of the forest behind the house. It’s gorgeous, and from his basement room Jeongguk has full size windows and a beautiful view. He could cry, he feels so incredibly lucky.
“We built this house ages ago, back when ours was the only house on the street! Originally this basement was a garage and storage, but when Mason, our son, grew up and wanted his own space he renovated it with his buddies,” Mrs. Greene says, moving to open the curtains and fully reveal the view. Then she putters over to the kitchenette and slowly makes her way around, checking the fridge is running, checking the water from the faucet
“They did an awesome job, it’s amazing. Thank you so much for renting to me, Mrs. Greene.”
“Of course, of course, but, sweetheart, call me Lydia, please. Alright now, I’ll leave you to settle in. There’s a door to the main house through there,” she says, pointing to a door that Jeongguk guesses leads to stairs, “but we won’t bother you without knocking or letting you know ahead of time. You can pay on the first of the month, cash or check is fine.” Lydia smiles widely, pats Jeongguk on the shoulder, and then leaves him alone, going out through the main door into the backyard.
Jeongguk turns around slowly, taking in his new home again, smiling widely. It’s a little dusty, but otherwise neat. He makes quick work of unpacking his few belongings, a few of which haven’t seen the light of day since he left his childhood home four months ago, things he wanted to keep but had no need of while traveling, like his kitchen stuff, and some photographs he brought with him. He places the two frames - one of him and his parents, and one of him and his mother, taken a few years ago at his high school graduation - on the small table beside the bed. Everything he didn’t keep was sold or donated when he sold the house and left his old life behind.
Once his clothes and few other things are unpacked and put away, Jeongguk adds the door key to his keyring, and heads out to check out the backyard. The back of the house is tall, with several large windows, but what Jeongguk’s more concerned with is the view. Behind the house is a beautiful view of trees, and the mountains beyond to the north. Somewhere in there, Jeongguk knows, is where the wolf pack lives. Calm determination settles in his chest, then. Now that he has a job and a home, he can finally start to figure out just how it is he’s going to introduce himself.
Over the next few days, Jeongguk gets a crash course in small town life. It would appear that the Greenes are, and have been, a staple in this community for a very long time, and everyone knows them. So, consequently, everyone feels the need to introduce themselves to Jeongguk, the first new employee Greene’s Grocery has had since Mason Greene passed away - something Jeongguk learns was a tragedy for the whole town. He still doesn’t know exactly how he died, but he doesn’t want to ask. Plus, with the way the people of this town seem to be, Jeongguk figures someone will tell him eventually.
He hears all kinds of gossip and intrigue, and passes the time listening. He’s listening to two middle aged women chatting by the fruit as he unloads a new delivery of potatoes, when they stop, and scoff to each other, muttering “Don’t they have any sense of propriety?” Jeongguk turns to see where they’re both looking, and his eyes widen slightly when he takes in the two guys who’ve just walked into the store with their arms around each other, holding each other close. They both look Korean, and seem to be around Jeongguk’s age. One is tall and lanky, the other a bit shorter, his body hidden beneath an oversized sweater he’s absolutely drowning in. The taller man has shaggy dark brown hair, but the other man has a shock of bright pink hair. He huffs a laugh, shaking his head minutely, and going back to stocking the potatoes. The audacity of middle-aged women knows no bounds - he doesn’t see anything wrong with two young lovers.
One of the downsides to working in a grocery store, at least to Jeongguk, is the inundation of scents he’s confronted with every day. He smells every bit of food that’s not sealed away in packaging, and it’s because of this that he doesn’t notice the scents of the two young men until they pass him by. Wolves.
He starts, dropping the potato he was holding, and turns to regard them almost at the same time they catch his scent, and turn to him. They stand still, surprised for a long moment, regarding each other. But then, they both smile, relaxing slightly, and Jeongguk feels safe to do the same. “Hi,” the pink haired man says. “You’re new.”
“Hi,” Jeongguk replies. “Yeah, I just moved here a few days ago.”
“Really? Alone?” the taller man asks, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Uh- Ye- Yeah. I, um. My pa- My family isn’t around anymore,” he says softly, glancing around to see who might be close enough to listen in. A few people quickly look away, as if they had been staring. “I’m Jeongguk Jeon,” he says, holding up his hand to shake, and the taller man takes it.
“I’m Taehyung Kim, nice to meet you Jeongguk. This is Jimin Park.” They look at each other for a long moment, seeming to be communicating silently in the way only two people who know each other extremely well can.
“Let’s get a drink later,” Jimin says. “To talk, if you want?”
“Yes!” His cheeks turn pink at how fast he answers, and how enthusiastically. But he can’t hide the fact that he is excited. He has been stressing over how to introduce himself to this pack, and here they are! Or two of them, at least. And inviting him to talk, no less! “Yes, I’d love to get a drink later. I finish here at two?”
“Okay, meet us at the Tipsy Squirrel at two-thirty?”
Jeongguk snorts. “The Tipsy Squirrel?”
Both Jimin and Taehyung laugh. “The owner named it that because drunk people have a really hard time saying the name of the place,” Jimin says, laughing. “It’s just down the street, you can’t miss it.”
“Okay,” Jeongguk says, nodding. “I’ll see you then!”
They both walk off, returning to their shopping, and Jeongguk spends the rest of his shift floating. Lydia, who insisted Jeongguk call her that after two days of still addressing her formally - “Mrs. Greene makes me feel old!” - teases him about his smile just before he leaves. “I saw you talking to those boys earlier. Are you making friends?” Jeongguk laughs and shrugs, nodding.
“I hope so!”
“They’re good boys. Lots of the idiots around here talk poorly about them because of their hair, or because they’re together,” she stresses this, so Jeongguk understands her meaning, and he does. “But they’ve been here since they were young things - probably eighteen or nineteen - and they both work at the high school. They’re always sweet to me. Those busybodies can just hush.” She waves a hand, and shoos him out of the store.
He goes home, thankful the town is so small and the Greene’s house, though toward the edge of town, is only five minutes away by car. He changes clothes, fixes his hair. He stops for a moment, taking in his reflection. He fiddles with his lip ring, and reaches up to adjust how his eyebrow bar is sitting, and he wonders what the ‘busybodies’ of the town think about him, with his piercings and tattoos. He has several rings in each ear, on top of the two in his face. He kind of wants to get his nose pierced too, but he’s not sure where he can get piercings done around here. He stares at his own face, and smiles. He likes his face. He likes his hair longer, his piercings, and his tattoos, and if anyone in this town doesn’t then they ‘can just hush’, to use Lydia’s words.
The Tipsy Squirrel is a small-ish building built to look like a log cabin. The inside is full of high wooden tables, and a wooden bar with rows and rows of liquor bottles on the wall behind it. At two-thirty in the afternoon on a Saturday it’s not entirely empty, but there are empty tables here and there. Jeongguk steps inside and looks around, trying to find Taehyung and Jimin, but it would appear that he beat them there. So, he goes to the bar instead, and presents his ID when asked before ordering a beer.
Beer in hand, he goes to one of the high tables to wait. He doesn’t have to wait for long, because a few minutes later they step through the door and immediately make their way over to his table. “Hey!” Jimin says, as they both slide onto the stools across from Jeongguk. Taehyung makes eye contact with the bartender and holds up two fingers, calling out two beers, please! The bartender nods, and moves about pouring them.
“How’s it going?” Jeongguk asks, feeling just a little awkward, but pushing through it. He’s never been fantastic at making friends in his life - when he was in high school, and during his brief stint in college he had friends, but they were more than likely only friends with him due to proximity while they were in school, and he didn’t keep in touch with any of them after school. One or two of them reached out after his parents passed, but it was little more than a hey, thinking of you, sorry for your loss. Jeongguk had taken one look at those texts, shaken his head, and deleted their contact information.
“Not too bad,” Taehyung says, settling into his seat, and smiling and nodding to the bartender as he hands them their beers. Jimin passes over a card, and then rests his hands on the tabletop. “So, how are you enjoying our little Lupine Falls?”
Jeongguk takes in a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “It’s a cute little town, you know? The place I used to live was bigger, not huge, but still bigger than here. To be honest, I stopped here because of the name.” He laughs, and Jimin and Taehyung both join in. Obviously they understand the draw for someone like Jeongguk. “I was looking for wolves,” he says softly, hesitantly. It occurs to him, then, that maybe they have no desire to grow their pack, that Jeongguk could be a new friend, sure. But nothing more. Absently, he fiddles with his lip ring, something he’s been doing more and more lately. “I- I wasn’t built to be alone.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Taehyung starts, his voice as soft as Jeongguk’s was. “What happened to your previous pack?” Jeongguk frowns, not wanting to talk about it. But he understands their curiosity.
“They’re gone. It was just my parents and I. We were the only wolves in our town, and they never wanted to be part of someone else’s pack. But… But then my mom died,” he whispers the word, still not used to it. “And my dad…” He sighs. He still can’t bring himself to say it. “They’re both gone.”
“I’m so sorry, Jeongguk,” Jimin says, his eyes wide and glistening. “That’s awful.” He reaches across the table and rests his hand lightly on top of Jeongguk’s. He looks down, and notices how small Jimin’s hand is, how delicate. “So, you’re looking for a new pack?”
Breathing in shakily, Jeongguk nods once. “I honestly didn’t know what to do. My parents didn’t really teach me how… How a lot of this works, you know? Since it was just us, and they thought it would always just be us, they didn’t teach me about things like-” He huffs a short laugh. “Inter-pack dynamics.” Jimin giggles, and Taehyung laughs. “I just started searching. And it was really hard - I didn’t know where to look, or where I even wanted to settle. But a day or two after I stopped here, I was in the forest just north of town, and I smelled your pack. I saw someone, too. A black and dark gray wolf?”
Both Jimin and Taehyung’s eyes widen in shock, and they sit up straighter. “You saw Yoongi?” Taehyung asks, and they turn to stare at each other for a long moment. He lets out a low whistle. “Wow, I’m surprised.”
“Yoongi is our newest pack member, and he’s… elusive, to say the least. Especially when it comes to new people.”
“He didn’t really let me get near. He growled at me, and then ran away.”
“That sounds more like him,” Jimin laughs, though there’s something in his eyes. Something like concern, and Jeongguk wonders about it.
“How many are in your pack?” Jeongguk asks, hoping to move on and dispel the strange concerned energy emanating from both of the other wolves.
“Well, we’re six total. We live outside of town, just north, probably nearby where you saw Yoongi. Seokjin owns the house, he grew up here. He inherited it from his grandparents, and when the rest of his pack moved on, he stayed. The rest of us have joined one or two at a time in the last ten years.”
“Which is to say, that if you’re looking for a new pack, maybe you could join ours,” Taehyung adds, smiling. “Sounds like you’ve had a rough time, and Seokjin always welcomes wolves who need a home.”
Jimin perks up, drumming his fingers on the table once in a rapid beat. “Why don’t you come for a run with us tomorrow? That way you can meet everyone, and they can meet you. Obviously I can’t say for certain right now if you can join us or not, but I like you Jeongguk. There’s something about you.”
“I agree,” Taehyung adds.
Jeongguk feels like his chest might explode with the emotion building inside him. He lets out a slightly hysterical laugh. “This feels too easy,” he breathes, chewing on his bottom lip, thinking about the way that everything seems to have fallen into place in the last week. It scares him, a bit. Like just as easily as things have come together, they can be ripped apart just as quickly. That’s how it happened before…
“Sometimes when things are easy it means they’re meant to be,” Taehyung says sagely. “Here, let me give you our phone numbers, and we’ll let you know when and where to meet tomorrow.”
“Do you have to work tomorrow?”
Jeongguk shakes his head. “Tomorrow’s my first day off.”
“Perfect!” Jimin exclaims. Jeongguk unlocks his phone and opens his contacts before handing it over for Taehyung to add their numbers. When they hand it back, Jeongguk opens a new chat thread with both of them and texts a simple, hey, it’s jeongguk, and then they both have his number as well. Then he puts his phone away, thinking that maybe they’ll leave now but they both sit back, sipping their beers and settling in. “What do you like to do for fun, Jeongguk?”
“I like to play video games, though it’s been a while since I played. Um, I play guitar, and I like to sing and dance. I like photography, and swimming. I love being in the forest, both as a human and as a wolf.”
“What kind of video games do you play?” Taehyung asks, sitting forward, an excited smile on his face.
From there, the conversation takes off. They spend a while talking about the games they like to play, and Jeongguk learns that they like to stream their games sometimes. “We don’t do it as often as we used to, now that we both have grown up jobs, but it’s fun to do on the weekends,” Taehyung says. Then he tells Jeongguk about teaching art at Lupine Falls High School, and how he loves to paint landscapes, sometimes selling them online. Jimin tells him all about teaching PE - at the elementary, middle, and high schools - and coaching the high school dance team. Jeongguk listens wide eyed as Jimin regales him with the story of how his team won their state, and regional competitions last year, but that they lost nationals this year.
“We’re going to dominate next year,” he says fiercely, and Jeongguk believes him.
“Have you been out to eat much yet?” Taehyung asks after a lull a few minutes later, and smiles when Jeongguk shakes his head. “Seokjin, Namjoon, and Hoseok run Asia Kitchen. You should go. Their food is delicious.”
“So they do… all kinds of Asian food, then?” Jeongguk laughs softly, and Jimin rolls his eyes.
“Tiny town, you know? It’s hard to specialize around here, because there’s not much variety when it comes to restaurants, so each restaurant has to provide a variety of foods. It’s mostly Korean food, but there’s some other stuff as well, Japanese, Chinese, Thai. Sometimes they do an Indian or Vietnamese dish. Seokjin likes to switch up the menu frequently or he gets bored.”
“I’ll definitely check it out. Now that I have a job, and a place to live, I can actually start to venture out a little more.”
“I’m glad the Greenes have someone to help them out now,” Jimin says, frowning slightly. “They’re getting old, and it’s a lot.”
“Can you- Can you tell me how their son died? I know it happened a few years ago, and I hear people mention it here and there, but no one’s said how it happened, and I haven’t wanted to ask them.”
Taehyung sighs heavily. “He and some other guys from town were hiking, and he tripped and fell over a tree root that was sticking up and hit his head. By the time the others got him back to town he was brain dead. It was awful. That was maybe six years ago?” Jimin nods in confirmation, and they both lapse into a contemplative quiet.
“They adopted him when they were already pretty up there in years,” Taehyung continues. “Seokjin told me that they’d wanted a kid for a long time, but couldn’t have one, so they adopted Mason when he was seven, and they were in their fifties. Seokjin was friends with him, they were in the same grade in school. He was only twenty-two when he died.” Jeongguk’s heart sinks, thinking about the sweet couple who took him in without hesitation. “All that to say,” Taehyung continues softly, reaching across the table to grasp Jeongguk’s hand, “I’m glad they have you now to help them.”
Jimin takes a big gulp of his beer, and then sets it down decisively. “Okay, that’s enough sad talk! Jeongguk! What does your wolf form look like?”
Jeongguk laughs at the abrupt subject change. “Um, I’m mostly white, with some gray around my face and on my shoulders. How about you?” Jimin pulls out his phone and slides it across a moment later, a photo of two wolves on the screen. One is smaller, clearly Jimin, with varying shades of brown all over his body and white paws, and the other, Taehyung, is nearly entirely black. “Beautiful,” he exhales.
“Aren’t we?” Jimin says, teasing. From there the conversation flows again, turned away from sad topics. They talk about movies and music, what kind of dance they like to do, the best places around the roam - both as humans and as wolves. They promise to take Jeongguk to the best spots, and by the time they are all ready to leave, it’s nearly six, and they’ve been talking for hours.
“I’m really glad we met you, Jeongguk,” Jimin says as they all walk outside into the sunny, warm spring afternoon. “I can’t wait to tell the rest of the pack about you.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Jeongguk says, unable to control the smile on his face. “See you tomorrow.”
He waves as they both head to a dark green subaru parked just down the street. Then he gets into his own car and heads back to his new home.
He has dinner with the Greenes that evening - something they insist he doesn’t need to do, but something he’s coming to love doing every couple days - and is lying in bed just after eleven when his phone vibrates. The light from the screen illuminates the small, dark bedroom he’s calling his den, and he smiles when he sees it’s a text from Jimin in their group thread.
The pack can’t wait to meet you! Let’s meet here at nine am?
A moment later a pin comes through, and Jeongguk clicks on it to open it in his maps app. It’s a spot a few miles northwest, and Jeongguk saves the pin.
I’ll be there
He falls asleep with a smile on his face, feeling immeasurably excited for what’s to come.