Date: November 20th
Time: 7:12am
Location: In werewolf land...or something.
Mood: Anticipatory. The new dinosaur from Jurassic Park.
<><><>

Everyone Jimin had gone to for advice since finding his mate had, for lack of a better phrase, let him down in the 'wooing his mate' department. In the end his wolf's input had been the most valuable. Something he should have realized early on, even though he had grown up hearing that it would be the opposite.

For as long as he could remember, his elders taught that their animal sides were the less patient, more wild part of themselves that they had to contain. No one ever thought to go deeper into his case. Losing a parent at a young age and consequently, another for a short while, his emotional growth was somewhat stunted. Gone was the parental guidance he should have had and for a while it was him and his wolf alone.

He wouldn't have made it through that time if it weren't for his wolf. Thinking back on it, Jimin tended to feel guilty towards that part of himself. His mom belonged to both of them. Both loved her. Both grieved her loss. But only one supported the other.

More than once he had apologized but that side of himself waved it off, said it was what he was here for. His wolf didn't mind being the support that he could lean on. That was his nature. To care for and nurture. Not hunt and wrestle and do 'normal' wolf things. He had his own personality and didn't care what others thought of it. He was sensitive and mindful, rather than tough and macho.

When Jimin woke up that morning, his thoughts were everywhere, mind sinking into a deeper part of his memories than he normally allowed them to go. That was when the premonition hit him.

No one could tell him what he needed to hear because he wasn't asking the right person.

Y/n was his mate and anyone could give dating advice. But Y/n was more than just his mate. She was the most layered and complex person he had ever known. From a few, simple words it was abundantly clear that her pain ran deep.

And it wasn't his job to make it better. It was his job to understand it and let her know that she was more than someone left behind. After the admission she had made about her father, her personality, shyness and the way she acted made more sense. She wasn't like that out of choice. She was the way she was due to a set of unfortunate circumstances.

The person he should have gone to first was so obvious it embarrassed him.

Heading over to Namjoon's house once the sun rose, he hoped his line of questioning would be seen as what it was, and not intrusive and hurtful. Besides Y/n, Jungkook was the last person he would ever want to hurt.

"Waaah, our long lost brother, finally come home." Jin pretended to wipe tears from his eyes when he saw who had stepped through the door. "Last time I saw you was-"

"Last week. At full moon." Besides Namjoon, and now Jimin, who had already found their mates, they all came together to run during full moon. It was the only way to comfort their high strung senses during that time. "Is Kook awake?"

"Should be," he answered, fingers tying a tie around his neck. "He's probably grouchy, though. He wouldn't wake up so I had to throw the whole mattress off of the bed."

Grouchy was an understatement. When Jimin walked into his disaster of a bedroom, Jungkook snapped at him to leave. This type of behavior was costumary of the teenager and did not shock him in the least. Jungkook was good at everything except for waking up in the morning. As a consequence it had led his hyungs to wake him up with varying degrees of noise and occasionally, violence. Having his mattress flipped while still asleep inside of it definitely was not a nice way to wake up.

Knowing he would be mad for the next half an hour, Jimin came armed with a coffee that had been drowned in sugar and cream, along with a doughnut. A unhealthy breakfast that Jin would have his head for serving to the sixteen-year-old. If he found out.

Wordlessly he placed the food and coffee on the nightstand went to put his mattress back in it's correct place, moving around and tidying up while the teenager got ready for school.

When the room was spotless and Jungkook was eating his breakfast and staring at him in curiosity, he crossed his arms and leaned against the dresser.

"I need advice."

His jaw moving as he chewed, the younger man quirked a brow. "From me?"

Silently he nodded, wondering if this was the right thing to do. Jungkook rarely talked about his supposed parents. Was bringing it up going to harm him? As the thought crossed his mind, Jungkook nodded an assent, telling him that he was ready to listen.

Listening to his wolf, he approached it tactfully. After swearing him to secrecy, he relayed what Y/n had told him, a stinging sensation hitting him with every word uttered. He was trying to understand her, but repeating what she had told him in a moment of confidentiality made him feel like he was exposing something he had no right to.

To his credit, Jungkook didn't bat an eye at what he was told, only nodded as he finished off his breakfast. When the story was through and Jimin looked to him expectantly, he stared back.

"What?"

"What?" Jimin repeated. "What do you mean, what? Don't you have anything to say?" he expected some great reveal or words of wisdom, a hidden key to all the mysteries he wanted answers to.

"Is there something you want me to say?" he ventured, taking a sip of his coffee. "This is disgusting, by the way."

"Your lisp is cute, by the way," he teased and earned a hard glare. "I want you to help me understand her. I'd ask her but she's too shy. How do I help her move past it? And how do I let her know she's more than that?"

"She won't move past it." To his dread, Jungkook's words were hard, his expression steely. "It's there and it happened. She can't move past it, she just lives with it, and learns to love herself despite it. At least," he shrugged, moving to take another gulp of his drink, "that's what my therapist says . And he's right."

From infancy the pack had raised Jungkook together. Starting at a very young age he'd been put into therapy to help him adjust and grow into a healthy adult. For a while now he had been saying he was fine, but Jin still encouraged him to continue going. Encouraging by refusing to purchase Jungkook's favorite fabric softener unless he went.

"Understanding her..." he clicked his tongue as he thought. "I see why you came to me, but we're different here. She had a family and one parent left. I never had parents." this was said with a shrug and not with a pained voice, but more in a way that said he was tired of thinking about it. "I got you guys. That's better anyway."

"Don't make me cry."

"Right." he nodded and both men refused to look at one another. "She probably doesn't trust you. Words don't mean everything. Repetition is important. And...she probably blames herself."

"So what do I do?"

"Stay by her side religiously. Treat her well. Let her know how important she is."

"But I already do that!" he pouted at this 'useless' information.

"Then you're already halfway there."

As Jimin grumbled something incoherently, Jungkook decided to ask about something Jin had been denying him.

"Hyung, if this helps you out, will you buy me a new pc?"

"I don't know, Kook, my money-" he came to a halt when the younger man turned sad doe eyes his way. "I'll see what I can do."

<><><>
‪5:44pm‬

Jimin was *this* close to chopping Carl's head off. Maybe Hyuna's too.

Since they'd arrived for work, things had been more chaotic than usual. Which was saying a lot for a classroom full of toddlers cracked out on sugar. The shift before had decided to be cruel to the next batch of caretakers coming in after them and doped all the kids out on cotton candy.

That was how the entire classroom ended up with blue lips and sticky hands. From this Jimin learned something interesting. If you told a child with sticky hands not to touch anything, they would literally touch everything in existence.

The first half hour of work was spent chasing kids around to clean them and everything they touched, which really was every single item in the room.

This was a new lesson for Jimin, something he was unaware of that the other adults in the room already knew. Toddlers on a sugar high were terrifying. Toddlers on a sugar crash? Indescribably horrific.

Blue lips opened to wail out an animalistic sounding screech before their previously peaceful and cute classroom turned into a MMA ring for babies. One body slammed another, and soon there was a pile up, a plethora of children battling it out to the death. Or something.

Though knowing he should move and put a stop to this, Jimin couldn't. All screaming and piling onto one another like that, these little humans looked downright demonic. Quite frankly, he was scared. At the moment he wondered if all this was really worth it. It was the only excuse he had to see Y/n, but was it REALLY worth going through this? His wolf's only reply was to laugh.

Then, back to the adults in the room.

Since their arrival Carl had incessantly been flirting with his marshmallow. The marshmallow being Y/n. For the most part she missed what he was saying due to the uproarious insanity that was their classroom.

The little boy, Baek Hyeon was either not affected by the sugar or didn't partake in the treat. He was the lone child not involved in the apocalyptic events his peers were creating, instead snuggled into Y/n's lap and watching the others with quiet curiosity.

Most of her attention went to this child or the others, sending most of the German man's comments right through one ear and out the other. The other half of the time she truly didn't realize that he was flirting and thought he was trying to have a friendly conversation with her.

When this would happen, he would send her a smile that would have any other girl swooning (but not Y/n. There was only one blond man here that had her attention) and then would look over his shoulder at Jimin as if to taunt him. Why?

On top of that, Hyuna kept whispering in Y/n's ear and then she too would give Jimin a pointed look. A couple times his mate would look as well and naturally would turn red all over and then refuse to cast her eyes his way for a while. All of that, and she had arrived for work with her hair an utter tangled mess.

What he needed to know, was what was going on. But first, why was this child chewing on his shin?

He blinked down at the rabid 3 year old clenching onto his leg through his blue jeans.

"Yah!" Hyuna lifted her voice in warning at the little boy, her eyes taking on that 'don't you dare' look that all moms have mastered at some point. "Let go by the count of three or you're going to red. One-" the toddler bit down harder and glared at the challenge. "TWO," his tiny hands came up to hold onto Jimin's ankle for a better grip. "TH-"

"Sang-Ook, come here please." Y/n called softly. Instantly the boy let go and scuttled over where his caretaker was, abruptly sitting as close to her as possible, pulling on the sleeve of her sweater to shield himself from Hyuna. "Sang-Ook that was not nice. Biting hurts and you can't hurt Park-ssi. When you're ready you need to say you're sorry."

The now docile child nodded in understanding as his lip shook and eyes filled with tears. With trepidation coating his features he asked in a small voice, "no red?"

Unsure, Y/n looked to Hyuna for her input. The blonde rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. "Ok, is there something in the water?? Why is everyone whipped for you?!?"

Y/n's reply was a blank look.

"You no see her?" Carl interjected, still managing to look charming while his apron was covered in blue lip prints and his hair was a mess. "Look at her. She very very...was the word? Shoot."

"You mean cute?" she asked through a sigh.

"Same ting."

"Thing." she corrected but the blond man had retreated into whatever cat infested corner of his mind he went to when in deep thought.

A half naked toddler stumbled out of the plastic tunnel/slide set with a glazed look coating her face.

"Kimmy?" she inquired in Hyuna's direction, who sighed heavily at the sight of the newest problem. "Where my pants go?"

"Ga-in, again?!?" Exasperated, she took the child by the hand and led her off in search of her ever missing pants.

It all went over Jimin's head because two of the little girls under his charge chose that moment to bump heads, resulting in the both of them crying loud and painfully. To his horror, this started a chain reaction with the rest of them. All little humans in the direct vicinity, which was about fifteen of them, followed suit and began wailing.

In that moment everything else ceased to exist, this sole problem left to confound and worry him. How was he supposed to make them stop? Words of comfort went ignored. Hyuna had forbid anymore sweets so bribing was out of the picture. He tried for patting them on the back but they really seemed to hate that, if the intensity of the screaming and glaring was anything to go by.

The only kids behaving were Y/n's group, all standing close by, the little girls playing with her hair and the boys snuggled under each arm. His mind drifted into fantasy land for a moment, wondering if she would be this good with her own kids. As if she would ever be un-bashful enough to make kids.

"Hey!" he called for the crying children's attention and miraculously, it appeared to work, though they had yet to stop sobbing. While he still had their attention, he broke into dance, showing off a set of pirouettes that made every soul in the room stop and stare.

To his relief, a large portion of the crying came stuttering to a halt, but most of the looks he received from the kids were of judgment.

"Ta...da." he finished awkwardly, flushing slightly under Y/n's gaze.

"WOW!" One small voice that no one recognized shouted. Baek Hyeon gazed at him in wonder, as if Jimin had performed the most impressive magic trick. "How you do dat??"

Before Jimin could reply, Carl ripped out a fresh tissue and SLAMMED it on the ground!

As one naturally does.

"Zat dancing? No, no. I show you. And you!" he pointed at Y/n. "Shoot girl! Watch dis."

She didn't watch. Her eyes were trained on Baek Hyeon. He'd never spoken in this day care before and though his mom insisted otherwise, they all had wondered if he could. She was proud of him, to say the least. Being able to identify with the little boy in terms of shyness, she knew that such a bold outburst from him must have been hard.

The words didn't even register with Y/n, but they infuriated Jimin. Carl performed a clumsy and less than stellar moonwalk that had all the little girls applauding and Baek Hyeon glaring. Figuring it necessary, he picked up the thrown tissue and threw it back at Carl.

The white slip of soft paper fluttered pathetically to the ground, not even halfway to it's intended target.

"You call that a moon walk?" he scoffed, effortlessly gliding his feet backwards to perform the move correctly.

The class exploded into applause all over again. One kid tried tasting her neighbor's hair. The other little one didn't notice. Over to the side three more attempted to copy the adults, but figured in the end that putting crayons between their toes was much more interesting.

Hyuna, finally having found Ga-in's pants, sighed at the two men. Maybe she should make both of them go to red.

<><><>
‪9:05pm‬

"I'LL WALK YOU HOME, Y/N!" Jimin said (shouted) more so in an approaching Carl's direction, before grumbling under his breath, "you stupid foreign buttmuncher butt face butt trumpet."

The panicked look Y/n cast to Hyuna went unnoticed between the men. The blonde woman sent the other a thumbs up to which she frantically shook her head in the negative.

Pretending not to see it, Hyuna gave a hard shove to Carl, sending him in the opposite direction. "C'mon loser, we're going to Denny's."

"Bye, shoot girl!" he called over his shoulder, smiling at Jimin's glare. "Buh-bye tiny man!"

"Ti-" Jimin spluttered, enraged, "TINY? YOU-" as he yelled after them, Y/n rushed by, head ducked and hands gripping the strap of her bag. Glancing between the two retreating forms, it was obvious who he should follow. Muttering about all future plans to harm the German, he went after his mate, jogging the few steps until he caught up to her. "Red? What's wrong?"

"W-wrong?!?" she questioned shrilly before clearing her throat and lowering the volume. "There-there's nothing wrong. I'm f-fine. Fine. Al-all fine."

"Then...I believe you."

"I'm not lying!" she quickly replied as she rubbed the palms of her hands against her outer thighs.

"I didn't think you were." Even though he did, he denied it, hoping to ease the tension of whatever was bothering her. "But if there's anything wrong, you can talk to me..."

Leaving it off in a hopeful tone seemingly did nothing. A nod was all he received in answer as she trudged on at a faster pace than was normal. The suspense was killing him, along with the growing irritation at Hyuna. Clearly she was at the center of whatever was going on. She was Y/n's friend, and whatever bothered her automatically bothered him as well. If she said something to her-

Stay quiet.

If the suspense wasn't killing him before, it certainly was now. His wolf sounded...excited. Inside he could feel him up and pacing, something boiling under the surface of his calm demeanor.

'Why?' he questioned but got no response, irritating him further. Not one person had answers for him today. No one except for his dongsaeng. Maybe he should scrape up whatever money he could to get that PC for him.

In silence he followed along behind his mate, whom apparently was in a big rush to get home. The neighborhood they walked through was quiet, a few other passerby nodding in greeting as they passed beneath the street lights. Y/n, several steps ahead of him, didn't bother to look back once in the ten minute trek from work to her neighborhood.

He never thought it would be possible, but she was annoying him. Last he checked he didn't remember doing anything wrong to her. When he asked her to meet him tomorrow she had been reluctant. Is that what was wrong? Was meeting him when it wasn't a work day so terrible to ask?

If that were the case, then why didn't she deny him? She'd never had qualms about doing that before so Jimin didn't know what the difference was now. Unless someone said something to her, spread a false rumor or put an idea in her head that it was better to ignore him.

The secrecy, no answers, and his wolf's growing anticipation had him on edge. Y/n had led them along so quickly that they were already on her street and approaching her home. Clearly she was dying to get away from him and maybe he should let her.

Maybe—

Two cold hands flew over his eyes, slapping him on the face and jerking his head back as he stumbled to a halt. Instantly he was able to identify them as Y/n's and opened his mouth to question the sudden assault, but was stopped by her shaky and stuttering voice.

"Y-you can't-you can't l-look. Okay? Ju-just listen. Please?"

His fingers twitched as he held up both hands in defeat. Completely lost but willing to stretch any which way she asked of him. That was where he was.

"I'm listening." Although it was a pointless move with her still covering them, he closed his eyes beneath her hands in obedience, waiting for whatever it was she wanted him to hear.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

A full minute passed and the only sound to reach his ears was the gentle wind nipping at the tip of his nose and the fast pacing of her heartbeat. A slight scratch of gravel as she shifted her feet. The distant sound of a dog barking.

"I..." she hesitated once more before she was one step closer and he inhaled sharply at the proximity. He had yet to lower his hands from where he held them in surrender, too afraid to move and scare her off.

Another moment of waiting where she huffed slowly and leaned in to whisper, so fast and so low he almost missed it.

But he didn't.

"I like you." in the next second a soft kiss was planted on jaw, just short of his cheek. The feel of her hands left his face and the telltale sign of running met his ears. He opened his eyes just in time to catch sight of a few strands of her hair flying behind her and into the apartment building.

—
Edited 7/30/22