JIMIN POV:

It bubbles up. Spills over.

Ugly.

Vicious.

Angry.

Distorted and mangled with fear that poisons my bloodstream, makes it boil as I stare at the photos, something heavy plummeting to the very depths of my stomach, ground falling away from under my feet. Every single thing that we'd worked towards, that I'd worked towards for months wrenched away, my orbit, that feeling of getting closer and closer all torn away, disintegrating in front of my eyes.

The glossy cache of photos are everything I've tried to prevent, are everything that months of effort and caution have undone.

And it makes my vision whiten. Then turn red.

Seeing nothing but how much every effort has been ruined. Undone.

"...have you lost your fucking mind?"

Confused and furious, mind screaming with rage, with each instinct, each need overlapping until it's a growing mass of blurred thoughts that are consumed with a sole target.

It's all his fault.

Taehyung.

Fury bleeding through the growing cracks, restraint splintering and shattering under my fangs, words heavy with growls and sharp accusations and truth thrown at him.

My mind screams for it, to retaliate, every cell overtaken by biology, by that need to fight whatever's added to the threat against (Y/N). And right now... right now it's Taehyung.

It doesn't matter that I hadn't found out then, it doesn't matter that they'd gotten away with it without any of the pack finding out... it matters because they were photographed, they were seen. And someone out there, a specific sole someone is waiting for the chance to get to (Y/N), to reach her. Someone out there has been trying to court and claim her in a way that sends prickles of fury stabbing into my skin and nausea to churn in my stomach. Someone out there believes she is theirs. And Taehyung... Taehyung took her outside.

Without police protection.

Without a security detail.

Without even asking.

The anger that spills itself out with a vengeance is corrosive and sharp, it's hands shoving at him, snarling as my fangs pool over my lips and growls distort my words.

Venom that poisons every thought, every rational thought, every scrap of logic. Burns through it until it's consumed by the need to protect at any cost even if it means hurt at any cost.

Vision clouded with red as my fingers curl sharp against skin, feel the press of claws trying to tear themselves through my nails, trying to gouge and grip at the tiger that's added to the threat because he thought he was predator enough to protect (Y/N).

The sight of fangs snapping back, of a body wrestling itself back with a snarled growl of my name distorted and just as vicious is fuel to the fire, makes my skin itch as I lunge forward, fangs snapping at skin, bodies crowding for space, for dominance, the air around us buzzing with pheromones that only grow thicker, pouring off in stronger waves to intimidate, to fight back, to dominate. To win.

Hackles rising and snarls growing because he doesn't know what he did was wrong.

More so... he refuses to accept what he did was wrong. Eyes dark and sharp with defiance and aggression, contempt and fury pouring off me, skin feeling like a furnace, each cell a livewire that crackles with painful jolts of anger at the other scents trying to combat mine, trying to calm the roaring in my head, the growling that builds and builds and builds...

And then... then it turns to rage and misery and bitterness and jealousy.

The snarling turns into poisoned misery when the accusation is flung at my face, striking at my skin with a force greater than if I'd been given a physical blow. Lungs left winded, shuddering as they rapidly expand to inhale air.

Blow after blow.

Rapid.

Striking harder.

Deeper.

Clouds the red with shadows.

An ugly smear over my vision, over reason.

Driving the words deeper.

"She's not my guilty secret Jimin..."

She was never my guilt. She's never been a secret to hide.

She's been mine to protect from the very beginning.

As hybrid, as friend, as mate.

But his words strip it all away.

I know... I know she has a life... I know we're not her beginning and end, I know she's more—

Cutting through the misery his words elicit are harsher words flung at me, piling on the accusations, sharp and corrosive where they fuse with my blood, where each loud thundering beat of my heart is deafening, makes my ears pin back as I stare hard at the person that's meant to know me most. But right now... right now he doesn't know me. Right now he's never felt further.

"Unlike you my priorities aren't conflicted. She's my mate." She's my mate too. But the acrid sharpness of his tone suggests otherwise, placing both me and him at polar opposites.

"I do not take orders from an officer regarding my pack. But maybe if our mate had been there with us, maybe if he'd been present as a mate and not an officer... maybe it wouldn't be messy." Words shoving back, just as his hands do, in violent force, the weight of his words sinking its blade into my gut, leaving my lungs painfully tight.

Knife after knife bludgeoned deep into my chest, growled distorted truths that make my ears ring, makes my head pound and my blood pulse with snarls, with just as much force as my fangs snap at his skin, his throat, his gland, everything narrowing to the vein pulsing at his throat. just as rapid.

Not from fear.

From adrenaline. Predator to predator.

The difference is you think with your uniform on. I don't need a uniform to think about what I should do."

Everything else in my head turns to white noise. All the snarling, all the screaming thrashes to lunge for him, everything that tells me to attack, get (Y/N) safe, get her safe, safe, safe....

Everything comes to still.

Struck into place, skin feeling like haywire, nerves buzzing.

"We were there from day one. We were there before your priorities were split. Duty or mate Jimin. I'd never hesitate to choose."

The thundering pulse of my heart seizes. The stinging sharpness of the mint making the corners of my eyes prickle, body sagging, fight draining out.

A wounded broken sound trying to claw itself out, stifled and swallowed back. Forced down even as it bubbles in my throat.

A defensive ugly sound spills out instead, fangs piercing my lip, the metallic tang filtering into bitter-sharp mint and soured berries.

The air crumbling under the weight.

My mind crumbling under each word.

Staring at the man in front of me. And for a moment I don't... I don't recognise him... I don't recognise the poison and ire that I've compelled to spill out... and now that I have, we're both too far gone for it.

It's instinct to survive. So if that means clawing our way to survival then that's what he's done. That's what I've done.

But I can't help but think, a part of me crumbling under all the anger, lost and stifled amidst the fury that he might as well have gouged my heart out with his claws and torn it out of my chest.

Shoved back roughly, growl threatening and low against my skin, skin and fur bristling and burning and on edge.

Threat, threat, threat.

Hurt, hurt, hurt me. Hurt me back.

Hurt me back so I'm not the only one suffocating.

Feeling a disconnect from my own body, from every move.

But it's biology.

It's biology who acts when my mind continues to shut down, letting instincts and predatory DNA push itself to the forefront and dominate the space of my mind. Overwhelm its thoughts.

Body pushed back.

Registering the harsh shove, the press of a body against mine, crowding for space, pheromones forcing their way into my very air, into my very breaths, into my very lungs so that with each inhale my lungs constrict around the scent of decayed soured berries.

"Taehyung you ignored everything the past months have been for... they know about all of us... this... this means everyone is under their eyes now." I grit out, pushing back to take back my space, my air. Because he still doesn't see. Because he still doesn't realise. He's not listening.

He's not realising what this all means. What he's jeopardised. What he's put at risk.

It's not just (Y/N) whose at risk now.

Now it's pack. Now it's dragged in more people.

Fail, fail, fail. Failed, failed, failed. Failure, failure, failure.

Couldn't protect, couldn't protect, didn't protect.

Whines and anguish lost underneath rippled growled sounds that push upwards, trying to shield the anguish that ripples through my skin, that sinks into blood and bones.

All that resentment and misery and anger spiralling into a vicious, black mass of thoughts and words and snapped fangs. Of space being crowded. Of hand curling hard against his chest and feeling the threat of claws as they almost tear their way through.

Because I didn't protect (Y/N).

And now I wasn't protecting my pack either.

That's why Taehyung was angry. Angry because I didn't protect.

Because I failed (Y/N). But I also failed everyone else too.

Hurt-hurt-hurt—my hand tears itself away from him, fists curling at my sides, the stinging press of the skin of my palms being pierced and stung forcing a thread of cognizance into my blurred mind. Didn't hurt, didn't hurt, won't hurt—

Then there's another scent forcing itself into the space, battering at both of ours, snarled order and command dripping with sharp citrus and sharp predator eyes that appraise us before turning darker and heavier with disappointment.

Shoving us both apart with snarled disapproval but then there's doe eyes glossed with misery and a voice that cracks as it sobs with apology, body curving in on itself to make herself smaller. Apologising for being. For being part of the mistake.

No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no.

Not you, not you, not you. Words whispered with shaky breaths, that black mass of anger-hurt-instinct-abrasion melting with each exhale. Cradling her close but feeling the way her body trembles, wracked with shame and guilt, her scent soured.

No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no--- a whined plaintive plea as she's tugged away, vision clearing around the edges, fangs retracting as I look at her being drawn back, shielded... from us.

The air hangs fraught after the click of the door.

Body thrumming with tension before it's startled into movement, a growled curse low and hoarse before the rapid distancing of hurried footsteps, a loud slam that makes my ears flinch before the scent of soured berries is gone. Jolting the others into action.

Two steps of footsteps rushing away just as hurried and frantic.

Then silence.

I flinch at the first quiet tread of footsteps. Jerk back from the hand that reaches out, body twisting away, so sure that they hate me, that they loathe me for driving one mate to hide and the other to run.

"Do you... would a walk help pup?"

I flinch harsher at the thought. At the way the words do little to appease at the moment and everything to sting.

Suddenly with no-one crowding my space, it seems to suffocate me in my own scent, with my own sharpness.

With the weight of my words pressing themselves in harder.

A broken whine muffled past tightly clamped lips when a hand brushes down my back, avoiding my scent glands which throb painfully.

"We don't have to leave... we can be right here pup—whatever you need Jimin-ah." The voice placating, dropping softer. Gentler to combat the prickling sting of my scent, of the whines and growls stuck in my throat.

It takes a long while for those hands to carefully reach to draw me closer, it takes longer still for me to actually allow myself the comfort, entirely undeserving of it.

"Pup it's okay."

"It's not okay... it's not... I..." skin feeling too tight, blood feeling too hot, mind feeling too much.

The emptiness of the living room suddenly stifling. Suffocating.

Suddenly the absence of fangs at my throat and a hand shoving me back, body towering to try intimidate and compel a surrender... growls swallowed back down, muffled by the clamp of my lips, fangs biting down hard enough to taste blood.

It's not okay, it's not okay, Tae... Tae created a risk, Tae's gone out again, Tae didn't listen, Tae didn't... I've tried so much, I've tried so hard, it's not okay, it's not okay, it's not—

"Pup focus." Words cutting through the spiralling mass of thoughts that it's only then I realise have spilled out violent and panicked and in sharp exhales of breath that do nothing to loosen the tightening of my lungs.

A hand at my nape. The scent of burnt caramel trying to soften, the sweetness of it trying to calm the way my own scent stabs the inside of my throat with every ragged inhale.

I try to extract myself from the arms around me, the hand at my nape but they only lightly reaffirm their hold, a squeezing pressure that at that moment feels too much, too much, too—then it lightens as if sensing the way my mind thrashes.

"I didn't mean to... I didn't... I didn't..." I say helplessly, words stuck on my tongue, unable to get them out, throat constricting around them. As if the air is being choked from my lungs, strangled out of me, glands pulsing painfully with sharp stinging mint.

"We know." Voice soft and light. Understanding.

It's too understanding. I don't deserve it's kindness, I don't deserve the softness of their touches, their scents when all I've been is abrasive and painful... when I've hurt our mate, when I've hurt pack.

I don't... I don't deserve to be held close.

They should be shoving me away, keeping me further than arm's length, they should be shoving me out of the apartment, out of our home, our nest... Taehyung...Tae...Tae... Tae...Tae, Tae, Tae, Tae

"—Tae! Tae's gone... I need... Tae..." words cracking as I twist sharply, breaths shuddering as I try extract myself, instincts all wiring down to the urge to bolt out of the apartment, a mixture of anger and hurt and pain swirling around, making my skin itch.

He wasn't right.

But he didn't deserve to be outside alone.

"Jungkook-ah and Namjoon went with him remember?" fingers coaxing as they brush through my hair, somehow sensing everything close to my glands is too much, his light touches skimming away from the hypersensitive tissue, fingers easing away from my nape. Arms loosely wrapping around me from behind.

"I didn't mean to... it terrifies me, and I hate it... don't... don't want Tae in danger too. Didn't want him to be photographed either."

I didn't want to exchange one mate's safety for another.

I never wanted to compromise anyone's safety in the pack because (Y/N)'s own was perilous.

I couldn't stand the thought of (Y/N) being in danger despite being under heavy protection and constant security at work that the thought that inadvertently Tae might've compromised his own makes the red in my vision threaten to crowd closer.

It's only with the absence of the snarling tiger, the sharp tart sourness of berries that I realise the red-red-red in my vision, the anger and splintering control hadn't been towards him, it'd been for him, it'd been towards the threat that was spiralling no matter how much I tried to keep it under bay and it'd been against the unseen danger I couldn't control and protect every single one of them for.

But with no threat to direct it to...

I'd done the worst thing as mate, as friend, as protector, as predator, as officer... I'd channelled... I'd forced it towards Tae... poured my hate and venom and misery towards another protector, I'd poured it all onto Tae. And a part of me, still feeling the press of hard sinew ungiving under my fangs, I'd hurt someone I'd only wanted to keep protected.

The voices trying to filter through my hearing are distant, lost in the swarming panic that continues to build in my mind, that spills itself down my cheeks, hot and damp. Hands tugging themselves free to scrub at my face, swipe angrily, hastily at my eyes, tears spilling down as my voice chokes on Tae's name, chokes on my scent and the ringing aftermath of what I've done.

I attacked him.

I tried to goad him into attacking me.

I hurt him.

"Jimin... Jimin-ah...."

"Oh baby..."

Voices anguished and aching alongside me.

They hate me. They must hate me.

"I wanted to at least keep some of my mates entirely safe from this." Words shaken, ground feeling uneven, footing unsteady, fingers swiping at tears because I don't deserve to feel hurt when I'm the one who hurt.

"You both need some time... but I know Tae will understand Jimin-ah. You've worked so hard, day after day, month after month keeping (Y/N) safe, it scared you."

I nod blindly.

The terror threatens to re-claw its way back up my throat.

Shaking it obstinately from my mind before it tightens its hold on me again, feeling the waves of terror ebb and grow, slowly coaxed towards the sofa, tears and sobs muffled against a neck, sans of the strong pheromones that usually cloud over senses.

The gentle vanilla does nothing to biologically steer me away from my panic but it's a lifeline I grasp onto because it's a constant that remains, that doesn't battle against my own stinging scent but instead eases me towards him.

Towards the warm lightness of vanilla. To focus on how steady it remains, wings fluttering before they slowly...slowly curl around to hold me in the same way his arms loosely do. A light embrace with all the protection and security I want for them.

"I wanted Tae to be safe too."

"He was being careful, he was safe. Him and (Y/N) are both safe remember?" words slowly soothing, brushing down my spine alongside the slow drag of Jin hyung's palm.

They're okay, they're okay, they're okay.

My heart cracks, splinters, cleaves itself down the middle when I remember how Tae had looked. How (Y/N) had looked. Expressions shattered, anger and pain clinging to scents.

But I didn't let them stay okay.

[......]

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm so so sorry... sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry—

"We're both to blame." Tae murmurs quietly, voice hushed, fingers still rubbing gently at the base of drooped ears, doe eyes steadily becoming heavier, curling up even smaller on his chest.

"Still... still I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry Taehyungie." I whisper, lips brushing gently over the scrapes left behind on his jaw, nose nuzzling into skin.

He smells so much calmer.

His scent smells settled.

Stripped of its sourness.

But it doesn't ease the guilt and shame still swirling around my bloodstream.

"I hurt you."

"I hurt you back."

"I hurt (Y/N), I hurt you more." words thick with apology.

"We were both stuck on one thought. One answer." Head tilting in warm invite, allowing me closer, nuzzling into the slither of skin it bares, head ducking lower to gently press apologetic kisses to his gland, wanting to wash away the memory of his scent had tasted, bitter and sour with every inhale after he'd left.

Arm curling further around his waist, head tilting against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry... I—I did what was best for (Y/N) but that didn't mean I had to forget what was best for you, for the pack."

"I... sometimes I feel so helpless, I feel like I'm stuck in a cycle, day after day, doing my best but it's not enough—"

Bleat.

Soft, shiny doe eyes looking at me, blinking up as (Y/N)'s gaze focuses on me. Both reproachful and knowing, head shaking at me to try dispel the thought from my mind.

Nosing at my hand when I tilt it to her before her cheek rests against my palm. Gaze open and trusting.

And even without words I know what she's saying. I know what the trust in her eyes speaks about.

It's reaffirming that trust in me all over again.

As many times as I need to, her eyes speak.

Tae's tail curling gently before brushing against the tips of my fingers, brushing against my hand before looping lightly around me.

I trust you. Is what the hold says.

I trust them too.

And that lapse instigated by the threat... I'll never let it threaten it again.

------------------------

It takes every inch of control to hold back from lunging forward across the space, to knock the table aside and to wipe the lazy curl to his mouth... this is what the pressure of my claws ache for, to tear the sight of it clean off his face.

The urge to give in and be an animal, be a predator, has never felt so strong as it does right now, fangs pooling over my bottom lip the longer I stare at them, a silent examination, mind burning and busy with countless painful thoughts of how else I could make them give me the answers I need. How much control it takes to wrench myself free from those thoughts.

But it'd be so easy...

It'd be so easy to be a monster to bring those monsters down.

It'd be so easy to be an animal, blinded by DNA and instinct and pure biological need.

It'd be so, so easy—

"Why am I being held Officer? I haven't been sentenced and I haven't been bailed." A lazy curiosity in his words.

Because there's more than one way to break a person, to get into their head.

Some of them are quick, the way he's trying to now, some of them are slower... subtler ways of inducing discomfort, to make them second-guess everything, to create paranoia.

"You haven't heard about your friend have you?" my lips quirk up at the corners, fingers absently pushing open the file, rifling through the pages until I tug out the other scorpion's photo, twisting it around.

Just like the assuredness lingers now... just about, it'd been there in their photos when they were booked and processed, faces slightly bloodied (though I didn't doubt some of that had come from the very physical violent urge that JB and Jinyoung had gotten to harm the threat that'd been harming their own.)

But there's a difference now.

If now they could see each other.

Underneath the façade, the lingering smirks that have more feigned bravado and cockiness than genuine confidence... underneath it now, there's dark circles rimming the man's eyes. Worn out and tired, body slumped with an exhaustion.

"Shame... he doesn't look half as bad as—this." Gesturing absently at the man's fatigue, catching the slight stiffness that enters his posture at the thought. I don't need to hear thoughts to know his mind's beginning to buzz.

"Where is he?"

"I'd be worrying about yourself. And wonder why you haven't been processed yet." Words hanging over him, sinking in alongside the faint stirrings of uncertainty.

"You're lying."

I shrug.

"Am I? No way for you to confirm if he's rotting in a cell or not... how are you finding your cell? Comfortable?"

Unbidden.

As if he can't help the retort.

"It's cold."

"Winters in Seoul do get cold don't they?"

A tightening of his shoulders.

But his discomfort is unspoken.

The dark circles are all the proof and validation I need that those few weeks he has been uncomfortable. That being locked up doesn't mean he's untouchable, that I can't get to him regardless.

My lips twitch faintly.

"It's dry though."

"Too dry."

"Huh... shame. Maybe if you'd wanted something more your taste then you'd have asked. Or answered questions the first time round."

"You're not getting answers from me." An impassive look on his face as he leans back.

"No?" eyes skimming over the rest of the file disinterestedly.

From my peripheral I notice the way he shifts in his seat, the way he glowers before confusion settles across his face.

Sitting stiffly and upright when he realises the chair legs are uneven.

A bubble of laughter wants to well up, but it's tamped down by the sheer will of not giving in an inch before I can see the combined efforts of the weeks, the small micro-attempts to slowly...slowly chip at him before he even reaches the interrogation room.

"I have nothing to say."

"Nothing to say in your favour either after we picked you up from the homeless shelter?"

The laugh grates.

Makes my own smile harden. Gaze flitting up to stare hard.

"I didn't know struggling to find a home was now a matter of getting thrown into jail."

"What about hiding in a shelter whilst already on the run after being part of a chipping and illegal production line for trackers?"

"It's not my company."

"Why did you run?"

"Undocumenteds don't tend to stay to say hi."

Liar.

"Choi Sang-min."

Eye contact. Bingo.

It's brief, it's all for a few seconds.

But it's there. It's more than enough.

"How long did you think you could hide Sang-min?"

"How long do you think you can play a losing game?"

The papers under my touch crinkle.

Brows rising and a still far too smug smile curls his mouth.

It makes my brows furrow slightly.

Makes my spine feel stiff.

Makes that urge to gouge that look off his face return tenfold.

"And what game is that? What am I supposedly losing? Because I'm not the one locked away with no idea what hellhole waits for him after this."

"You're not locked away, but that hybrid is isn't she?"

Red. Red-red-red-red-red-red-red— my vision clouds with it.

"Do you need me to do the interrogation?"

"No. This is mine."

"Jimin-ah... are you sure—" you're in enough control?

I'm not sure. But there's no way this hunt... my hunt is being taken from me right before I tear it apart. Until my jowls are dripping with their blood, with their condemnation.

"What if you're not in the right headspace?"

I draw myself out lightly of the loose hold on my arm, fangs pricking my bottom lip.

Something hungering and feral pooling under my skin.

"The idea... is to fuck up their headspace first."

"Who?"

"Pointless when we both know who I mean. That doe you've got locked up. When did locked up mean safe though?"

"You fucking piece of—" I growl, body unconsciously posturing, snarling heavily.

Not realising when I'd jerked upright from my chair, when I'd reached forward to grip at the collar of his clothes and yank him forward, fangs dropping heavier, feeling weighted.

This close—it'd be so easy to tear his throat open.

"Touchy subject is it?" uncaring in that moment, eyes glittering with a sharp poisoned amusement.

"If you want to keep your tongue I suggest you keep any insinuation to yourself."

"Maybe I was offering a warning from the goodness of my heart."

"Your heart is poisoned and just as ugly as the rest of your kind. Monsters." I spit out.

"Don't take the warning then. Only a fool would think a closed door does anything."

The sight of the photos spilled out across the coffee table. The taste of blood faint under my tongue. The hard shove of a body against mine and fangs snapping at skin. Cold, cold emptiness afterwards.

My eyes glint.

I feel a part of my body tense, feel my lips curl up.

And this close... hand still curled into his collar I relish in the flash of fear it incites.

Voice low and sharp.

"Then what makes you think this closed door means for you? What makes you safe in a locked space with me?"

They have weaker... significantly weaker scent glands than the majority of the hybrid population.

But smelling the faint tendril of fear and uncertainty and cold-cold horror begin to secrete into the closed space makes my mouth curl into something far more feral, far more animal than the scorpion in front of me realises.

Giving him a name... learning his name threatens a sour taste in my mouth.

Because monsters don't have names.

They just are.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

[......]

"Are you going back in?" JB asks, running a critical eye as he stares back through the one-way mirror, looking at the scorpion who's definitely more rattled than when he'd first appeared.

My pheromones have calmed.

No longer crackling and burning around the edges.

But each inhale and exhale is sharp. Reminds me of how easily my control seemed to fade, how readily it all disintegrated for (Y/N).

"If I could offer a suggestion... let him stay for a few hours." Ji Sung suggests, the slow sway of his tail dangerous, the gleam in his eyes hungering.

Looking closer to lion than human at the moment.

Some part of me relishes in the primal kindred spirit. In the way he seems to be hungering for it too. Though not one particle of his scent betrays that.

"He hasn't broken in those weeks being locked up though." JB muses.

But Ji Sung's eyes glitter.

"Hasn't he? Sometimes you don't see the small chips and cracks until one solid knock sends it all crumbling down."

My eyes flit with curiosity.

See Joon's lips curl into a primally satisfied smile.

"He's cold. And tired. It's too dry."

"Seoul's air quality and weather isn't going to change his willingness to answer." JB begins but Ji Sung's tail curls, a sharp swat as it cuts at air.

A narrowed feline slit of eyes as he focuses past the one way mirror to the inside of the interrogation room.

A quiet derisive sound. Laughter.

And fangs glinting as they flash.

Proud and approving.

"Genius. Working his own biology against him Jimin?"

"They did their research. I've done mine."

Because the game begins before he steps foot out his cell. It begins before his walk to the interrogation room.

The game began the moment the handcuffs were first snapped around his wrists.

"Scorpions as a hybrid species don't do particularly well in dry cold winters. Shame there's a draught. Shame that his blankets aren't the same quality. Shame the cell slipped up in standards."

"We're not housing a guest, we're caging a criminal." Joon's voice is sharp with anger and eyes alight with approval.

Because to play the game... you needed to dirty your hands if you wanted to win.

And even this, small, small micro-steps... all of them would accumulate.

I know that.

Joon knows that.

Ji Sung's picked up on it.

And JB's eyes gleam as he puts the pieces together.

Words slow.

"You kept putting off the interrogation on purpose."

"Let him stew for a few hours. A cold room will work up a sweat."

[......]

"I've been in here hours." Words grit and tight. Accompanied with the tight press of his shoulders hunched inwards, defensive but also to warm himself up.

"Oh... must've lost track of time. You're not a priority to book. The courts have more important things to do than process a near-free to hire petty criminal."

Tightened jaw.

Bothers you does it?

"I—"

"Weren't of value. Maybe that's why the other scorpion wanted to cut a deal and walk with a reduced sentence."

"He did what?" anger cracking his words, tinging them with disbelief, eyes widening. His tail curls and uncurls, hitting against the side of the chair, the sound akin to a clicking.

"The charges for the constant drugging and poisoning of a child kidnapped hybrid is pretty severe didn't you know that when you first decided to sink your pincers into her?"

He blanches.

"It wasn't... it wasn't my idea!" blabbering without realising.

The cracks grow, you're right Ji Sung.

"We have a statement that says otherwise. You know that Hybrid Laws allow for a more biological form of justice right? Somehow I think they'll skip over a death penalty for something much more painful if it's his words over yours. And our statements compiled with the hybrid centre. You're looking at a very, very painful slow end Sang-min..."

"It wasn't my idea! It was his!" eyes glittering with panic, with fury, the subtle, slight scent of pheromones rocketing up, spiralling with his fear.

But you need his confession too. You need as much intel as you can pull out of him. The moment he's sentenced he's good as done, he won't share more than he's been condemned for.

I don't need to yank him close to know his skin's cold, that his body's not acclimated to the room. That combining the discomforts built in over weeks and pushing him into a corner is exactly when scorpions are primed to attack. To lash out.

"What was his idea?"

His lips clamp shut just before he speaks, as if realising the weight of the words that could spill out.

"Don't want to say? Are you really going down alone for the torture of a child hybrid? How... noble of you." scathing and biting as I push my chair back.

"Even if he's willing to confess, don't take it straight away Jimin. We need him to admit to more than just the crimes you've got him held for. It might help with the case."

"And in your professional opinion it'll work?" Namjoon interjects, expression assessing as he looks at the files spread out between the table that stretches out the space between the three of us.

"You see it all the time in court. Sometimes bad people get put away for crimes, but no one knows how much worse they've done. Then they get parole, or bail, or a reduced sentence. We can't have that for these people."

"So if he confesses..."

"Don't take it as his official confession. Let him confess to more."

"And he will?" I question sceptically.

"Scorpions lash out when they're cornered... all you need to do... is remind him in that interrogation room, in court, on the other end of the sentence he's alone."

There's something so assured, so confident that I believe him straight away, I trust the words he says. And the sharp edge to his words and stare do little to scare, but everything to bolster.

"You're a real threat Ji Sung." The words a praise.

It makes his ears flicker, the curl of his tail satisfied.

"Good thing they're on my bad side."

"Wait! It wasn't my idea, it was Seung Hee's—"

The door's tugged open, body not turning towards the frantic admission that spills from his tongue.

Knowing that his words are already going to be caught on the cameras and I don't need to be there for them.

Words cut off abruptly by the door shutting behind me.

Spine tightly coiled.

Almost... almost... get to him more and he'll give us a clue even if he doesn't realise.

Wait... wait it out.

But patience isn't my strong suit.

And neither is control.

[......]

"You're going in too?" I ask with surprise, lips curling up at the 6" wolf behind me, his towering imposition receding as he shoots me a dimpled smile, nodding, hand at the low of my back.

"I'm not taking over your interrogation..."

"Going to be the big intimidating bulk?"

His dimples deepen.

Soften the tautness in my limbs. Loosens it slightly.

"I want a front row seat."

"The mirror does give you a front row seat..."

"I want a front row seat when you crack him. I want to witness it in the room. My wolf needs it."

"Just say you find it attractive." Lips twitching, watching his gaze flit briefly.

Voice low and smile lazy.

"I do."

[.......]

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Because it takes every cell in my body to hold back from lunging across to use those same handcuffs around the scorpion's wrists and tightening the metal chain around his throat. To use it to suffocate him. To wipe the final gleam of amusement clean off his face. To wipe it all off.

There's no fight now.

Not in the way there'd been when they were caught, thrashing and snarling against restraints, tails swatting harshly until an anti-venom drug had been administered, so that they wouldn't be a threat. Wouldn't sting anyone else.

There's no fight now. Not in this instant.

But something about the way he looks at me. Something resigned in his fate.

But something cruel and amused as he stares back at me.

"You think locking me away does something?" voice cracking with hysteria.

The scent of dew thickens, the forest-scent turning heavy, weighted... teetering on the precipice of how the air smells right before a storm. That's how sharp and volatile and strong Joon's scent becomes when a derisive well of laughter spills out. Uncontained. Unhinged.

"You're pathetic if arresting me is a breakthrough. Think you're so smart don't you pup—but do you have any idea what you and that mutt have walked into, do you even realise—"

He takes another breath.

Mocking and goading.

"Do you realise that keeping her under constant surveillance does nothing if you can't see the threat? Have you figured that keeping her holed away at the centre might just backfire?"

The snarled growl that shatters the air, that stuns... forces the drawled ringing coldness into silence, a sharp cry before a hard slam. Between the space to cross from the corner to the room to have a hand grip the back of the scorpion's head to slam into the table before wrenching him up, the scent of blood filling the space.

Bloodied nose, bloodied lips.

Pained tears.

Metal and salt.

Bloodied saliva spat out, eyes unfocused slightly.

The crowding press of a 6" wolf of pure animal instinct at that moment...

"I will fucking rip your tail apart, bit by bit, I'll force your own venom down your throat, I'll leave you a broken shell driven mad by your own poison and then I'll let the world decide what to do with you afterwards if you don't shut up." The words growled low, dripping with snarls, eyes full of blazing fire, muscles so tightly coiled it looks he's moments away from surrendering to everything his instincts are pushing him to.

It's restraint as he shoves his head back, the angle wrenching it back harshly, breaths laboured.

Cowed into defeat.

Posture screaming with terror.

Voice low and shuddered.

The room was kept cold to get under his skin.

"It's so easy to get under your skin... you don't realise they just had to shed their own."

But it's my blood that runs cold.

----------------------------

"Joon... pup—" a rippled growl that silences the words on (Y/N)'s lips, eyes widening with surprise as she takes in the wolf nudging at her insistently.

"What's wrong Joonie?" voice dropping soft, hand drifting to stiffly pinned back ears, trying to coax them to relax, but his fur bristles. Stands on edge. Haywire.

Too keyed up.

Another growl. Softer. But the sound's still enough to make her eyes flit from the wolf half-curled around her from behind to me.

Joon had needed to shift the second he'd gotten home.

I can't shift. Something far too restless to even consider shifting.

Had to be bigger to protect (Y/N). Besides one of us had to guard unshifted.

"...alpha?" voice soft.

A softer growled rumble. Approving.

That's what he'd needed to hear.

Not pup.

Definitely not after today.

"What's wrong my alpha?" the sharp edges of his scent soften.

Nudging at the back of her legs to stir her into moving, shepherding her away from the hallways, brain wired with the single-minded need to protect and herd her away from anything open-spaced. Needed a closed space to herd her towards.

He's bypassing the hallway when a figure steps out.

And fangs grip at the edge of loose pants, tugging him alongside with a rumble, nudging until Kook's body is being nudged into (Y/N)'s side, a wolf herding both of them, both preys, down towards our room.

That sharpness ebbs away further when the entire space, swamped with our scents, with our pheromones, immediately encompass (Y/N) and Kook into them.

"Wolfie hyungie what's gotten into you?" fingers skimming between his ears and down the back of his head, sinking lightly into dark brown fur.

A firmer nudge-nudge-nudge until they're past the threshold of the room and herded insistently towards the bed until Kook's clambering on, acquiescing easily before tugging (Y/N) alongside. A fluid jump before Joon clambers forward, paws sinking into the mattress as he moves forward with each purposeful step.

"Bit of a herding instinct at the moment."

"Want to keep us close alpha?" (Y/N) murmurs, fingers brushing across fur, rubbing gently at the bridge of his nose when he tilts his head forward with a plaintive rumble.

Nose nudging at her hand, nuzzling into it, rubbing his cheek into her hand to liberally scent her before ducking his head close to snuffle at both of them.

Scenting them both thoroughly until the scent of forest dew clings to their skin and clothes, cold nose making them squirm before fangs nip at skin to still them. He can't reach their napes but it's an attempt to settle the squirming pups he's crowding close to, dark eyes skimming over them both with an intensity I know the feeling of all too well.

"He's a little keyed up on instinct at the moment. But Namjoon just wants to keep his pack safe isn't that right?" easing closer towards the bed, giving both time and warning so he knows I'm approaching the bed, body ducking closer to the two of them as his tail thumps against the bed. Satisfied at sprawling over the two of them to both blanket them and wipe away any idea or prospect of moving any time soon.

I can feel the rumbles under my skin, the restlessness under my own somehow settling because I can sense that right now Joon needs to be reassured more.

The words struck both of us but as pack alpha, as an apex predator... it was hitting harder.

My eyes flit to the way he paws at Kookie to get him to press closer to (Y/N) too, to get his broader frame to act as a protective, cradling shield so that she's doubly covered.

Confusion flitting across her features even as she draws Joon closer, curling up against Kookie—a biological satisfaction unwinding the tension in my spine the more the scent of forest dew clings to her skin.

But something understanding and knowing settling in doe eyes before she coaxes Joon closer, a heavier blanketed weight settling to cover both of them.

Rumbles softening the more their scents entangle with his.

Soft thumps against the bed.

"Got space for one more or do you want to keep them to yourself?" I ask lightly.

Head rising abruptly, fanged hold at my top until I'm being insistently tugged closer, reproachful, chiding pup—alpha eyes looking at me as if in disbelief and in question as to why he'd ever choose to send me away, scent warming at the sight. And then the cold nudge of his nose nudging me closer to, the scrape of fangs and a groomy lick to the side of my hand before he paws at me to curl close to. Content to let me draw blankets over the small pup-pile he's created, resettling to be sprawled across as much of us as he can, stretched out, ears perked and eyes attentive.

Quiet nuzzles and thorough scents, nose dragging across skin, paw sprawled to keep them from moving even though they're eager to draw Joon closer, cheeks rubbing indulgently against his own furry ones. Something so sweetly bossy about the way he lets them before nudging his cheek to theirs in turn to show how thorough the scenting should be, flopping more heavily.

"Lights on or off?"

Interrogation had been sharp-bright lights and cold, cold.

A quiet whine.

The lights are switched off.

Bodies pressing closer, chasing and stealing and melding with each other's warmth.

This... this is enough. To chase away the day.

This is more than enough.

And for all that (Y/N) and Kook's scents are a lull, a balm after a day where my skin has felt like a livewire, crackling and buzzing with an oversensitive alertness... it's not enough to draw me into a dreamless sleep, laced only with anise and cotton.

And every time I stir, Joon's eyes are just as awake, just as aware and watchful.

Because he can't sleep either.

Silent solace in the shared quiet of knowing that both of us are protecting them.

That both of us will see it through. Sooner than later.

------------------------------

"I understand it's essential to your case but until I've completed the rest of her psych eval in private I can't let you in. I can't let you interrogate her."

"We understand doc but she's essential to our case. Do you know when you'll be done with her evals?"

"Assuming hopefully their evals come back clear you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. If... and this tends to happen with sexual trauma victims particularly in hybrid cases... they're not particularly inclined towards either at times. Sometimes a predator's DNA could set them off but sometimes its stronger scent is what's needed. Sometimes it's a complete absence of any reaction."

"For someone whose been sexually abused for much longer and there's been attempted conditioning?" thinking of the snake hybrid still at the centre, stuck on the impassioned belief, eyes sharp with a clarity that was haunting to see... that he enjoyed it, he deserved it. As if it was some sort of trophy to wear.

"I'd say there'd be a blankness. An aversion to anyone but the abuser. Because if it's conditioning, it's become dependent on that one person. They should be fine for treatment to come from either predator or prey. That doesn't calculate into it because in their head it's just their connection with their abuser. Not with a stranger."

"What's wrong?" pace hasting as I move forward quicker. Hurrying down the corridor towards where Ji Soo stands outside the private room, expression tight and withdrawn, standing in front of the threshold of the room but not stepping in.

A quick glance to the door already reveals who I know the room belongs too.

"I think he got triggered by a scent off me."

My nose twitches, trying to catch a specific scent off him that might've been the trigger, trying to catch onto faint pheromones, trying to distinguish what it might've been about him that would've set off the serpent hybrid.

But the diffusers in the hallway makes it hard to detect. It makes it near impossible.

Surely his senses weren't that haywire and keyed up still... surely not...

"Couldn't it have been something else to set him off? Did you come in with anyone?"

"The doctors but he's used to them... it can't have been that." he says firmly, brows furrowed as he looks into the room, trying to gauge what's happened. Staring at the inside of the room as if he's trying to solve a puzzle but only becoming increasingly conflicted by it.

"I think he's too volatile to keep at the centre." He murmurs quietly.

"What?" alarm piques my voice slightly, head turning to look at Ji Soo, see the way he shakes his head slightly, almost imperceptible.

Stepping aside and out of earshot.

I get a brief glimpse of the doctors trying to calm him, because he's not thrashing or fighting but his body is taut with a tension and his eyes are...

"Why does he look like that?" I murmur, the intensity of venom and hate in his stare drowning out any humanity in them.

He looks like the venom of his own biology is burning through his human DNA.

He looks... more animal than human entirely.

"He's going to be given an extensive psych eval because his physicals are fine. But... we can't keep someone who could be a threat to other hybrids. We might have to relocate him to a different private facility."

His words are weighted. Despaired. But there's a finality to them.

"But you're not head of charge for the centre so whose call will it be?"

"Mainly mine. He's too close to the children centre. He needs help but he's also a risk."

"So if his eval doesn't identify him as safe enough..."

"Then we have to look to move him."

"The few times I've seen him at the centre there are a few triggers we haven't been able to identify. We think it's a particular scent that triggers the instinct to hurt but there's no-one he's at risk around. He's the risk. Would there be a reason for that?"

The woman's face furrows.

"That doesn't sound like a deeply rooted instinct as much as it is an active leaning into his DNA allowing him to be a threat."

"So it's an active choice?"

"There might be something pushing him to think it is the right choice to make." The psychologist nods.

The words turn in my head even as I step back, watching her move towards the room.

So it wasn't he was getting triggered by anyone in specifics, though his aversion for a female carer, nurse or doctor was understood... it meant something else was triggering him, something was setting off the fight instinct.

"It's a waiting game. It depends on the results." I announce as I step back into the meeting room, watching as Joon's and Amina's heads turn, the two of them holed away into a small private meeting room. The darkness of the room only illuminating the screen further, a mass of data and information and cases stretched out vastly.

"Her missing case is a lot more recent than some of the others so hopefully..." Joon trails off.

A grim flitting understanding searing in Amina's eyes.

So hopefully she won't have suffered as much.

So hopefully we've gotten her out before it's too late.

Before her life and future have been twisted and damaged too far.

"Because she went missing around the same time as her friend do you think we'll find her in the red district too?"

"Haven't heard anything yet but I've circulated her info and shown her photo to my contacts." Stepping closer towards the screen, begging my eyes to find the slightest discrepancy to go on. To find something...anything we might've missed... that we could go on.

"Something will turn up." Amina says with a certainty.

"Will it?" a weary hand dragged down over his face as Joon slumps back in his seat, eyes slightly tired, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes.

"It will!"

"It feels like circles we're running in. Like we're some sort of fools for their entertainment."

"We need more officers. We don't have enough manpower to do everything." Amina surmises.

My eyes flit to her.

She gives a weary shrug.

"It's been just the two of you for so long, for the majority of the case... I've just joined. And you have—"

"JB and Jinyoung."

"Four active officers. It's not enough to take down a trafficking ring that pans over Seoul and out of the city. We need more officers because we're bringing down a force that's much bigger than us."

"But with the mole it's who can we trust?"

"Easy. Trust your instincts. Trust the officers you trust to do their job and duty. If you have the slightest doubt—they don't get bought into it."

"More people from the Violent Crimes Unit?"

"Some more in Hybrid laws and specialists who handle missing people reports and investigations."

We needed to expand our force.

I knew that.

It was the only thing that made sense.

Because it was optimistic but unrealistic to assume that at most five of us would be sufficient enough to bring down a ring that spanned wider than any of us had thought before we first came onto the case. Because we needed the force and strength, the brain power and manpower in numbers to become an equally combatting force. Because there wasn't enough time in the days nor enough people to do all the hours of surveillance, monitoring, interrogating and investigating we needed to be doing. More people means more ground being covered. More people means the work's divided, and it becomes easier to delegate and monitor and carry out ourselves too.

But trusting wasn't something that came easy or readily anymore.

Not when one mole in the station alone was more than enough to amp up distrust and suspicions, was enough to make me think twice, thrice then a dozen more times before choosing to delegate a small task that linked to the case.

"What about Surveillance?" Amina asks.

"If it's head of surveillance he'll be obligated to report major findings with the station's commander..."

"But won't that help us?" she interjects, ears flickering slightly, eyes skimming between the two of us, trying to gauge the slight brittleness, that hesitance that bleeds into our scents. Gives us away.

"You're a Lieutenant Amina and you weren't safe... we don't know who the mole at the station is but it makes sense for it to be someone higher up because they have more power and ability to hide up something like this." I begin.

"They'd have the power to make missing reports conveniently vanish." Joon adds with a hardness to his voice, a brittle protectiveness and anger at the fact that Amina's report had gone missing too, that it'd never been filed or processed.

"I have a few officers I could vouch for at my old station though. If you could reach out and contact them with the reasoning that the case expands wider than Seoul."

"How certainly can you vouch for them? That they would've kept looking for you?"

"They're my people, my officers. I'd trust the handpicked ones with my life. And I realise bringing them into this is testing exactly that."

-------------------------

My tail drapes unceremoniously across (Y/N)'s lap, settling over her thighs before my hand grabs hers and guides it to my tail, head settling against her shoulder. Feeling the way her fingers skim light and gently across my tail, the way her head turns, lips brushing a soft peck to each flickering ear.

"Hi Mimi."

"Hi." Mumbled quietly, feel the soft peck she brushes to my hair.

"Long day?"

"Long day." I echo.

The heaviness behind my eyes, the faint throb of a headache that pulses behind shut eyes, sparks of colour that makes my head ache slowly...slowly settling, the constant gogogogogo of the day coming to settle at the soft brush of a hand gently carding through my hair, nails skimming across my scalp, leaving tingles in their wake. Sparks of warmth that ebb downwards, makes my nape droop, head sagging further against (Y/N)'s shoulder.

Tail swishing lethargically at the soft touches, the tingles skimming down my spine, body curling further against (Y/N)'s side, arms wrapping around her, shifting slightly to burrow against her, nose against her gland.

Nuzzling into the soft sensitive tissue, the slightly raised gland, tilting closer towards the soft pulses of anise that each brush of my nose, each nudged quiet motion draws out, until my ears are folding with each gentle scritch of her nails against my scalp, rubbing against the back of my ears, breathing in her scent.

My hand tugs hers away from my hair, mind beginning to feel a bit floaty, drawing her hand down to my lips, head turning to nuzzle at the inside of her wrist, scent marking the small gland, lips pressing slow pecks to skin, lingering longer and longer. Pecks turning open mouthed, kisses slow and unrushed against her skin, mouthing at the sensitive expanse of her wrist. Feeling the faintest tremor under the touch. Fangs scraping, raking gently against skin, skimming lower to press a lingering kiss.

Then guiding her hand to my tail instead.

A fondness in her voice as she speaks, a lilting cadence that makes my skin spark with warmth.

"Feeling soft and snuggly pup?"

I hum, cheek pressed against her shoulder.

Lazy blinks as I look at her hand brush slowly over my tail. Featherlight touches that turn more purposeful, that drag across my tail to tip, smoothening over it.

"How was work? Baby bear and meerkat? How's Tae? Causing chaos? Hobi hyung's end of placement?" I mumble, eyes tracing the movement of her hand petting at my tail, the tip swishing contentedly, quiet chirp building in the back of my throat.

"So many questions." Fingers stilling briefly in my fur before continuing their petting motions, hand dragging slowly over fur, feeling tingles at the base of my tail, feeling that warmth fan out across my spine, makes the pleasant fog of anise, of her pheromones cloud my senses. Sinking willingly into it.

Ears flickering at her voice.

"Ji Ah came out of her room today!" pride and giddiness sparking (Y/N)'s voice, my eyes blinking open slightly more awake, head tilting to peer up at her. Seeing the way her eyes spark with triumph and elation, full of joy.

My ears perk up.

"Oh?"

"She came out with me, stayed close to her room but she came outside! If Min Junie had had his way then he'd have dragged her right to the gardens or to make nests with the other kids."

My lips curl up, scent pooling sweeter in response to the giddiness of her own, mint entangling with anise, pheromones reacting immediately to her own.

"Min Junie's a cub that knows where life is best spent." Tae's voice filters through, proud and chuffy, laced with the deep rumble of happiness, hearing the quiet padpad of his steps as he moves closer, head ducking to press a series of nips across my cheek and jaw, nuzzling in greeting.

"Where's my lapful of floofy puppy?"

"I'm sure Joonie will gladly indulge you."

"You're (Y/N)'s puppy today?"

"She's my pup." Arms tightening around her in automatic response, at the prospect of having to let her go, of having to let even a fraction of distance wedge between the press of my body curled into her.

A brief, gentle tug to my ear before fingers scratch gently to almost soothe the offending sound beginning to make its way past my throat.

Swallowed down as it melts instead, petering off into a soft chirp.

Blinking at him from underneath lidded, slitted eyes.

"My foxy puppy doesn't feel like sharing—trying to douse me in your mint?" hand continuing its repetitive grooming, petting motions of carding fingers through the fur of my tail, the nerves at the base of my spine tingling in response.

An affirmative chirp rumbling in the back of my throat, a faint nipped kiss pressed to my jaw before the berry scent draws away, the quiet padpadpad of steps falling away, eyes fluttering shut heavily with each motion of (Y/N)'s hand.

And a subconscious awareness that I feel her murmur quieter, as if the words aren't even entirely meant to be heard, softly whispered as if confiding a secret to contented scents.

"Rest pup. My turn."

HOBI POV:

"Let hyung drop you off today."

"Just like good old days? I should've known there was something possessive about a rut partner dropping me off to class—not so much a scent claim as it was staking what's yours was it Jin?" I tease, moving to swipe a jacket from his closet, the open back allowing for his hand to brush down my spine, to feel the heat of his palm where his hand comes to rest low, just above the base of my tail. Close enough that when his hand splays the slightest bit, the tip of his pinkie finger skims over the base of my nail, a sweeping brief touch that makes my tail curl and swish side to side, a jolt where the tip of his nail presses slightly.

"Something about dropping off my kitten, my mate to uni makes me feel things." Wings flapping as I tilt to face him.

My eyes gleaming.

"Doesn't make you feel old?"

"You brat—" hand gripping at my waist tightly, eyes flashing with a mix of displeasure and huffed retort.

My laugh rings out, ears twirling with delight at the bruising hard press of lips against my own, crackling incredulity laced into the quick sharp press of his mouth to mine, fingers curled tight around my nape, threading into my hair to angle my head back just so.

"Makes you more possessive does it? When you're not there to drop by after lessons anymore~" I lilt, fangs scraping against his bottom lip before sinking in to tug, nipping at the sensitive flesh.

"Not quite—I know you're mine... some new uni student doesn't even get a chance to get close to that." a different headiness in the firm, confidence assuredness in his voice. There's nothing clouded or fogged with biological pheromones, no possessiveness that stems from a DNA-engrained need or instinct—Jin's possessiveness is all his own. And the reminder of it makes my spine arch slightly under the press of his hand, my stomach tighten and twist into knots just by sight alone of dark eyes boring holes into me with their intensity.

"So it's being my arm candy?"

"Kit we both know I'm not candy I'm a meal, now let's go. You'll get late."

Hand steering me out the room, flitting away to smoothen out the shoulders of the jacket, hands fluttering to make small tweaks as he straightens out the lapels, the edges of it. Lips curling up into a wide smile when I move to open his car door for him, a flourished move that makes his laugh well up, amused and fond, wings fluttering before they tuck against his back before he sits down.

"This feels different. And same. And different." I muse, fingers fiddling with the volume dial, twisting it so that the music filtering through is quieter.

"We went from getting the bus together to driving together." A loose shrug but there's a curled gentle smile, content and happy; the feelings visible on hyung's face as he drives, the occasional flutter to his feathers when it's a song he likes comes on, or when my hand reaches out, brushing across his arm. Gripped tightly and relocated back to my lap when I teasingly try reach out to rest my hand across his.

"You'll be just on time—but not if you're trying to start something in my car."

"Won't be the first time we'd have been late. Or the first time we'd have gotten upto something in a car—wasn't as nice as this one is though." Playfulness bleeding into my voice, a harsher fluttered, muted flap of his wings, the slight tightness to his jaw as he stares ahead, hand curling just fractionally tighter at the wheel.

"Woke up feeling like a bratty kitten?" voice low, laced with a firm roughness that just makes my skin tingle. Ears stiffly perked and aware of the cadence of his voice, of the way he sounds—tone both amused and drawling and deceptively light around the edges.

"Can't I appreciate the fact that the swan I was so possessive over during uni is mine now?"

"You're still in uni." Hyung points out

"You're mine." I point out.

"Touche kitty."

I grin back.

And when I lean over the console to kiss him before slipping out the car, it's bitten kisses that make my lips feel bruised—tingling with a claim he sinks into the flesh. Fingers angling my mouth to his, a lazy possessiveness in the way he takes his time in lathing over the stinging bite with the sweeping motion of his tongue. Before it thrusts and curls into the surrendering heat of my mouth.

Wings fluttering with preening satisfaction, thumbing at my bottom lip—that feels so hypersensitive to the pressure of his thumb dragging across, tongue and fangs against skin.

"Now go and have a good day kit."

Enjoying the way my scent's dropped, turned headier, fingers scrabbling for a mild subduer to hide the sweetening tinge of arousal that bleeds into my pheromones, wings rustling as he looks at me.

Looking just as composed save for full lips that look impossibly fuller, swollen with the pressure of my mouth. Nothing rumpled or ruined about his scent or expression, a slight uneven breath and his hand adjusting to the emptiness by refurling around the wheel. The tightened grip the only inclination.

Damn you and your swan genes.

"Looks like felines aren't the only ones that like leaving a claim." I murmur, hand reaching for the door handle, watching his eyes glimmer with satisfaction, with a flash of visceral delight.

Lips curling up into a lazy breathless smile that makes my heart twist with the same flurry that my ears do.

"Gotta let everyone know I've already taken a taste of the pretty caramel. And I'm not going to share it."

And even though my eyes roll at him, shaking my head at the unrepentant confident claim in his words, it makes my skin warm. The pulse of attraction and love between us an ever-increasing tether that winds and snares and draws me deeper—deeper—deeper...

"Flirt."

"What else is a swan to do? If not charm what's his?"

-------------------------

"We're learning about the biological markings and traces we can find as a result of heightened emotional states in hybrids. There's always a greater susceptibility to be affected physically if our emotional self-regulation isn't happening to the same degree of control." The lecturer begins, lecture commencing the moment the slide changes, eyes sweeping over the vastness of the hall. A sharp-eyed woman, an ex-Chief of Police. Already there's a buzz of interest accumulating. Her credentials and the titular slide already making gazes hone in with interest. A different focus for this lecture.

"Right now, in a university environment, in a hybrid-specialist degree there are a significant amount of hybrids in the room. I can already tell based on seatings and placements and the concentrated areas of scents where I'd be likely to find a physical trace left behind. Something tangible, something that's physical proof..."

My ears flicker to a sharper attention, fingers briefly pausing in writing to just look at the professor, feel the way the air noticeably swells with attention and then how it seeps into scents. A soft laugh rings out as the professor nods. Amused by the brief surprise that pulses through the lecture hall.

"I guess by the end of the lecture I'll be able to tell where the students were listening and focused and which ones I bored or confused into a daze."

Unconsciously my body straightens up the slightest, the loose slope of my spine adjusting slightly. Lips quirking when I realise I've adjusted my posture.

Lecture opening out with definitions of what exactly distinguishes biological tells and the categories they can be differentiated into.

Pheromonal; scents and sweat. Glands working in production to emotional responses and triggers.

Physical; fingerprints and claw marks and unusual and rare to certain species types– physical markings that are only traceable and detected by radiation. UV radiation.

My eyes flit back to the board after writing, the words prominent on the screen.

"Hands up if you didn't even consider the possibility of UV radiation for certain hybrid species."

My hand goes up without hesitance. The cogs in my mind churning, turning at a frantic pace that I can almost hear, that make my ears flicker and twist at the tips.

Physical markers that weren't even visible.

Why had that been something so easy to overlook? Forget about?

I see a few other students straighten in my peripheral, see the few human students exchange curious, uncertain glances– the motion caught by the professor.

"Even humans leave their own pheromonal and physical traces... the scent concentration is significantly weaker they may well be chameleons with how hard it is to detect and how readily it dissolves without some sort of scent enhancer or drug to boost it."

My pen moves over paper– drug boosters for scents. Though rare, some hybrids have a weaker pheromonal concentration... like Jin did. Because his biology wasn't wired for the survivor instincts that relied on scent-tracking.

Or a personalised scent.

Vanilla.

Jin hadn't always smelt of vanilla.

But now I can't imagine him without it, the signature gentle-sweetness of the scent both light and yet entirely captivating. The floaty pulse of sweetness quite literally light, subtle in its scent yet it fits Jin.

My pen stops.

When had he chosen vanilla?

Distinctly remembering clearly that he had gone through a phase during uni experimenting with different scents, with subtle boosters or samples but had never personally settled on one he'd liked.

When had that happened?

Curiosity flitting through my mind as it tries to mentally catalogue the timeline of our time together at uni– he hadn't smelt of vanilla when we'd first met, nor had it been there during our time as rut-partners, hadn't been there during that teetering edge into something more and not after that when–

"...the traces you can find can sometimes be more visible when someone's shifted into their animal form. For example, paws are prominent markers of sweat, the skin tissue have the most scent glands in the paws so when they're in a state of heightened fear or adrenaline or even arousal then their paws are secreting it without realising."

My ears flicker and twirl. Sweeping a gaze over my hands, fingers reflexively stretching wide and curling.

A hand's raised somewhere in the hall.

"What if those same emotional states are happening unshifted? Do our hands leave traces?"

"Not as prominently which is where your scent glands– mainly the ones located at the neck and wrists are for all hybrids. There's different levels of traces which can make it harder to track suspects based on markings because they're committed often unshifted."

My ears swivel, sharpen with interest as my body leans forward, rapt attention as the professor begins to draw implications in legal work to the points he's making.

Ears stiffly perked, twitching with every click of the slide. A more focused, honed in attention to the lecture, eyes narrowed in as if staring hard enough will somehow quickly and instantaneously reveal the rest of the professor's course material within that instant.

I was sure Joon and Jimin had investigated each crime scene thoroughly, but had they considered searching for human traces? Of faint pheromonal trails left behind by non-hybrids in a trafficking case?

And I knew evidence now pointed to multiple hybrids involved in the inner ring of it all but wasn't it possible that Min-Junie and Ji Ah hadn't detected the human scents because their own senses weren't yet developed to the fullest level?

What if one of the main perpetrators had been human? Or someone connected to them?

"....any questions?"

My hand darts up.

"How long do traces last Professor? Ones that police officers can detect with UV light or other sources?" my voice carrying forward.

A flash of intrigue in her eyes as she nods, flicking back to the slide for the practical applications to theory.

"Are you interested in police work?"

"I am." my body half-tilted with that thrumming urge, that need to know.

Her eyes brighten, smile curving upwards. With self-pride.

"I can tell there's traces of you left behind– your scent's come from an area that's remained particularly focused." an approving praise before she considers the question.

"Well to answer it simply, Locard states "it's impossible for a criminal to act with the intensity that a crime requires without leaving traces of his presence". Simply... every criminal leaves their trace no matter how careful they'll have been. But it doesn't just mean they have to have left evidence behind, it also means items at the scene could've been transferred to them."

"I don't quite understand Professor." I hedge, ears flickering with slight confusion– following along but not entirely so.

"We always naturally assume that if there's evidence to be found it must be at the scene of the crime. We forget that sometimes the crime scene carries with the criminal. It might be a certain sediment stuck to their shoe, it might be a certain shape to the tool they've used... there's always physical evidence left behind that can be easily overlooked."

"And how does this tie to the use of UV light as a way of detecting?" another student interjects, a few rows ahead of me. Their eyes are bright with interest.

"You can use UV lighting and fluorescence to detect any traces left behind that might've been erased and faint markings remain. No matter how meticulous a criminal is, they are in fact a living, breathing person– and luminescence products can pick up on physiological traces. Sweat, saliva, semen..."

The hybrids at the barn were rescued from sex trafficking– sex trafficking... semen.

Semen and blood.

My mind jolts.

Blood traces left behind from resisting– blood of the attackers... blood from fighting back–

The serpent.

A whir of thoughts that stream on an endless loop in my mind. Detracting me from focusing on the rest of the questions, though my ears flicker to attention– half-taking it in, questions now deviating from the topic I'd started.

After the Q&A, my feet rush to hurry down the steps towards the guest lecturer, slipping forward in front of her, breaths and words rushing out of me.

Her eyes brighten with interest and recognition.

"You're an eager one." approving, a tinge of amusement as the other students file out.

"I just– is it possible if there's an email or contact number you can be reached on? There's some things I'd like to confirm and the lesson's over–"

"Of course."

"I didn't realise how much goes on in investigating." I marvel.

"A sharp mind like yours isn't something that's undervalued in the field." she remarks.

I take her card that she proffers.

"I'm thinking of applying in a different field." I admit.

"A sharp mind doesn't hurt wherever you end up working– especially if you're specialising in hybrid studies with a focus on children." an easy shrug.

"How–"

"Your folder." head tilting towards the end of my backpack, where it sticks out slightly. My head twists to follow the movement, only half of its label visible.

But I hadn't felt her eyes even drift from my face, hadn't seen them skim away for the briefest of moments.

Wow.

"Why'd you retire if your mind's still so sharp?" then flush at how blunt it sounds, fangs biting my tongue in reproach.

"Change of pace. Getting to still enjoy assisting and working with younger minds." unfazed by it. Amusement sharpening her eyes.

"And if you don't mind me asking– how are you able to detect scents if you're... human?"

A laugh rings out.

Full-bodied and entertained.

"Just because you can't see what hybrid species I am, doesn't mean that I'm simply not. Enjoy guessing~" stepping away with a wide smile, hands gathering her materials as she moves to leave.

I realise as she's left that my nose twitches, trying to catch the scent on her, trying to place a pheromonal signature to her presence, somehow almost lost and diluted in the other scents that the lecture hall's full of.

The lingering remnants of a full hall.

The fog that'll be diffused out automatically by the ventilation.

What species was she?

Subtle, untraceable scent and markings not visible to the eye–

Her words feel like a challenge.

A test of skill.

The card in my hand feels like a hidden play.

One that I can pass onto Joon and Jimin.

-----------------------------

"Good day in class?"

"Brilliant." I enthuse, ears twirling eagerly, swivelling around, eliciting a soft laugh and the gentle press of fingers against my nape, my head tilting back to the touch. Peering up at Yoongi hyung, watching his lips, pretty pink—my own parted in askance without realising. Until pink gummy lips press to my own, a brief flutter of mouths meeting before he gently nips at them.

"Made your ears extra twirly?"

"With focus!" Tae exclaims, tail swishing contentedly, wrapping and unwrapping constantly against his own hand, his fingers brushing over stripey fur, his tail and ears already groomed and soft, thoroughly tended to by a wolf who'd reached out, thick arm banding around said-cub to tug him into him, squeezing scruff hold before his own tail had started to thump-thump-thump against the sofa cushioning at the chuffs his grooming had easily elicited. Half-stretched out across the sofa, admiring the sleek glossiness of his golden-striped fur.

Said wolf is now melting, giddy thumps now that his own ears are being scritched at, fingers at the base of his ears before skimming up, folding and drooped heavily under (Y/N)'s thorough ministrations. Fingers that card through his hair, the same light pressure of nails against his scalp—and I feel the second-hand tingles that makes my nape arch with and—oh.

Yoongi hyung's fingers still in my hair, gummy lips twitching with faint amusement.

"Enjoying yourself kit?"

Instead, my eyes flutter shut at a particularly thorough rub to the base of my ear, thumb rubbing circles into the sensitive tissue, ear twirling before it droops under his touch.

A purr rumbling in my throat.

"What were the lessons about?"

"There was this really cool speaker who's an ex-Chief of Police and she—oh!" eyes flashing wide awake as my head twists to peer at Joon, eyes skimming for wherever Jimin's vanished to.

"Oh?" Joon's eyes brighten with sharpened interest, drooped puppy eyes turning slightly back to wolf.

"There were these points she made about minute traceable evidence, that goes away undetected a lot of the time and I couldn't think what if—"

"There's evidence we might've missed at the crime scenes?" but rather than look chagrined or upset about it, that faint worry dispelling into thin air at the way his eyes sharpen instead... they gleam with the intensity of a wolf now.

"Maybe-- that's not saying you guys weren't thorough, it's saying--"

"That there's evidence we might've collected but overlooked, there might've been traces we didn't make more of." Words slowly drawn out, the understanding dawning in his eyes.

And there's not an instant where my words are because I doubt them or their capabilities in the slightest... it's because they've been working this case for months and whether or not they even realise it—there's a certain train of thought your mind begins to channel, turning over the same clues over and over and over again.

It's because they've worked this case for months, as it's grown and festered—tainted and marred every working moment they have with the sharp crushing realisation that it's bigger... every day the case is bigger than they realise when tendrils and links form a web that's wider and more lethal than they knew of.

Because searching the same clues isn't what they need.

They need to search for new clues in the same crime scenes.

"Where's Jimin-ah?"

"Puppy hyungie?" a chirped greeting, announcing his presence even as it's out of sight, Koo's face crinkled and scrunched with a toothy grin.

"You're not going now." fingers stilling in his hair.

Joon looks slightly chagrined, slightly caught out. Wolf flitting back to pup mode.

"I wasn't—"

"Puppy hyungie can't anyways." Kook announces, immediately siding with (Y/N), scrunching his nose purposely, his ears flopping and brushing against his cheeks as he shakes his head, bending down to scoop him up, a wiggly bundle of thick orange fur, chirping loudly, dark eyes searching-searching-searching... head cocked as he catches the scolded-pup look Joon's sporting.

"Mine aren't you?" a cooed grin, nose nudging at Jiminie's. Black nose booping at a scrunchy one, fangs nipping gently.

Tail swishing eagerly at the hand that brushes down thick fur, though his ears swivel and flicker at the quiet whined sound—plaintive and coaxing as Joon turns wide puppy eyes towards (Y/N).

"But (Y/N)—" he begins.

"Nope. It's late. What are you going to find that one won't be there in the morning. And two you're going to be alert in the morning. Dozing pups won't find anything if they're asleep."

My lips curl, ears twisting underneath the firm, bone-melting scritches at the base of my ears, a quiet groaned appreciation.

The scent of citrus is full of appreciation and pride too—lips gummy as he looks at (Y/N).

"But pup—"

"Don't you pup me right now Joonie... you're the droopy pup. And I think Mimi needs to make sure you get some sleep. Mimi and Koo."

"But the case—"

Jiminie's ears swivel, a twisting motion as he tries to make a dashed dive out of Kookie's arms had it not been for the way they automatically readjust themselves, sharp reflexes catching the slight motion before it even gets to come to fruition.

I wince.

Maybe I should've waited until morning.

"Hob-ah why don't you tell Joon and Jimin-ah what you learnt tomorrow morning... or just don't give them the contact number." Eyes faintly narrowed and voice level and soft.

"Oh hyung—" bigger puppy eyes.

My resolve wavers.

Yoongi hyung's does too.

But hands cup his cheeks and tilt his face back, pressing a smatter of soft kisses across cheeks and downturned lips.

Murmurs quietly to him, his forest-dew scent softening as he quietly acquiesces.

Relents.

Surrenders.

"Tomorrow." (Y/N) murmurs gently, soothing and placating, fingers tracing the side of his face, quieter comfort in the way she nudges her nose to his.

A rumbly sigh—warring with the urge to snap into action but also scent and body drooping with the lull of her own.

"New day. Brand new set of eyes. Fresher mind."

Squirmy wriggles. Louder chirps, fangs nipping at Koo's cheek, jaw and throat, eyes bright and alert—different from a playfulness yet not lost entirely from his squirming nibble-nips to our prey mate.

Both trying to distract him long enough to somehow scamper away and dash but also quite content—warring to decide whether the prominent instinct to either play-dash-elicit-chase or to curl up closer and burrow into the cotton-soft scent and arms that keep him scooped against a broad chest.

Tail swishing and brushing softly against his forearm.

"Besides Mimi wants to be scooped." As if that cements it all, the driving force that has Joon sagging back against the cradle of her legs, settling against the sofa, head half-tilted towards her thigh, pillowed there.

A louder chirp, head bonking at Koo's jaw before he burrows close, nose stuffing to his gland with a contented, giddy swish brushing over Kook's hands and forearm as his fur's brushed over.

"Tomorrow." He echoes quietly.

Resolve and determination lingering quietly in the dark glints of his eyes.

Tomorrow.

-------------------------

Padpadpadpadpad. Quiet near noiseless treads have my ears flickering with curiosity to the sound, placing the intentional silence of the steps to someone who isn't Yoongi hyung. Someone who's still awake.

Awake doe eyes peering at me first, ears flickering as her lips pull into a gentle smile.

"Thought you'd be studying... didn't go to bed did you?" tilting her head at me, bundled into pyjamas but a distinctive lack of sleepiness and drowsy scents clinging to me.

Voice soft but carrying.

Ears catching the faint near hushed murmur.

"Nope... the course is about to end, and I've got a few things to sort out and get ready for submitting." Gesturing to the dim glow of the laptop, a checklist that steadily grows as I add more and more tasks to it, papers half-scattered and folders kept meticulously piled and arranged.

"Can't believe it's been months since you started working with me."

With me. Not for me.

"Can't believe it's been months of knowing you... you approved at first sight didn't you~" I tease lightly, arm stretching out for her, her hand slips into mine first, palms brushing and fingers entangling before I tug her closer.

Steps carefully tiptoeing around my work, steering her forward with an impatient tug that tilts her body down, quick to draw her onto my lap, body settling over mine. Head over her shoulder, nipped kiss pressed to the shell of her ear.

"You can always tell which people are cut out for the work. You can tell which interns will stick through in this field and which ones will end up going down different paths."

"Oh yeah? What about little lover boy~ the one crushing on you?" I tease, though there's a flash of possessiveness that flares at the sight of her shaking her head with an amused grin at me, doe eyes glittering with the edge of something knowing and amused by the way my voice is lofty and light but my hand drops to grip her hip and squeeze tight.

"Well first of all he is just a boy." My instincts howl with smug satisfaction.

A boy.

"Second of all—I don't think he'll stick to the field. He did a lot of administrative work and a lot of file-based work—he might end up with an office job somewhere."

I grimace at the mundaneness of it all.

"Kill me if I ever want to settle for something like an office job." Just contemplating the idea of being stuck to the same cyclical routine over and over, hour after hour, day after day—nope.

"Some people like routine."

"Boring~" I lilt.

"You're just happy the interns shifts are finishing too." eyes narrowed with knowing suspicion, a toying grin that she tries to stifle.

My shrug unrepentant.

My scent proud—sweet nutty caramel as my lips press a scraping kiss against her ear, nipping at softness.

"Cos that way he won't be around to be gushing over you when I'm not there near full-time."

"You're coming back after you finish the course and do your training!"

Eyes shining with pride, voice raised with laughter and fondness.

"Because I get to work with you! And because I'll be a trained pro by then."

"Didn't know you had such a noticeable possessive streak."

"Don't think that I don't know how much you like it." grinning against her nape, smile sharp and laced with the scrape of fangs, teeth nipping at her skin, sensitive as her neck arches, baring the expanse of her throat to me.

"Is that why you're awake? Wanted to lure me out cos you didn't come to bed?" a playfulness in her voice even though her attention's detracted, drifting over the open files and the screen, eyes skimming with a curiosity that I know hasn't been put to rest despite putting a pin on it for the officer-pup duo.

Her own curiosity remains. Unrested.

"Not going to admit you're curious kit?"

"...maybe. But I am missing a caramel kit in bed too." she admits.

"I'm just sorting the notes out. Today's lessons were intense. Good-intense."

"What did the Chief of Police teach you?"

"That there's sometimes evidence from the crime scene that carries onto the criminals. That sometimes traces can be found on them instead."

"So cos we automatically think about the crime scene first for evidence—"

"We forget the traces can remain on people especially if they don't realise it themselves."

"So—Ji Ah and Min Junie's clothes they arrived in—"

"Might carry traces of the places they'd been in not where they were found..." dots connecting.

"I think the traces we found on them will be on our perpetrators."

"Joon and Jimin—"

"Will likely be at the centre tomorrow morning."

"Do you think we'll find something?"

Not them. We. Us.

"I think so—I really, really hope so."

"Do you know what that might mean?" (Y/N) asks, eyes glimmering with shining, fierce radiant hope.

She looks beautiful like this, eyes ablaze and renewed with life and purpose and steely determination.

"What?" voice light, breath catching in my throat at the expression her eyes spark with.

"We could find those monsters because they've left their own trail. Because they won't win" a fierce gleam that tugs my body closer, curving further around her, arms wrapping around her from behind, tugging her into the crevices and cradle of my body. Moulding to her.

Lips pressing a tight hard kiss against the slope of her shoulder.

Then to her lips.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Until I'm lost in the blaze of her eyes that don't threaten to drag me into the fire to burn with her but rather until that fire flares under my own skin.

With vengeance and hope and fury.

Lips swollen when I draw back, fangs nipping gently.

"Didn't you come out here to help me focus?"

"Maybe I wanted you to focus on me." is the breathy response.

"Sneak."

"Somehow I don't think I'll finish the work tonight."

"Somehow~ I never intended on that happening. Come to bed Hobi. Tomorrow... it'll all wait until tomorrow."

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

But even tomorrow seems too far. Tomorrow seems like an itch under skin ever since we've known the threat around (Y/N) has never settled for a moment. Has been volatile and constant—even if we live under the safety of four walls and a roof—it threatens to pervade it.

Tomorrow—tomorrow... but that endless future of one day needed to come to its close.

My arms wind tighter around her, nuzzling against her gland with a soft rumble.

I hope the next tomorrows make you free.

----------------------------

"Outside... outside!" Min Junie eagerly insists, hand tugging at my own, peering up at me with wide hazel eyes, lips curved out into a pout—an unfair advantage now that he knows exactly how to utilise it.

"Outside? Baby bear wants to go outside?"

"Outside!" he echoes with a bright grin, tugging at my hand excitedly, smaller hand latching onto fingers and pulling me along with enthusiasm.

"Where does baby bear want to go outside? To the gardens?"

"To see paint-ing first...n noona!" bright, bright smile that's so radiant with life, with unbridled giddiness and just the sheer happiness of doing something so normal, so easily, without any of the fear he'd arrived with...

(Y/N) really was a miracle worker.

"Noona? Wanna go see fawn noona?" I ask, ears twirling—Min Junie's eyes spark with excitement as he spots the motion, watching the twisting motions of my ears with rapt attention... unwillingly and slowly wrenching his gaze away.

A quick nodding motion. And then another tug at my hand.

"Want Ji Ah noona to come toooooooo"

My ears twist and curl at the excitement radiating in his voice, the way his eyes shine with a brighter elation at the prospect of going out into the gardens and to play with the other kids with Ji Ah. Heart twisting painfully.

Hedging carefully.

"We can ask Ji Ah to come with us—but if your noona says no then—"

Furrowed brows and soft cheeks drooping as he pouts.

"Why no!"

"Just in case... maybe noona doesn't like playing as much..."

"No!"

"Cub—" voice softening as I tilt down, moving to crouch down in front of him.

Greeted with a flash of petulance in hazel eyes.

"Wan' Ji Ah noona!"

"Okay... we'll go to her now." placating, arms outstretched for mere moments before he pouts and barrels forward, immediately diving forward to press close to me, arms wrapping around my neck—clingy koala cub bear more than anything as I scoop him up as I straighten.

"N outside?" words muffled against my shoulder.

"If cub and kitten wants."

"Yes, yes!!" eager muffled words pressed against my throat, eager scent-bonks as he nuzzles into me, soft baby rumbles growing in his throat as he snuffles at my skin. Uncaring that he can't smell me... his own instinctual satisfaction of leaving his scent is more than enough.

A far, far cry from the stiffness and uncertainty to even lean towards figures without scents, not when they didn't let his biology feel settled at the very core, not when he was trying to recognise and distinguish ­safe-unsafe-safe-unsafe after coming from such a volatile, dangerous environment. A big, big growth for a cub that'd come from somewhere that had been conditioning him.

And then the small eager nibbles that were still soft and so, so gentle despite their eager clumsiness.

"His fangs have been forcefully ground down. You see that?" fingers gently poking at the barely noticeable points of them, eyes and voice soft as he latches onto her hand to nibble, capturing her hand as prisoner as he gnaws softly. Flashes of his behaviour that are purely instinct, purely baby bear.

The gentleness of her voice is a lulling comfort for the bear on her lap but the bite in her gaze, the silent flickers of anger and venom on his behalf doesn't go unmissed.

"Min Junie have your fangs been growing?" I ask, drawing my head back when a nibble has me feeling the faint scrape of fangs, a tiny fraction of pressure.

Watch his lips part as he bares his teeth with a big grin, playfully trying to nom at my hand with a big biting motion, tiny fangs peeking out.

And they do look slightly bit sharper, the forcefully smoothened points forming their natural shape again. Slowly... slowly.

"And look how big and fierce your fangs are!" I marvel at them, gasping when he tries to bite—the playfulness in the gesture and his resultant pealing shrieks and giggles when I gasp, ears twirling with shocked surprise at his actions make his face light up with happiness. Face slowly...slowly... softening and rounding out. As a child's should.

"I'm big big!" he echoes.

"Oh? Not my teeny baby bear anymore? Baby bear growing big?" fingers poking at a soft cheek, knuckles brushing against soft-soft...

Sweet baby.

"...can be both?" head tilted in inquisitive curiosity, eyes shining with warmth and unhindered affection—given so freely, so trustingly...

Sweet, sweet cub.

"Of course you can sweet cub~" a voice lilts behind me, sneaking up so suddenly, so silently, so purposefully stealthy as a head peers past my shoulder. Fangs glinting as he chuffs.

Body close enough that I can feel the sound rumble in the space between us before sinking into my back.

"Min Junie want to be like me? I'm a big cub—"

"And a baby." I share with a hushed laugh, Min Junie's eyes bright with laughter as his eyes flit back and forth between us.

"Me too, me too!"

"Let's go then. Zoom, zoom!! Twirly hyung too slow—c'mere cub!" hands reaching out to swoop him out of my arms and whirl around with him, tail swishing and curling at the way the baby rumbles grow louder. Wriggling delightedly.

"Ji Ah noona too! Noonas too!" voice calling out when we're walking down the corridor.

Tae shares a brief glance with me overhead Min Junie's head, silent question and prompt in them. Waiting for me to answer. I split off to veer to the side, fingers scratching gently at striped ears that swivel and fold and brown ears that flicker at the touch.

"I'll go check."

"We'll be in the gardens." Hands cradling the cub close to him with an automatic ease and naturalness that makes him so approachable, such a favourite with the children. Tiger in biology but cub all the way.

"Flowers for fawn fairy!" words carrying as they walk further away, ears flickering at they catch the beam in his words.

The more I look at him, the more time I spend with him, the more I become involved in his care by extension of (Y/N) the more I realise exactly why (Y/N) had been adamant that she'd see his care-plan all the way through, exactly why he was hers to protect and help and nurture to independence and health again. He was her cub first. And a part of me feels that tug too—my cub. The first child I'd been able to help even slightly.

[......]

"I have a very fussy demanding cub asking if the pretty flower fairy would be oh so kind to come to the gardens. And a sweet meerkat too." I grin, peering past the door to see the way (Y/N)'s eyes flit up to look at me, pausing mid-stretch as her ears flicker and she turns towards my voice. Arms still stretched up over-head, dropping to rub at her nape, as if trying to ease stiffness from them.

"Now which cub would that be?"

"Guess."

"Though fussy makes me think of a rather demanding berry cub... meerkat, Min Junie?" lips curling up as she straightens up, pushing her seat back without a moment's hesitation, to round her desk and walk over.

Ears flickering when I tilt closer to press a fanged kiss there, the tips of them scraping lightly over soft brown.

"Weather's slowly getting warmer, and you know that means he'll rush to the gardens any chance he'll get."

"Ji Ah's taking baby steps... maybe it'll be a good day."

Fingers entangling with mine to tug me to her, drawing us out her office space.

A familiar discarded cup, contents spilling out across the waste. A curl of anger, a strike of lightning—sharp, painful and visceral as it sears itself through my veins. Fingers tightening their clasp on her, unwittingly tugging her body to steer her out the office first, a sharp hiss of breath that slips past bared fangs.

"I know what to look out for Hobi... I hope whoever's sending them knows every last one of them will get disposed. They're no-one to be sending them to me. With their vile scent clinging—oh, I'm leaving my office, did you need something?"

Tendrils of anger that recede from her voice, still hard but trying to turn gentler for the administration staff that's come to a stop.

Eyes apologetic, slipping over to me instead.

"I was just looking for Hoseok. Before your placement's up, if you could pass on any observations or hybrid-care forms or paperwork you might've filed so we can add them to the database."

My ears twist and curl with faint surprise.

"Add them to the database?"

"Of course—you've worked here for months. Your insight is just as valuable as any one of ours... it'll get added to the system and the data gets compiled together."

"So it's always up to date and the most current reports we have on the children." The administrator smiles, nodding to (Y/N)'s words.

Handing over a small, slim sheath of papers enclosed in a file. I thumb through them quickly, hearing the explanation he provides for each of them though he nods towards (Y/N).

"Although any problem ask your supervisor."

"Don't worry I'll keep him and his paperwork in check." An easy grin, eyes fond before she dips her head in a small acknowledgement of thanks before continuing to tug me alongside her.

"The paperwork—"

"Can be left with Mrs. Kim until then." The mother-hen clucks with an amused smile, taking the proffered folder before tilting her head to the jar of sweets that I know Tae pilfers from regularly. That or the mother-hen indulges him.

"Sweets?"

"For the kids?"

"You're still kids too." a matronly shake of her head, feathers fluffing up as they tuck behind her, a soft clucking sound at the back of her throat, soft eyes warm behind her glasses.

"Thank you Mrs. Kim." we both echo dutifully, lips curled up.

"She really is everyone's mother-hen." (Y/N) whispers with a fondness, already unwrapping her lollipop to pop into her mouth, the sticky-sweet smile a dangerous beckon.

"It must come from working here for so long—"

"Right! She's been here for as long as I can remember—"

"You're not that old my dear~" I tease, nudging at her side.

Confusion flitters briefly. Before mock indignation flashes in doe eyes that narrow sharply.

"I'm not old!"

"Now you sound like Jin hyung~ I meant if your memory's fading if as far as you can remember~"

Her eyes flash, elbow nudging me back without missing a beat.

"Tease!"

My hand drops from her hand to wrap around her waist instead, hand squeezing gently, a laugh easily tumbling out at her huffing.

"All that frowning, and stress will make you old—someone's got to keep you from that." I lilt, hand moulded to the curve of her waist, tugging her into me, steps almost half-fumbling into one another, tugging lightly at the lollipop for her hand to dart out to grip at my wrist. Eyes warning and narrowed.

"Won't share?" I tease, fingers skimming down her side.

"Ew!"

I scrunch my nose at her, feel it wrinkle at the thought though still my fingers tug at the lollipop stick to draw it out. Hand cupping her cheek, briefly tilting her face up to steal a taste of the sweetness from her lips, mouth slotting to hers.

"I don't know~ I like the taste."

"Hobi!" hand swatting at my chest before her hand brushes from my chest to curl light against my nape, tugging me closer for an instant before sidestepping me. Lollipop slipped back in.

"Now who's being the tease?" I grouse, speeding up to catch up to her increased pace, hand darting out for the doe that slips out of reach with another sly sidestep, the side profile of her face revealing the amused smile that tugs her lips wider.

"You were sneaky kit."

"Keeping me on my toes—you're sly kit."

"I learnt from the best."

[......]

"Going to come outside with us today Ji Ah honey?"

Her eyes flit up at the term, beginning to associate the endearment with her and identifying it as Jangmi's scent. As the scent Min Junie had become attached to, the panda bear he'd become attached to.

Then her eyes flit to the window. Peering outside with a mix of trepidation and curiosity.

Mouthing noiselessly.

Bear?

"Baby bear is waiting... want to come play outside with him?"

A dithering hesitance.

Then her eyes seem to catch onto the lollipop.

I rifle through my pocket.

Holding it out to her.

"You get that even if you don't want to come outside kit."

Curious eyes flitting to peer out the window and to peer past into the stretch of park that's never ever empty. That even right now she can see the scatter of kids and adults, the safe space stretched out welcomingly... part of the centre and yet a place she's not dared to venture to yet. Occasionally...rarely... the times she has willingly stepped outside the four walls of her room, they can be counted on a single hand.

A quiet contentment... no that wasn't right... a quiet acceptance of her four walls as her only safety, of nothing else but this room being inherently protected.

Regardless of her trust in (Y/N).

(Y/N) quietly waits. Ji Ah quietly watches.

(Y/N) quietly waits. Ji Ah quietly slips off the edge of the windowsill to just as noiselessly move closer in slow treads, hands fidgeting and wringing themselves nervously before latching onto (Y/N)'s side. Pressing into her almost as if to meld with her. Hide in her.

"At your pace remember? If you want to turn around we do. If you go outside and you don't like it then we come inside... straight away." Voice soft, hand smoothening down her hair before (Y/N) slowly...slowly...infinitely patient and slowly draws Ji Ah out of the room in measured small shuffled steps with the young meerkat still pressed into her side.

Posture tightening when she crosses the threshold and then... relaxes a fraction of it when there's no imminent danger or threat that swarms to her like she fears.

"We're going to be with Tae too—remember the tiger?"

A quiet nod, yes traced onto (Y/N)'s palm.

"And Hobi's already a big fierce protector too isn't he?"

Nod.

"But be honest with me little kit—we're all safe because (Y/N) keeps us all safe doesn't she? No-one messes with her."

A fiercer, quicker series of nods. Determined and eyes alight with certainty.

"Keeps all the kittens safe. You, me and Tae... all the kits just hold onto her, and she'll use that flower magic of hers." I whisper, words hushed.

Sensing (Y/N)'s quiet happiness and fondness despite the dullness of the scents, my nose trying to detect it regardless—knowing that it's there but unable to detect it. Hidden.

A quick determined nod. Eyes shining with belief and certainty.

And it's that strength that pushes the resolve in her eyes, makes the hesitant shuffles turn into solid steps, albeit small, as she presses to (Y/N)'s side. Half-burrowed, half-hidden into her side, eyes flitting around to constantly search the surroundings, mapping and cataloguing them as well.

Meerkat's have the keenest eyes. They're always watching. Observing. Taking things in.

The shadowed eyes are a testament that she's seen too much, taken in too much.

Words and stories and names and faces that have haunted her and yet she can't bring herself to speak about.

It makes a tight feeling wind around my lungs and crush them painfully. Constricting. Forcing the air out in a shuddered exhale, ears flickering as (Y/N) turns to peer at me. Silent question as her brows furrow, checking in with me.

A subtle shake of my head, the worry dispelling in her gaze when she stares at me intently before she's reassured.

And then Ji Ah's straightening, a smile tugging wide on her lips and eyes brightening as she spots Min Junie in the park. Hand slipping to clutch at (Y/N)'s, an eager tugging motion as she steps forward, her fear and worry dispelling in front of her baby bear.

"Noooona!" a delighted yell as he barrels forward, arms outstretched to wrap tightly around Ji Ah, beaming up at her. Fingers scratching gently at his ears, soft rumbly growls—all baby soft still as he nuzzles into her, cheek smooshed against her. Sparkling starry eyes as he looks at her.

If things work out with Jangmi, how on earth will the two be able to let go? How will it be fair to make them let go? To separate them after reuniting them.

"No hug for me Min Junie?"

"Noona, noona!" delighted as he stretches his arms up to be scooped up, eagerly bonking at her, cheek rubbing against hers, nothing but pure adoration and shining love in his gaze as he wraps his arms around her. Pressing eager kisses to her cheeks.

How will it be fair on (Y/N)? Because letting him go is good but looking at them—(Y/N) is the centre of Min Junie's world.

"Twirly hyungie play hide and seek?"

Eyes hopeful.

"Want me to count?"

Nod-nod-nod.

"Going to hide with tiger hyung?"

"And noona and noona hide hide!" already wriggling to be let down to barrel towards Tae, hand clutching at him, stripey tail teasingly poking at his side, eliciting giggled squeals.

"I'll count to—"

"Hundred!"

Ji Ah nods. In complete agreement.

So (Y/N) and Tae also nod, matched glimmering amusement in both their eyes, an exchange of competitiveness that seeps into their postures as they tense and ready to twist and dash across the grass with a baby-hybrid scooped to them.

"3...2...1...GO!"

[......]

No. No. No no no no no no no no no no.

The words are traced frantically, harshly, fingers etching the two letters into (Y/N)'s front over and over. Jagged harsh letters almost forcefully dragged into her as she mouths the word with distress bleeding into her scent, posture trembling, wracked with violent tremors as she cowers underneath (Y/N).

"We're going, we're going." Words ushered back but they fall on deaf ears, eyes blinded with panic as they stare almost unseeingly even as they stare frozen at (Y/N).

Wide eyes frozen and glimmering with fear so visceral it makes Ji Ah's body twist desperately, physically trying to shield herself from sight by making herself as small as she possibly can.

Not sure what had struck the panic and terror but noting the moment it had—eyes catching onto something, her entire body seemed to have seized up with it.

Eyes staring past the park until they'd snapped to (Y/N). Unspoken begged plea to get inside.

And (Y/N) cradles her tightly, almost a grip that seems painful, tucking Ji Ah to her chest, hand against her head to keep her face tucked into her throat. So Ji Ah can hide but also I realise... to keep Ji Ah out of sight.

Tae's steps are quick, noiseless. Slipping up to half-shield, half-guard (Y/N)'s body with the protective angling of his own, tail curling and swishing slowly as if in anticipation of threat.

Voice tight.

"Hyung get them inside. I'll circle once and come in too."

"Taehyung—"

"Something she's seen is scaring her... you two are equipped to help her. I just—I just need to make sure you know?"

Just settle those instincts that have become frazzled, ears sticking up stiffly and alert. Twitching and flickering at the sounds they're catching, trying to filter through. That despite not being equipped or trained... that really none of that matters when instinct is roaring at him to scout out the space, to hunt down any discrepancy that by scaring Ji Ah is posing a threat to a young kit but also exists as a threat to our mate as well. Biological need wired to protect and defend both to whatever end.

"If—if there is something... you don't deal with it yourself." My hand darts out to grip his sleeve, watching the flinty hardness of predator in his eyes, already sweeping the surroundings with an alertness, gaze wrenching itself back to me.

A wrist twisting to tug itself free quickly, body coiling up alert. Losing that playful edge to turn stiff.

Cub to tiger.

"Hyung go inside."

Nose trying to catch a trace of scent but it's near impossible to detect and track scents in an open public space... where the scents are constantly being diffused by the air. Because the park's in use by the centre and owned by the centre and—CCTV.

"Tae if you're not inside in 10—I'm coming out to find you." (Y/N) warns without a trace of anything but seriousness in her stare.

Unwavering as his predatory assessing stare turns to her. Unyielding despite the way his scent cracks through the barrier of blockers.

"10 minutes." He echoes with a quiet finality. Eyes softening as he nods before brushing a hand down her spine to round her. Quiet and quick treads the gait of a prowling tiger stalking through the space to hunt efficiently and quickly.

But I have a dreaded suspicion that whatever Ji Ah's seen is already out of sight.

My eyes skim over the surroundings.

Eyes finding the few that line the side of the centre facing the park.

"We could get the CCTV to Jimin-ah and Namjoon."

Her smile is grim, void of warmth as she cradles Ji Ah to her chest tighter, my own arms readjusting the protective cradle of the baby bear whose fallen silent, eyes filled with perceptive worry as his gaze fixes on the trembling form of the meerkat that presses tightly to (Y/N) with every tremor that wracks her body. Hand tight fists pushing and shoving at (Y/N), almost as if willing distance despite the way her body presses just as tightly. Refusing to lean away.

"Ji Ah first. Then Min Junie gets settled. Then we get the footage sent after we look over it."

My body steps closer to her. An unconscious need to both guard and try cover one side, to angle to shield... but also to tilt closer to her. A wobbling noona as Min Junie reaches out a hand... whether for Ji Ah or (Y/N) or both.

But Ji Ah doesn't respond.

And his expression crumbles.

Devastated expression helplessly looking at me.

Eyes brimming with quickly welling tears that my fingers can't thumb away in time, head tilting to rest against his forehead briefly.

Soft rumbling soothing purr trying to calm him.

"Let's get your noona inside."

Photos spilled over the coffee table. Clutched at long after Tae had stormed out and Jiminie had crumpled in Jin hyung's arms. Eyes frozen on them. On the focus of each photo. On (Y/N).

And that coiling restless urge to get them safe-safe-safe roars in my blood.

And won't quieten them until we're inside.

Until the openness of the space becomes closed.

Until the danger becomes distanced. Until the hammering of my pulse slowly comes to settle... until Ji Ah's stopped shaking... until her quiet cries become an emptiness... until she sinks exhausted against (Y/N), eyes falling shut because they're too haunted to stay open any longer. Until rest is because she's so worn out.

Still cradled protectively in (Y/N)'s arms even as Min Junie drifts off in the nest in (Y/N)'s office. As he curls up under a mound of blankets he's pawed and agitatedly circled around so it encases (Y/N) and Ji Ah by extension. Close enough that her hand is within reach of a curled up bear.

Until my own instincts still. The hunting edge only quietening entirely when Tae returns, grim-faced and frustrated. Chasing phantoms and shadows and scents long since melted into air.

And that edge only dulls because in that moment there's that immediate biological gratification that they're all safe.

Because it's isolated and because it's—oh.

My eyes flit to the impassive expression on (Y/N)'s face as she types out a message. Eyes void of a fear for herself and only a brewing rage, that grows... that rises and falls with each cresting wave as if she wars with it herself, as she scans the room before it lands at the computer. Too far away from the nest.

And that's not an option she even entertains.

How long since the four walls in their isolation have been safety but captivity too?

How long since any four walls that she's been holed away in been more because of necessity, more out of created fear and danger rather than option?

How long since she'd felt that she was only safe within four walls closing her off... closing away the reach of a threat?

"We're thinking of offering a protection detail to someone on a case we've recently taken."

"Is that procedure?" eyes contemplative and curious, the slow sway of a black tail swishing as Yoongi hyung speaks. Feline eyes soft and watchful.

"It's not...and I know it's a big ask... we've barely been a pack for long and I—" eyes hesitant but voice soft. Imploring.

A quietness that reaches out to tug at every instinct so very quickly, so very easily tethering themselves to the fox pup that looks at all of us now.

Clear in his eyes just how much it matters.

"But?" voice gently bolstering.

"She's... she'll have to leave the city. And stay in a safe house. Which she's willing to do—"

"But it'll mean she has to leave her pack entirely. No contact, no possibility of seeing them... she'll be alone."

The thought makes my stomach churn.

A packless hybrid. Separated by compulsion.

My answer's yes purely just for that kindred hybrid. For that belief that not a single one should be isolated or alone... that at least this way she won't be removed from the presence of other hybrids...

I didn't even consider that it'd be a face I'd grown to familiarise, grown to know, a face who'd masterfully hid every single personal worry and problem until it'd all crumbled. And brought her to the threshold of her pack.

Surprise and disbelief and something like misery in her eyes when she'd found mine.

A growl rippling past my lips. Torn out violently. So harsh it'd made my throat hurt.

Because the packless hybrid was (Y/N). Because the person Jimin had wanted to help, the personal connection to her, to her situation was the same person who'd worn her mask so well that I hadn't realised whatever bothering her had been this.

The sound had been yanked out without realising.

And my body had moved without processing.

And then she was pressed tightly to my chest and my arms were clutching her so fiercely, so harshly with the single-minded need to physically hide her body within my own.

She's staying. She's staying.

And even though Jimin and Namjoon had had no idea... a strong wave of relief washes over me, makes my skin feel raw and sensitive, even as I watch her retreat, steps fading, door closing, lock clicking in place... that they'd brought her here. That her safety would be within pack walls.

But pack walls or not. Nest or not... it was confinement.

And it was she'd become acclimated to.

When had that longing turned to a worn down acceptance?

When had the fear dulled to a resigned surrender to the circumstances that'd forced her to hide?

Had twisted the instincts that needed to be free to become shut away behind concrete.

Had handed over the very nature of her being... for the safety of her own.

And had succumbed to it.

There's a quiet knock on the door, a steady rap of knuckles against it before a beeping unlocks it. Announcing his presence I realise when Tae's body loosens and the tightness in my spine eases away at the sight of antlers first and then sharp eyes skimming to soften as they land on (Y/N).

"Room for one more?"

Bearing a laptop in his arms.

The footage.

"Always got space." A tired smile that's a bit dull. Quieter.

Eyes narrowing onto it.

"Well now I don't know if I want to sweets." The nickname slightly teasing, slightly soft.

Eliciting a faint smile.

"I won't offer twice big buck."

And he easily slots to her vacant side, eyes skimming over the sleeping curled bear, unconsciously gravitated to his noonas, to (Y/N) still holding Ji Ah in her arms. To Tae's guarding alertness as he leans half-reclined but eyes every bit sharp and focused, a tiger restless in human skin. To the way my body still flanks (Y/N) as close as I can.

"Close call?" voice soft.

Sharp.

"Something scared Ji Ah into a panic attack outside." Fingers smoothening over her hair.

"Park right out front?"

"She saw—"

"She saw someone. Someone she recognised." Tae says, voice hard and firm. Certain. Words lacing on a bite of a growl.

Protective. Bristly. On edge.

"Footage will have caught them?" already tugging the laptop open.

"I'll take the tiniest scrap to go on SJ." Voice firm. The protectiveness bleeding sharp into her voice.

And it's a testament to how run down Ji Ah's mind is, her ear not even giving a flicker to the raised volume of her voice.

And I wonder how long she's been seeing the same four walls as something that steadily crowds her from each end.

And begins closing.

Wonder how long it'll be until those walls are pushed back.

And how much longer she has to endure. Tolerate. Bear.

"I'll find it." SJ promises.

A sharp calculating assessing glint that's focused as it pulls up CCTV, accessing the centre database. Fingers swift.

It's easy to see glimpses of his training shine through. Burn their way into awareness.

An ex-academy student. A police officer in training.

But who'd drifted. Veered away.

With no patience nor connection to the control and composure.

Sometimes... the most dangerous threat is a prey.

Cos it means nothing... when your own's called into line.

And the silent way his body curls to (Y/N)'s, the unspoken tether of years and pack and herd between them—of a bond between friends and pack and family and somewhere in between and all three at once... SJ's gaze vows to find it. To hunt down even a scrap of information to go on.

A scrap.

We'll take a scrap.

Before that look in (Y/N)'s eyes turns wearier... turns quieter and lost to whatever her normal has been compelled to become.

The realisation sinking, a plummeting weight that drags itself to the depths of my stomach when SJ's quiet murmur seems to brush it off. Shaking her head.

Physically dispelling the weight as her eyes flit to me.

Lips gently tugging upwards.

"You're really good with them both... they wouldn't have settled nearly as easily if you weren't here with me." long minutes later.

My hand reaches out to brush fingers against her cheek, skimming her jaw to brush featherlight to a gland that'll carry the scent even if we can't smell it, track it.

And the feeling of knowing I only have days before my placement ends... before whatever work is like for her becomes only stories she shares... my throat constricts briefly.

Hating the thought of not being there, nor here, nor with her the whole day.

"Not nearly as good as you've been for me. With me."

But we all should be there. For you. Here. Home. Everywhere. So that look in her eyes never deepens.

So we can stop it before it does.

But that wave of helplessness ripples through me.

And the quiet flicker of feline eyes to mine. Nose twitching as if he smells the helplessness even with blockers.. a failed twisted sense of camaraderie... because (Y/N)'s there for everyone. In every way she can.

But how long did she need to do it herself?

And yet all we did wouldn't eliminate the threat until it was found.

[......]

"I appreciate it SJ." Namjoon's saying, fingers curling around the proffered USB drive, eyes gleaming with gratitude and voice low and quiet.

The tall buck's posture unfailingly commanding of the space, that sense only softening when his eyes flit back to the office. Seeing past it cos he knows (Y/N)'s still sitting. Watchful and alert. Guarding the two.

"There's feed you can get across from the streets to pinpoint exactly how many employees or strangers would've been at the park. Maybe a different angle will get you a clearer picture."

My ears twist. Tuned to the sound of their voices.

Fixed.

"We'll get it to the surveillance department."

"No. It needs to be officer eyes and not someone who's just told to look through footage. There's a difference in what you'll see and what any other untrained eye will see."

Joon nods.

"I get it—"

"There's this specific angle in the camera you can't see who Ji Ah is looking at but it might be clearer from a different camera."

Eyes alighting with sharp focus.

He had caught something.

A scrap... this seems like more than a scrap.

A surge of something hopeful and wanting and determined bubbles up.

But before Joon can turn away, SJ speaks.

"Get more officers on the case Namjoon. They're too volatile if they've been watching you and your mates this entire time."

My spine stiffens.

A quiet growl laced with anger, venom, rage—vengeance ripples in the quiet.

The closest and most stifled I've ever heard the sound Joon's made to sounding akin to pure animal.

And it bolts through me that the last time his instincts had been shot to alertness, the last time his biology had snapped away at conscious, logical awareness, his fangs had sunk deep into her throat and mated (Y/N).

The sound bodes violence and the promise to tear apart any threat that gets close, that gets within fanged reach of the wolf whose scent dominates the space. Briefly seizes entire control of it before the diffusers start breaking it down, responding to the surge of pheromones.

"We're working on it."

"And if you need brute force... I won't mind getting roped in."

The fanged sharpness of Namjoon's mouth is violently promising.

"If needs be."

And as if knowing I'd been there the entire time, his eyes flit to me. To the paperwork clutched loose in my hand. To the quiet want in my eyes.

And his eyes don't turn away for a moment.

"To whatever end. Those monsters will thrash and suffer when it's time to hunt."

---------------------

"Go! Go give in the paperwork." (Y/N) laughs, nudging me away from hovering. Peering over her shoulder as she skims through psych evals of the other children who'd been brought in.

Categorically sorting them through into piles.

Heart lightening when I realise the pile of files for the children who were on a short-term care plan grows.

It means it wasn't too late. And with every file she sorts into that pile, my heart twists with a relieved thump, a skipped beat before relief washes through me.

"But yours is—" promising, hopeful...

Her eyes shine.

"Looking really, really good considering." Words rushing out with a relieved exhale, smile warm and genuine and reaching her soft doe eyes as she places another onto the pile.

"They're all going to get rehabilitated somewhere else aren't they?"

"The centre tends to take the extreme cases to help with itself but the ones who can be rehabilitated and relocated will. It'll keep them safer. And it means we give more time and properly catered support to the ones who really need the resources here."

"Safer?"

The slope of her shoulder looks softer, invites the tilted press of my head settling over her shoulder to brush my cheek against hers. A slight shrug.

Hand brushing down the side of her arm as she turns to look at me.

"They're all tied to the case. You don't put your eggs in one basket."

"...that's..."

Morbid? Black and white realism? Painfully aware?

My throat constricts.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

"I wasn't talking about me though."

"Still. Won't let anything happen."

"I'm safe Seokie."

Are you?

Pictures spilling through my fingers, eyes alight with joy and radiant as she looks at Tae, her laughter, her smile, her warmth, her life captured by a lens fixed on her. By a gaze that fixated. Catching the faintest glimpses of her.

"I'm going to be sick." Jin hyung whispers, long after the others have gone to bed, long after the house feels empty. Quiet. Asleep. Eyes pouring over the photos. Hand curled around a glass, staring grimly into its depth.

"Stop." Trying to tug them away but his grip only tightens. Words sharp. Vicious.

"Some thing out there thinks they have a claim, an ownership over (Y/N)... how am I meant to stop thinking about it? About what that twisted obsession could do."

A silence, charged with terror and misery.

"She's not safe."

"We'll keep her safe hyung, Jimin-ah and Namjoon have security round the clock—"

"Did it stop them? Did it? Did it keep Tae and (Y/N) safe when they went out disguised?" voice pitching with agitation and sharpness. Eyes flashing with unguarded fear. Usually unflappable and now his wings rustle and twitch, feathers shuffling unsettled.

The words stick in my throat.

Because even if there's truth neither of us want to accept in his words, there's also a refusal to voice that. Because despite that I know the two of them, I know that we'll do everything we can. Because it's something no-one will back from. (Y/N) needs to be safe. And that's uncompromisable.

"That's how we'll keep it. My sweet dear, happy, safe and sound."

Her head tilts back to nudge her nose against my jaw in a soft, brief scent. A soft brush of lips that follow before she turns back.

Continuing to sort through the files.

"Hurry back Hobi?"

"Need my help?"

She hums.

"And I'll miss your pretty face if you take too long."

"I knew you kept me around for more than just my work ethic."

There's a flash of playfulness in her eyes.

Lips curling coy.

"I might be biased."

"The feeling's mutual~"

[......]

"I just need to file these."

My lips are still curled upwards, (Y/N)'s own amused, lilting smile lingering. Quickening my pace. So I can hurry to file these and go back to her.

The woman running the administration nods, a jangle of keys as she stands up. Reading the impatient eagerness in the slight shuffling movements. Lips twitching.

But the paperwork on the system kept under lock and key. Each file taken from me as she scans them through first before handing them back to me. Dithering beside her.

A silent amused look stilling me.

A mass of filing systems filling the large space. Walls lined with cabinets, all of them labelled meticulously.

The sheer amount of data strikes me then. The walls stretching out unendingly.

My lips curl into a depreciating smile as I turn to face her.

"Could you help me? I think I'll get lost."

Her name tag catches my eye as she turns to face me.

Kim Cheo-Ra.

"Of course Hoseok-ssi. Most of the interns couldn't stick it out. Our administration is really extensive and thorough."

"Oh?" feeling appeased slightly in knowing that sheer overwhelming mass of paperwork and cabinets that greet me isn't just me.

"Apart from one or two of the interns... none of them stayed long to practice." She laughs gently.

"That complicated?"

There's pride and amusement both on her face as she takes a brief glance at the paperwork and moves further down the massive office-space. Moves further—it's several sweeping looks that allow me to realise that they're divided into several categories and subsections within them.

"You need a cataloguing type of brain to stick through with it, which most brains don't operate as. It's a maze in here."

"That's why you run it."

"If that's your flattering way of saying my brain is too complicated to work with people and better with data then you're right." A bemused expression when my eyes flare with alarm, shaking my head hastily. It takes two beats to register the warm tease in the older woman's voice.

And she points it out as she walks. The categorising for the paperwork and data.

Sorted by date of first entering, by hybrid type, by severity, by age, by levels of confidentiality.

The section she leads me to is for case of high confidentiality and severity.

There's a pulse of relief that resonates in every limb when I see the small alcove of space for it.

That the majority of their work at the centre over the years isn't for extremely severe cases such as the ones (Y/N)'s dealing with now.

That there weren't a majority of cases like Ji Ah and Min Jun's.

"Why do you have such a big administration office? Isn't it all digitalised? Isn't it safer to keep them online?" I'd spotted the large towering blocks data processors when we'd entered. They looked more than sufficient to store it all.

"Mostly sure. But some of the information that we process shouldn't be in a place that's easily accessed by a hacker, or by someone sniffing around for information."

"Surely security's stronger than that."

"Our system's a protection we can give the people who are processed at the centre." A firm, protective glint in her eyes.

"But..." she hedges, voice soft. Hard.

"If we have in-patients or cases where they're tied to police work—there's data too volatile to leave as an encrypted file. Some of the cases are only paperwork." Words hushed as she confides it to me.

Fingers tapping the top of a filing cabinet.

The sound of fingernails against metal shattering the hushed confidance of her voice, evaporating the sense of quiet truths that'd been admitted. As if even within the space that's locked and blocked away for common access is still risky enough to talk in.

As if walls have ears.

"Cheo Ra-ssi..."

"I'll let you file the paperwork Hoseok-ssi."

"You won't—" stay?

"Just because I work here doesn't mean I get unquestioned right to see every paperwork, every detail... I don't work with them." An easy shrug but a firm resolve and guardedness in her eyes.

A barrier, a limit.

One I wonder whether it's mostly for respect for keeping the privacy of the data that comes in, for the people, the real lives they connect to or whether it's her way of keeping a distance from it all. So all that it remains in her eyes is data. And not people?

Whatever reason for her limits, I feel an inkling of respect sprout. Feel it increase at the lack of curiosity as she turns to leave, voice swift and firm.

"I trust you to file the data you're here to and be quick about it."

Don't linger. Don't nose about.

And I wonder who it was that she's mentioned sniffing about details and cases. And in the next instant that it's none of my business.

That's sniffing around as well.

My eyes scan the cabinet, pulling open a drawer. Labelled. Child hybrid trafficking.

Flinching at the realisation that holed away inside is a whole drawer of cases similar to Ji Ah and Min Junie. That these aren't two instances but other kids, other babies, other hybrids had been subjected to such a painful, sickening fate.

The cabinet drawer isn't as full as I'd feared as I open it. A crinkling, rustling sound that makes my ears twist as they register the sound. Slotting in their files, eyes catching onto a piece of crumpled paper half-stuck at the back of the drawer, the crinkling sound heard again as I push the drawer slightly.

Fingers trying to pluck it free, but it's stuck at the back of the drawer. Paper half-caught in the cabinet metal itself. Ears twisting at the sound of a tear before I stop trying to tug at it so harshly, so abruptly.

Body pressing closer to the cabinet to peer into it's slightly dark depths, trying to free the paper caught at the back of it, fingers slipping over the edge of it. It feels worn. Thinned.

It takes several minutes of silently wrestling with it, trying to ease it out without damaging it, to tug it free, breath slightly sharp—triumphant, now that I've gotten it out.

Eyes briefly catching the date. Long since a decade old.

And then the name on it.

Lee Dong-Min.

But when I search the rest of the files to find the name and slot it back into it—I can't.

There's no file with that name in the cabinet.

There's files dating back years and years from the look of them but there's no file with that name on it.

Turning it over absently, resolving to hand it to Cheo-Ra when I leave.

My eyes scan the rumpled piece of paperwork for information. Maybe it was a joint file. Or a reference filed under someone's name.

It's nearly twenty years old. A piece of paperwork from a case nearly 2 decades ago. Out of place, out of its file.

Eyes scanning the details absently until they sink in. And my body unconsciously straightens.

A shiver that runs down my spine.

A disorienting sense of déjà vu at the details.

Young buck hybrid male.

Eight years old.

Sustained injuries and signs of blunt force trauma.

Malnourished and under the healthy weight of a child his age.

Signs of physical abuse (no signs of SA).

Recurring nightmares and PTSD symptoms displayed.

Won't be isolated or kept away from fellow age hybrid was brought in with.

Ruled out siblings—no DNA similarity.

Subdued behaviour, strong reactions in response to separation anxiety from eight year old girl deer hybrid.

Haven't witnessed any shifting in duration of entire stay unless it's a behavioural response to the girl.

For reference: check file case of connected case (Y/N).

(Y/N)?

A sense of nausea churns at the thought of someone, who'd once been a little girl. That someone with the same name as (Y/N)'s had experienced something so horrific. So painful.

Limbs coiling tight, body unconsciously shifting to want to protect and shield despite knowing that it's just a name... it's just a name... it's just—

(Y/N) and Dong-Min's case file status: classified.

And there jotted down, fingers smoothening over the crumpled edge of the worn paper...

To be processed as part of a court case—judge on the case: Ji Sung. Witness statements to be presented by primary caregivers.

The document looks to be the overview cover page of the main file but there's no sign of the file. A thudding heaviness in my chest that makes my hands rifle through the cabinet hurriedly. Impatient and wanting to dispel that faint burn of anxiousness that's settling at the back of my throat.

But there's no file. Not in this cabinet drawer. Nor in the rest of it.

But buried at the back of a drawer at the very far end, thin file hastily shoved into another's—my instincts scream, beg to tear my hand away from it, except that burning, nauseating need to know it's not, it's not, it's not—pulls out the file.

EMPLOYEE RECORDS. (Y/N) (L/N).

But why's her file here?

A brief glimpse of it dissipates the worries, turns the churning of my stomach to slow.

It's the standard employee file.

It's not (Y/N)—it was just a worry, irrational and founded in terror and—

Personal files on (Y/N) remain classified.

And the person who's signed off on that is Ji Soo.

That sinking feeling returns tenfold.

Feeling as if rapidly my limbs sink under water, submerged into cold, dark depths. Drowns out noise, sense... blinds and numbs every other sense. Hand clutching onto the file. Eyes flitting back and forth from the crumpled paperwork to (Y/N)'s file. Here. In this drawer. Why?

And... Lee Dong-Min... but why was his name tagged alongside (Y/N)'s? Why was she mentioned in his file in the first place? And why was her file in this cabinet? Why was it with the older, classified file cases for trafficked hybrid children.

It didn't make sense. And whatever sense my mind is trying to make, connects slithering tendrils of scant information that I don't want to see what picture my brain's trying to make of it.

And who was Lee Dong-Min... why is his report of extensive injuries and malnutrition tied in direct connection to a trafficking case got (Y/N)'s name in it too?

But this sense of foreboding grows, makes the back of my neck prickle, discomfort and unease twisting violent knots in my stomach as I look at the file, worn with time, thumbing over the pages, over the body measurements taken when Dong-Min had been admitted to the centre, a young buck.

Admitted alongside a young girl.

Ruled out siblings—no DNA similarity. But a biological one.

The girl was a deer hybrid...

My throat tightens. Closes. A noose on itself.

It's not (Y/N).

Something like that would've come up. Something like that would've come up because of this case.

Jimin and Namjoon knew (Y/N) before they brought her home, they knew she was at risk because of her being Min Jun's primary caregiver—but not something like this.

But unbidden those tendrils of connections start to form.

It's not (Y/N). It can't be... it can't.

It had to be just someone with the same name. Same hybrid species.

It was a coincidence that Ji Sung was the judge on that case—but he was a lawyer wasn't he?

Something coils inside me. A cold feeling of ice in my veins, spreading outwards, coursing through my body. Heart hammering loudly. Echoing in my hears. Tasting the nervousness of my pulse on my tongue.

The clang of the drawer being shut painfully grating. Sudden. The sound jolting through my system, as if it rings through me.

Jolts me back into full awareness, staring at the paper and file in my hands.

Just ask her.

Just ask.

I twist to turn to leave.

Just ask.

Ask.

She'll say.

She'll tell you it's not her.

It'll be fine... she'll tell you it isn't her. That this is all some twisted coincidence.

But at the back of my mind, whispered and quiet and trembling—that gut instinct, that sixth sense also rings its alarm bells.

(PART 2 INCOMING!!)