Chapter Text
Silence had a tangible body.
Jimin discovered this over the past four weeks.
That the quiet could press against the skin like something physical. And this kind of silence would make the ears ring, and that every small sound into a thunder clap. The refrigerator's hum, the birds chirping outside, the noise of the traffic and his own heartbeat, everything had become a cacophony that made him nauseated.
He stood in the kitchen doorway with one hand wrapped around the frame. The wood was smooth under his palm, except for the small groove where Tae-min had gouged it with his claws when he was fourteen. Umma had made him sand it back, but the scar remained. Wood remembered damage even after you tried to fix it, just like some damages that won't be fixed no matter how hard you tried.
Afternoon light was falling through the window above the sink, thick and golden as honey. It painted everything it touched with warmth that felt inappropriate given what was happening inside these walls.
In the living room, his family was in a state of paralysis.
His father had occupied the leather armchair by the window, the chair that had molded itself to Jae-sung's shape over decades. But the man sitting there now seemed to have shrunk, as if grief had reached inside him and taken out everything essential, leaving only the shell. His hands were rested on his thighs, palms up, fingers slightly curled. Empty hands that had tried everything, called every favor, consulted every elder, searched every legal text for loopholes that didn't exist, and had found nothing.
He hadn't moved in over an hour. Just stared at something beyond the window, where Jimin's mother's roses bloomed outside. Pink and coral and deep burgundy she'd been so proud of cultivating on human soil. They opened their petals to the spring afternoon without any awareness of what was dying inside.
This was what defeat looked like. He had looked at his father and realized, this was what defeat looked like given a physical form. Those hunched shoulders and empty eyes. All admitting defeat, and trying to make their peace with it.
His mother sat on the couch, body folded in on itself, making herself smaller, as if she could reduce the grief the universe was pouring into her by curling her body inwards. Young-hee had always been delicate, her female omega frame came with the beauty and softness that came with a vulnerability that had ten-folded over the weeks. She looked like a paper that had been crumpled and smoothed out again, and still carrying every crease.
Her hands were clasped in her lap, knuckles white. Every few minutes her shoulders would hitch, breath turning into a sob but failing, as if her body had forgotten how to process grief that large. This woman had been cooking food that no one had touched since yesterday. She had cooked and called everyone... her voice hollow, the warmth, the silvery omega tone had been lost somewhere by the first week... but no one came. No one had been coming since... he didn't know when was the last time they'd all sat together and ate properly.
Sun-hee was curled against their mother's side, trying to disappear. Her face buried in Young-hee's shoulder, small body trembling with exhaustion that came from crying until your muscles ached. Her school uniform was wrinkled, white collar stained dark with tears and one knee length sock had slid down her thin calf.
No one had told her to change. No one had told anyone to do anything for days.
The scent in the room was wrong. Family scent that usually meant comfort, warmth and belonging, had been corrupted by grief. Fear had added its own notes, ash and bitterness. And underneath those notes, was resignation, which smelled like smoke and nothing at all all at once.
Jimin could taste it on his tongue.
His own reflection caught in the standing mirror near the wall. That aesthetic mirror was Sun-hee's idea. She had pestered Tae-min to buy her that mirror that matched the ambiance of the lounge, because Young-hee had said no and whatever Umma said, appa agreed to it. Tae-min had bought it and put it there and told everyone that whatever sun-hee wants, sun-hee gets. Young-hee had scolded him for spoiling her, and Jae-sung had kept quiet, because he had wanted to buy sun-hee that mirror but because his mate had said no, he couldn't say yes. And now, the person staring back in the reflection of that mirror wasn't the same person from four weeks ago. Black hair falling across his forehead, unwashed for two days. Face thinner, warm skin tone turned pale and shadows under his eyes that looked like bruises.
He didn't like Park Jimin anymore.
Soon, he wouldn't be Park Jimin anymore, anyway.
His colleagues at the company had shown concern. The human idol whose group he'd choreographed for years had asked if he was okay. He'd smiled and deflected at first. Then stopped smiling when they asked. Started shaking his head and walking away because lying required more effort than he could muster.
Deflecting Jung Hoseok was harder. The man had stopped asking at some point and began looking at him with eyes that saw too much and yet weren't able to comprehend what was wrong with him, because he was not ready to talk yet, and Jung Hoseok didn't push when he knew it would break the other person instead of helping them.
Suddenly, the front door opened.
The sound cracked through the house like a gunshot. Everyone flinched. Sun-hee's head jerked up. Young-hee's hands flew to her chest. Jae-sung's eyes snapped into focus with alpha instincts for the first time in an hour. Footsteps came in the entryway. Quick, heavy and purposeful. The citric scent came in before its owner accompanied by the rustle of fabric, the jangle of keys thrown into the ceramic dish by the door, the blue chipped one that Jimin had made for the first time in the pottery class and his umma had decided it would go there.
Chanyeol appeared in the doorway, and something in Jimin's chest pulled tight.
His younger brother stood there at twenty years old, six feet of alpha genetics and their father's bone structure. Usually Chanyeol moved with barely contained energy. Now he looked feral. Not literally the way Tae-min had gone feral. But close enough to make Jimin's hindbrain twitch with alarm. His hair was disheveled. Eyes red-rimmed and wild, pupils blown. Tear tracks cutting clean paths down flushed cheeks. His jacket hung half off one shoulder and his scent reeked of young alpha distress. The citrus had gone sharp enough to sting.
Jimin's omega hindbrain had responded automatically with the biological soothe, submit, make the alpha calm command. But he strangled the instinct with muscle-memory and will power. Yoongi had trained that response out of him years ago. Don't submit. Don't soothe. You are not beneath anyone, he had said and jimin had learned for exactly two years how to put that in practice and build more on that practiced strength.
"I talked to grandpa." Chanyeol's voice was rough when he spoke, and a little too loud. He was always a loud child. Today, it felt like the deep rumble of his voice had been sharpened like a blade. He paused, searching for the words. And though his words were directed at everyone, his eyes had remained locked on their father. "I told him I'll take Jimin hyung's place. That I volunteer. But he..." He threw his hands up, face twisting with frustration. "All he cares about is the bloodline. You're cousins, Appa." He motioned toward their mother. His voice failing. "Our family has been mating within the family for generations, then why..."
Chanyeol threw his head back, breathing through his mouth.
"Isn't there a possibility that... that..." He exhaled, his hands curling into fists. "Appa, would the world fucking end if there was no alpha to continue the lyall bloodline? Grandpa's nephews could carry on the genes, couldn't they? Why can't they spare us the torture and..." He swallowed, nearly whimpering. "Take me. I don't want to carry on this bloodline. This world can survive without one lyall that has no guarantee of appearing anyway."
"Chanyeol." Their father's voice was barely a whisper. He sounded so, so, tired. "Stop."
"No!" Chanyeol took three strides into the room, distress rippling through with his scent. "I won't stop. There's no way I stand here breathing while they..." His one arm rose, a finger pointing towards Jimin. "They torture my brother. Tae-min went feral and left us to this madness. That selfish bastard should have been executed, not Jimin. He doesn't deserve this slow death. I will not stop until there's no more breath left in my body."
"Chanyeol." Jimin moved away from the doorway and stepped into the lounge. "You know a lyall is only born from the direct bloodline and Appa has no siblings. The council doesn't accept the last of lyall bloodline. The lyalls are necessary to maintain peace and implement laws. So stop being irrational and making this hard for everyone."
His voice was surprisingly calm. Steady.
He'd lost his sanity, hadn't he?
"Irrational, hyung?" Chanyeol looked at him with raw disbelief, eyes wide and wild. "I'm trying to save you! Don't you know what would happen if I stopped?" He closed the distance in two strides, grabbing Jimin's shoulders with a bruising grip. "How am I supposed to live with that guilt? How am I supposed to watch you sacrifice yourself for me?"
"It's not for you, Chanyeol," Jimin met his piercing angry gaze, keeping his voice calm and eyes level. "It's for the survival of our family. For peace. If we don't give them an alpha, the law will have our entire family executed. I'll die anyway, taking everyone with me. But they won't kill you. They'll execute our extended family, maybe allies too, but you and grandpa and grandma will still be spared..."
"How is this fair?" Chanyeol interrupted, voice cracking. His hands tightened, making pain shoot through Jimin's shoulders who didn't even flinch. "How is any of this fair, hyung?"
Chanyeol's breath hitched, wet and broken.
"I would rather kill myself, right now. If it means I can save you. But I can't even do that, can I? Because my death would be meaningless. And umma, appa will have to bury another son after leaving Tae-min hyung to die in the wilderness. And then they'll still have to give you away."
He stopped, pressing his lips together to swallow audibly. His Adam's apple boobed roughly before he opened his mouth again to breathe through his mouth. Lips chapped and bitten from constant worry.
"So no matter what, nothing can save you. How is this fair? I'd still be alive and breathing while they..." His voice dropped to something barely human, a deep gravel sound that was pure lycan vocals. "How am I supposed to live, hyung? How am I supposed to wake up every day knowing somewhere out there, you're being tortured? That they're... that he's..."
Chanyeol's hands moved from Jimin's shoulders to fist at the collar of his shirt, and pull him closer.
"They'll rape you."
He spat. Voice rising in a shout. Sun-hee's trembling intensified. Young-hee made a sound that might have been a sob or might have been her trying not to vomit. Jae-sung's hands immediately clenched into fists.
"They'll beat you. Burn you. Starve you until there's nothing left. And then one day..." Chanyeol's chest heaved with the exertion that came with helplessness and anger and bitterness warring for dominance. "One day, they'll send your body back. Some accident, they'll say. And I'll have to bury you with my own hands. I'll have to stand there and put you in the ground knowing exactly what they did to you while I was helpless. While I was somewhere warm, eating food and going to university like... like my brother wasn't..."
His voice broke on a sob. He couldn't finish as his pheromones crashed through the room like a physical force. Citrus twisting into something rotten. The scent of a young alpha breaking apart and losing control. It rolled through the space in waves, concentrated and overwhelming. Sun-hee gasped. Her small body went stiff, every muscle locking as her omega hindbrain screamed the usual commands to submit, bare neck and show belly. Her eyes went unfocused. She started trembling harder.
Young-hee curled tighter into herself, making that wounded sound again, hands flying to her throat. Her omega biology tried to release calming pheromones but grief had corrupted her scent. Jimin felt it too, the crushing weight of alpha dominance demanding he drop his eyes, bare his throat, and submit. His hindbrain shrieked. His omega nature pulled hard but one alpha's dominance was nothing for him. It didn't affect him the way it affected other omegas.
Yoongi had trained him to withstand two alphas releasing dominance simultaneously. He had built on that strength to withstand four, he could handle this one with a laugh. Except, he couldn't laugh. Not anymore.
"Chanyeol-ah."
He breathed sharply to keep his voice from fracturing and reached up slowly to wrap his arms around his younger brother's tall frame and pull him down, allowing Chanyeol's face to press into his shoulder. Chanyeol bent over in half to reach his shoulder, but he didn't protest and came willingly, a gesture so practiced from always back hugging jimin's smaller frame that it had become instinct by now.
"Breathe. You're scaring umma and Sun-hee. Please, breathe with me."
He didn't release omega pheromones. Words were more powerful than pheromones. Standing your ground mattered more than any biological response, and he had learned him from the very person who had told him to never submit, to never soothe, unless he wanted to. Behind them, Jae-sung had moved towards Young-hee and Sun-hee. His own alpha pheromones had rose for protection. He gathered Sun-hee into his arms first, holding her against his chest.
"Shh, baby. I've got you. Appa's here." He pulled Young-hee second, close with his other arm. His scent wrapped around both of them, trying to counteract Chanyeol's distress. The two omegas immediately curled into the alpha, seeking relief and protection.
Chanyeol's arms came around Jimin in return, crushing, desperate. His whole body was trembling with barely contained emotions.
"Why are you so calm?" The question came out muffled against Jimin's shoulder, wet with tears. "Why aren't you angry? Why aren't you screaming? Why have you accepted this so easily?"
The words hit like a punch.
Easily.
As if the past four weeks hadn't been an eternity of breaking. As if Jimin hadn't spent every night curled up on his bedroom floor, hand pressed over his mouth to muffle the sounds of his own screaming. As if he hadn't cried until he vomited. As if acceptance was easy.
"I haven't," Jimin heard himself say. His voice was still calm. Still steady. The disconnect felt surreal. "I haven't accepted it easily, Chanyeol-ah." He felt his younger brother go still against his shoulder. "The night appa got back from the council meeting, do you remember?" Jimin's hands moved to rest against Chanyeol's back. "He hadn't even spoken yet and I already knew. I knew the moment I saw his face. The moment I smelled his scent which smelled like resignation. Like the death of something. Hope perhaps."
He chuckled bitterly. The huff of the laughter was so hollow, it echoed in his own chest.
"I went to my room, closed the door and I screamed into my pillow until my voice gave out. Then I cried for hours. Until my eyes were so swollen I couldn't see. You pretended you didn't notice, didn't you?"
Chanyeol made a small, wounded sound.
"The next night, I did it again. And the night after that. Every single night for nearly four weeks, Chanyeol-ah. Breaking in silence. Alone. Because what good would it do to scream where anyone could hear? What would that change?"
His throat was closing. He had to force the words through.
"I knew the rules the moment I heard Ki-tae was dead. The moment rangers found Tae-min hyung's shredded clothes near the northern border. The moment we understood he'd gone feral. Because feral means he can't be executed. Can't pay the price he owes." His fingers curled into Chanyeol's shirt, bunching it up at the spine. "Which leaves you, the last alpha in the direct bloodline. Protected by law. They can't take you. Your life is worth more than mine because you carry grandpa's genetics forward."
Bitterness poisoned those words.
"So that leaves me. An adult omega. Sun-hee might be acceptable too, but I would rather have my skin peeled off my body while I'm still alive than let them touch her."
Chanyeol's arms tightened around him protectively. The protection was not going to last.
"So when you ask why have I accepted it so easily, I haven't, chanyeol-ah. But what good would the screaming serve? Would screaming bring Tae-min hyung back? Would crying make Ki-tae alive again? Would fighting make the law different?" Jimin slightly pulled back to look at his brother's face, whose face was wrecked, teeth bare in an attempt at silent crying, eyes red like a bull's. "The answer is no. The answer is no, my dongsaeng. Nothing will change. Nothing will help. So I stopped screaming eventually. Stopped crying where umma could see. Stopped fighting what can't be fought."
He reached up and wiped tears from Chanyeol's cheeks with his thumbs. His hands were steady too. Oh, he had become brave.
"This is the only way everyone survives." he continued, gently cupping the sides of his precious brother's face who was whimpering in his hold like a child. "This is the only way Appa lives. Umma lives. Sun-hee lives. The family continues. The Parks don't get executed and the district doesn't descend into a war."
His voice went even softer. His vision was blurring which he blinked rapidly to clear off. "One omega's life for everyone else's. That's the math, my sweet brother. That's the balance. And I'm the omega who has to be the price."
Chanyeol whispered even louder, staring at him with his tears still falling and his mouth gaping, opening and closing like he wanted to speak but couldn't find the right words, already at the loss of them.
"Why can't we run?"
Everyone went still. Sun-hee's voice had come small and trembling, but determined nonetheless. She pulled back from their father's chest, her wet eyes darting between Jimin and Jae-sung.
"Appa, you have money, right?" she asked with a hope in her voice that made breathing difficult for jimin. "We are lycans. We don't have problems with money. We could go somewhere they can't find us. Europe. America. Somewhere far away where Jimin oppa doesn't have to..." Her words dissolved between a broken hitch and a sob. "Please, appa. Please, we could..."
"Sun-hee-yah." Jae-sung's voice was gentle, but thick with unshed tears. "Baby, you'll learn this in civics lycan classes when you turn fifteen, but..." He stopped to breathe around the words. "For now, just know that we can't run. There's nowhere to run to."
Jimin was already moving before Jae-sung finished. He crossed to where Sun-hee stood and knelt in front of her, lowering himself until they were at eye level. She was too small for a twelve year old.
"Sun-hee-yah," Jimin started, forcing his voice steady. "You know how when you go to school, you and the other lycan children always have to scan your ID badges?"
She nodded.
"And whenever we go to restaurants. Or when we went to Japan last year. We had to scan our badges at the airport. At the hotel. At every restaurant. Everywhere we went in human cities." Another nod. "You know why we do that, right?"
Sun-hee's lips trembled. "Tae-min oppa told me once. He said it's because lycans are all connected. That everywhere in the world, humans have to make sure they're not serving any lycan who's been a bad person according to lycan law." Her brow furrowed. Fresh tears spilled over. "But we're not bad people, oppa. We didn't do anything wrong. So why can't they just let us go?"
She couldn't say it. Jimin knew the words she wasn't saying why do they need you, oppa.
Jimin's eyes stung. He wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand and then returned both hands to Sun-hee's shoulders.
"Listen carefully, okay?" he swiped his tongue at his dry lips and swallowed the lump formed in his throat before steading himself. She nodded slowly. "When a lycan family's case goes to the council court, our badges get flagged." Sun-hee's eyes widened. "When badges are flagged, no one serves that family. Anywhere. It means we can't run, Sun-hee-yah. We can stay in this house but we will be found. And we can't cross the province, let alone the country."
He shifted his weight on his knees and ignored that sob that had broken free from his mother's mouth and immediately muffled into Jae-sung's shoulder.
"The checkpoints won't let us out. Our badges are tracked constantly. Without them, no one will give us even water. No hotel will give us a room. No restaurant will serve us food. No airport will let us board a plane."
Sun-hee was shaking her head now, small denials.
"Our faces would be in the news constantly. Wanted criminals. And even if we somehow got past all that..." Jimin's thumb at her shoulders began caressing absently. "Every country we will go to, will see our badges flagged and will personally deliver us lycan law. If not in korea, we will be executed wherever he have somehow managed to go. Our scents can be tracked. You know how good lycan tracking is. How far we can smell. How we never forget a scent."
He wiped at the child's eyes with the sleeve of his own shirt.
"And if we try to run, they won't just come after us. They'll kill all the Park families first. Appa's cousins. His aunts and uncles. Every Park we are related to. Umma's family too. Grandma's family from her side. Every single Park, no matter how distant."
Sun-hee cried loudly with an open mouth, holding Jimin's wet wrist with desperate strength.
"Eun-bi," Jimin continued, and a far part of him realized he was being cruel, making the child understand the length of it. Eun-bi was their cousin, Sun-hee's best friend. "She will be..."
"No..." Sun-hee's whisper was barely audible but terrified, his breaths coming out harsh and sharp.
"Then they'd hunt us down, hee-yah. Track us wherever we went. And when they found us, not if, Sun-hee-yah, when, they'd execute all of us. Appa. Umma. You. Me." His voice cracked, finally breaking through the composure he was trying to maintain. "Everyone except Chanyeol, grandpa, and grandma. Because Chanyeol carries the Lyall bloodline. But everyone else? Gone."
Tears streamed down Sun-hee's face, wrecking loud sobs racking through her little body.
"So we can't fight the system. Even if we tried. There's no fighting this, Sun-hee-yah. There's only..." He stopped. He stopped because he couldn't say there's only me dying so everyone else lives. She had heard enough for one day, though the situation was not letting it be anything lesser.
Sun-hee lunged forward suddenly, throwing her arms around Jimin's shoulders, and burying her face in his shoulder before she broke. Something stung at his chest, sharp and aching like pain made physical.
"I don't want you to go," she gasped, convulsing in his arms. "Oppa, please. Please don't go. Please don't go, oppa."
Jimin's arms came around her automatically. One hand cupping the back of her head. The other wrapped around her small back, pulling her against him as if he could shield her from the grief and terror that was eating her little body alive, if he tried.
He couldn't. He couldn't.
"They're going to hurt you." she cried against his shoulder. "I know they're going to hurt you, oppa. Really bad."
Jimin's eyes snapped up, finding Chanyeol across the room. His younger brother stood frozen, the back of one hand pressed hard against his own mouth. His shoulders were shaking.You did this, Jimin glared at him. You said it out loud in front of her.
Chanyeol flinched like he'd been struck. Made a sound behind his hand and turned his face away, avoiding Jimin's accusing gaze. Their mother clung to their father's side, her delicate frame folding further in. Young-hee's face was buried in Jae-sung's shoulder. Her vanilla scent had curdled like milk gone bad. Jae-sung was standing stiff, one arm around his mate as he stared at something beyond the window. His jaw was clenched hard and lips pressed in a thin line. His eyes were dry, however.
Painfully so, like he'd cried so much there was nothing left. He had. And there was nothing left anyway. Not the tears, neither the solutions. Slowly, Sun-hee pulled back. Her small hands came up, trembling, and found Jimin's face. She cupped his face the way children do and her voice was wet.
"Oppa, I don't want you to get hurt. They can hurt me instead. Give them me, oppa. I'll go. I'll die quickly so you don't have to..."
"No."
The word exploded from three throats simultaneously, Jae-sung, Jimin, and Chanyeol, and crashed through the room like thunder. Chanyeol's voice broke on the syllable, turning it into something between a word and a growl. Purely alpha. The sound made the air simmer with scorched pheromones.
Sun-hee flinched. Her whole body jerked backward.
Young-hee shook her head in her mate's arms.
"Don't." Chanyeol's voice cracked like a whip. He took a step forward, eyes bloody red, and a low growl rumbling down his throat before he stopped himself. "Don't you ever say that again, Sun-hee. Ever. You don't know what you're saying."
"I do know!" Sun-hee's voice came out stronger than it should have. She turned in Jimin's arms, shifting to see Chanyeol. "I know what they'll do. It happened to my classmate. She was a peace-offering too."
The room went still. Sun-hee turned back to Jimin. Her small hands were still cupping his face. Jimin caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down hard. Swallowing, over and over while the colors in his sight began to blend together.
"Oppa." Sun-hee's voice was breaking. "Remember? Two months ago. You asked me why I wasn't eating."
Jimin nodded. He remembered, though his stomach sunk with anticipation. He somehow knew what was coming.
"My classmate Bora." Sun-hee's words came faster now, tumbling over each other. "She was twelve. Like me. Her brother killed someone and they... they gave her instead and..."
She stopped. Gulped air. Started again, while Jimin squeezed his eyes shut briefly before opening them and trying to focus on sun-hee's wrecked face.
"Min-hoo, her twin brother, he's omega too, he's in my class, he told us what happened to her. He shouldn't have told us. The teachers said we weren't supposed to know but everyone heard anyway and I..."
Tears were streaming down her face now.
"I tried not to listen, oppa. I put my hands over my ears like this..." She showed him, hands coming up to her ears. "but Min-jin was crying and she's human so she didn't understand and I had to explain and..."
"Sun-hee..." Jimin tried to stop her gently.
"No!" She grabbed his shirt with both hands. "You need to know what they did!"
Her breath was coming in gasps now, words breaking apart.
"Her teeth, oppa. They took her teeth. Min-hoo said...he said she came to visit one time, just once, before they stopped letting her, and her mouth..." Sun-hee's face crumpled. "She couldn't talk right anymore. Couldn't eat. Just made these sounds and there was blood and..."
She was crying so hard she was choking on the words.
"And her hands! Her fingernails were gone, all of them, and when Min-hoo asked what happened she just cried and cried and couldn't stop shaking and..."
"Baby, stop..." Jimin tried again, and the sound that broke out of him was close to a whimper. He swallowed once again. He didn't know how long he had been swallowing now, but the lump in his throat wouldn't go away and kept forming over and over again. And Sun-hee was spiraling, the words pouring out like poison she'd been holding in for months.
"They hurt her private parts!" The words came out in a wail. Jimin flinched as if someone struck his physically. Chanyeol choked a sound and Young-hee's loud exhale dissolved into sun-hee's next words. "Min-hoo said she couldn't sit down and she was bleeding there and they burned her and did things with...with...I don't even know what but she screamed all the time and they wouldn't give her medicine and she got so skinny because she couldn't eat much with no teeth and...they were feeding her something to keep her alive so they could hurt her more..."
Her voice broke completely, along with something that was inside Jimin.
"But she died. When they sent her body back Min-hoo said... said she didn't look like Bora anymore. He said she looked like... like a doll someone broke. Like she wasn't even a person. Just... just broken."
Sun-hee dissolved into sobs, her whole body shaking so violently Jimin had to hold her tighter to keep her from falling apart entirely.
"She used to share her colored pencils with me, oppa..." Sun-hee whimpered against Jimin's chest, when he pulled her in. "The sparkly ones. And she always smiled and now she's dead and they did all those things to her and oppa they're going to do that to you and I don't want...I can't...please don't let them, please..."
She couldn't form words anymore. Just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
"Sun-hee!"
Jae-sung's growl emerged in the room. A wolf's growl through human vocal cords. Deep, and vibrating, making the windows rattle. Everyone shuddered. Chanyeol flinched so hard he stumbled backward. Jae-sung hadn't used his pheromones, but his scent had changed. Turning acidic. Like something was actively dying in the room. His natural musk, usually warm and comforting, had twisted into something that smelled like rot.
He took a step forward, letting go of his mate. "Enough. You will not go. Never. Do you understand me, Sun-hee? Never."
His eyes, usually so gentle, were hard now. Something in those eyes had the look of a man standing at the edge of a cliff, about to fall.
"You and Chanyeol...both of you, stop trying to make this more difficult for me and Jimin." His voice had hesitated on Jimin's name. "If there was an alternative, I would have taken it. Do you think I haven't tried? Do you think I've just been sitting here accepting this?"
He gestured sharply, too harsh, so unlike their gentle appa.
"For three weeks I've been at council meetings, begging them to take me instead. Even though I know offering a mated alpha with omega dependents is forbidden, I begged anyway." His breath came faster. His scent got sharper. "Your harabouji told them he would step down from his seat if they would just find another way. A Lyall offering to resign from the council, offering to give up power he's held for decades."
Jae-sung's hands clenched into fists. His knuckles had gone white.
"We've tried everything. Exhausted every option. Every loophole. We've consulted with every elder, every legal expert, every..." His voice shattered like glass and every eye in the room burnt with fresh tears. "You think I want this? You think it doesn't destroy me to hand my child over for torture?"
Tears were finally leaking from his father's eyes like a faucet left open.
"I would rather die. Do you understand? I would rather let them execute me than do this. But I can't." The last two words came out as a resigned, helpless whisper. "I can't. Because if I refuse, they don't just kill me. They kill all of you. Your mother. You, Sun-hee. Jimin anyway. They execute our entire extended family. Everyone except Chanyeol and your grandparents."
He looked at his youngest daughter with eyes drowning with tears.
"You want to know what happens if I fight? Eun-bi dies. Your favorite cousin. They'll make sure we know. Make sure we watch. Then they'll work through the rest. Killing them slowly. Making examples." His voice dropped even lower. "And then they'll still take Jimin. Still torture him. Still kill him. Just slower. More painfully as punishment." Jae-sung turned slightly, his gaze finding Chanyeol. His voice had hardened now. "So stop it. Both of you. Stop trying to sacrifice yourselves. Stop trying to offer alternatives that don't exist. Stop trying to make this easier when it's not."
His breath shuddered on an inhale.
"You should be holding him together. Supporting him. Making this last day..." He stopped with a sudden wet that snatched his voice. Couldn't say this last day he has left out loud. "Instead he's the one holding everyone in this family together. He's the one comforting you. Explaining to you. While knowing exactly what's waiting for him."
Jae-sung's hands came up, pressing against his own face. His palms covered his face. His whole body was shaking now.
"Let him breathe," he pleaded behind his hands. "Please. Just let him breathe."
The room fell into silence again. But this time the silence was nothing but acceptance. Surrender, and love that had nowhere to go except into holding on while you still could. Sun-hee was still in Jimin's arms, still holding his shirt, but she'd gone quiet. Her sobs had reduced to hitching breaths. She buried her face against his chest again, her small frame curled into him. Chanyeol stood across the room with his back against the wall, slowly sliding down until he was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up. His head fell forward onto his arms. His shoulders shook with silent cries.
Young-hee's eyes were swollen nearly shut. Her cheeks were soaked. She looked at Jimin, and her expressions were so full of grief and love and helpless rage that Jimin had to look away, his teeth digging into his lower lip. Jae-sung's hands slowly lowered from his face. He stood there for a long moment, heaving. Then he moved. Crossed the room slowly and came to where Jimin sat on the floor with Sun-hee in his arms before lowering himself down.
He reached out one hand. Placed it on Jimin's head. His palm was warm, and slightly trembling. This was how he'd touched Jimin when he was small, when nightmares had woken him screaming. And Jimin wanted to scream and bury himself in his appa's arms.
His appa's voice, when it came, was barely audible.
"I'm sorry." Two words, yet so heartbreaking, yet so heartbroken that felt himself flaying apart. "I'm so sorry, my son. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't protect you... I failed..." Tears were rolling down Jimin's cheeks and he couldn't see his appa's expressions clearly. Sun-hee had gone still in Jimin's arms, staring at their father. "If Chanyeol were an option..." Jae-sung continued, the words dragged from somewhere deep inside. "If the law would accept him... if there was any way to offer him instead of you..."
His hand tightened slightly in Jimin's hair.
"I would have given him up. To spare you this."
Across the room, Chanyeol made a sound. It wasn't a protest, it was an agreement. Both father and son wishing the same impossible thing.
"Losing a child..." Jae-sung's voice dropped even lower. "There's nothing worse. It's worse than dying. But knowing that I must lose one... that there's no way to keep both my sons... that the choice isn't whether to lose you but only how much you'll suffer before you die..." Jae-sung's other hand came up. Both palms cradling Jimin's head now, holding him like something precious and fragile. "Then I would rather choose the one who could be spared pain. The one who would die quickly without torture. But I couldn't even do that. The law protects Chanyeol and condemns you, and I... I can't..."
His voice disintegrated, becoming nothing but ragged breathing.
"I failed you, my son. I couldn't protect Tae-min. He had called me that night. In a panic. His voice was so scared, Jimin. So terrified. He said... he said 'Appa, it wasn't intentional. It was self-defense. Appa I could never hurt my friend. Appa I don't know why, I don't know what happened. Appa, I had lost my mind... and I am losing my mind... Appa what do I do?'"
Jae-sung's hands were trembling now.
"And I told him to come home. That we'd face it together. That he'd be okay. That his appa would protect him." A sound escaped him, half laugh, half sob. It was bitter, so bitter, it left Jimin gaping for air. "All lies. And he knew. He knew and he regretted it so much. I couldn't save him from going feral. Couldn't stop his guilt from eating him alive and I lost him to the wilderness, where he'll die alone and mindless...."
His voice broke again.
"And now I'm losing you. Worse. So much worse. Because at least Tae-min won't know what's happening anymore. Won't feel the pain. But you... they're going to torture you. For months. And you'll be awake for all of it. And I have to send you there knowing exactly what they'll do...."
Jae-sung's breath came faster, shallow and rapid.
"I'm helpless. Completely, utterly helpless. I'm your father. I'm supposed to protect you. And I've failed so catastrophically that I don't even... I'm a failure. As a father. As an alpha. I've failed all my children. Tae-min is lost. You're being condemned to torture. And Chanyeol and Sun-hee have to watch it happen knowing their Appa couldn't stop it."
Young-hee made a sound of protest without words. Her hand reached out toward her mate, trembling, as she shook her head in disagreement. Something cracked open inside Jimin's chest and he moved before he could think about it. Pulled away from his father's hands just enough to shift Sun-hee gently to the side. His sister made a small sound of protest but let herself be moved, before Jimin's arms came around Jae-sung's shoulders. Wrapped tight, holding on, pulling his father close.
Jae-sung went still, surprised, maybe, or just too broken to respond. Then his arms came around Jimin in a crushing, desperate embrace of a father who was going to bury his child with his own hand and was holding him perhaps the last time.
"You didn't fail." Jimin's voice came out steadier than it had any right to be. He had forced himself to make it steady. "Appa, listen to me. You didn't fail as a father."Jae-sung cried in denial, protest, disbelief all tangled together. "You didn't," Jimin insisted. His hands gripped the fabric of his father's shirt. "You're still the strongest father in the world. The best father. You always have been."
"Jimin..." Jae-sung's shoulders caved inwards. "How can you say that when I..."
"Do you remember," Jimin cut him off, determined to make his point. "When I was fourteen? When I told you I wanted to be a dancer? Wanted to learn ballet and become a choreographer. When I said I wanted to study performing arts instead of something acceptable for an omega."
Jae-sung went still.
"Grandpa said no. Said it was shameful. That letting an omega work in the entertainment industry was practically prostitution. That proper omega children didn't chase dreams in the human entertainment industry." Jimin sniffed as he rubbed his eyes over his appa’s frame. "Grandpa told you to forbid it. That if you allowed it, you'd be disgracing generations of Parks."
He rubbed a hand over the length of his appa's spine to ground the elder.
"But you didn't listen. I remember you drove all the way to Busan District. Walked into Harabouji's house and argued with him for hours. Grandma told us later. She said she'd never seen anyone stand up to harabouji like that." The words came out soft but fierce. "He nearly beat you to death. Grandpa's alpha dominance had you on your knees. His pheromones were choking you. He was so angry he partially shifted. The whole Park family was there, everyone telling you to stop embarrassing yourself."
Jae-sung's breathing had gone uneven against Jimin's shoulder.
"But you didn't listen. Umma said you came home with your face so swollen she couldn't recognize you. Your ribs were cracked. Your arm was broken. You could barely walk. And grandpa told you that if you came back, he'd do worse. We were on a school trip and we didn't know you were fighting a battle on my behalf."
Jimin pulled back slightly to look at his father's face. Jae-sung's eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, streaming tears, mirroring chanyeol's, or probably his, or probably everyone's in this house right now. "But you went back anyway. Three times, appa. You went back three times. Let him beat you three times. Broke more bones. Bled more blood. And you didn't leave. Didn't back down."
His hands came up to frame his father's face.
"You stayed in that estate for two weeks. Refused to leave. Slept in the garden. Ate the food grandma snuck out. And every day you asked for his blessing. Despite the beatings. Despite the humiliation. Despite everyone telling you that an omega's happiness wasn't worth this. That I wasn't worth this." The steadiness in his voice that he had forced, was threatening to dissolve again. "You stayed on your knees and you didn't leave until grandpa gave his blessing. Three times of being beaten down, and you didn't stop. You fought for my dreams when no one else would. When everyone said I should accept my place, you said 'my son deserves to be happy.'"
A sob caught in Jimin's throat. He swallowed it down.
"So you didn't fail me as a father. You never failed me. Not once. Not ever. Grandpa gave his blessing not because he agreed, but because he'd never seen an alpha fight that hard for an omega's dreams. Your stubbornness and your love broke through centuries of tradition." Jimin's thumbs brushed across his father's cheekbones, wiping the tears away, like appa used to do for him. Now it was his turn. "And if my life has to end now... at least it was a good life. A happy life. A life where I got to do what I loved. And that's because of you. Because you fought for me when no one else would."
Jae-sung's face crumpled. His whole expressions collapsed inward.
"Jimin..." he whispered, he was speaking around a closed throat. "Jiminie, I..."
"And it's no one's fault," Jimin continued, pulling him in for another embrace. "Not yours. Not Chanyeol's. Not even Tae-min's." He felt his father's body jerk slightly. "It wasn't intentional, appa. Tae-min loved Ki-tae like a younger brother, and you know that. So it's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. It's just bad luck. Terrible, horrible bad luck."
He pulled back enough to see his father's face once again.
"And even if Chanyeol were accepted by the law, I would still choose to go."
Jae-sung's eyes widened as he immediately started to shake his head.
"I would," Jimin said firmly against his appa's beginning protests. "I would choose this, appa. Because I would rather let them beat me to death before I would let anyone execute my younger brother. Before I would even consider offering my baby sister." His jaw clutched into a brief but fierce grip before he released it. "So this choice isn't your failure. This choice isn't anyone's burden to carry except mine. This is my choice. Law or not. I would make this same decision every single time."
He released his father, hands moving to frame his face one more time.
"Do you understand, appa? You didn't fail. You gave me a life worth living. You gave me dreams worth chasing. You gave me eleven years of happiness that most omegas never get. You fought for me when it mattered. You loved me like no other. That's not failure, appa. That's everything a father should be."
Jae-sung's hands came up, covering Jimin's. His grip was desperate. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. No words came out. Just ragged breathing and the slight movement of his lips forming shapes that might have been my son, my son, my son.
Behind them, Young-hee was crying into her hands. Chanyeol had his face buried in his arms, shoulders shaking. Sun-hee pressed against Jimin's side, seeking his presence. perhaps the last time. And Jimin held his father and let him break, because sometimes that was all you could do. Sometimes love meant witnessing someone else's pain and not trying to fix it, just holding them while they shattered.
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