Chapter Text
Ah, well, the voice in Jungkook’s ears said, barely above a whisper. He could hear a soft wet sound, maybe the speaker licking his lips or swallowing. Such is life. Goodnight, my friend.
He scowled down at his phone, hoping his face didn’t betray his pounding heart and swelling cock. There weren’t many people on the train at this hour. Just a couple teenagers talking louder than they should down at the end of the car and a young woman across from Jungkook, listing sideways in her seat, earbuds in, eyes mostly closed, one of her pointy-toed high-heeled shoes hanging half off her foot. She startled awake when the train tilted as it rounded a bend and straightened up momentarily before her eyelids slipped closed again. She didn’t look at Jungkook—a relief because he could tell from the heat in his face that he was blushing hard. He took a slow, deep breath and dragged his phone’s slider back half a minute.
And sometimes I wonder, the voice said again, low and soft in a way that made heat prickle at the back of Jungkook’s neck and throb behind the zip of his trousers, not to make everything about math, but if there are almost eight billion people in the world and almost two billion of them are betas… The voice trailed off and Jungkook listened to another of those wet sounds and then a shaky exhale. Isn’t there one somewhere who would want what I want? Isn’t there one beta out there who would want to slip his little cock inside an alpha and fuck him until he knots his own hand? Another protracted breath. Surely someone, somewhere? A huff that might have been a wry laugh or a forceful sigh. Ah, well…
The train’s alert tones sounded over Jungkook’s head and the recording for his stop played. He pressed pause and stood, shifting from foot to foot, hands clasped in front of his hips and swaying as the train slid into the station. The sleepy woman’s shoe was barely dangling from the tips of her toes now, and her head had tipped forward, chin resting against her chest. He hoped she wouldn’t miss her stop.
It was a short walk to his family’s apartment. He zipped his jacket up to his chin, pulled his beanie lower over his ears, and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. He wanted to rewind the podcast and listen again, but he resisted. But that didn’t mean the words left his mind. The one beta out of two million, somewhere in the world. He was that beta. And the alpha whose voice whispered in his ear every Monday night? Well, he wasn’t around, but surely he wasn’t the only one with those fantasies. What if another alpha, someone Jungkook knew…
He shook his head forcefully and punched the entry code into his building’s security panel, humming along with the panel’s little tune.
Jungkook’s parents were asleep, as expected, so he dropped his backpack in his room and headed straight for the shower. Needles of scalding water pounded against his shoulders, and he tipped his head back to let his hair get soaked through before he let himself relax into the recollection of the words: slip his little cock inside an alpha. He dragged a hand down his chest until it met the faint trail of fine hairs beneath his navel. He held back then and thought it through again: Isn’t there one beta out there... He waited until the vision of those eyes, their usual good humor made dark and hungry by desire, solidified in his mind before he let himself move on ...fuck him until he knots his own hand.
Almost before he could get a hand around himself and give a couple desperate jerks, he was coming with a groan. He bit down on his lip hard to stifle any louder sounds and gave himself a minute or maybe more to catch his breath. The water was running tepid when he finally gathered himself to wash the evidence down the drain, and he turned the tap colder to bring himself back to the reality of his dreary job, not enough money to move out on his own, no one to climb into bed with at the end of the day.
And a long week ahead before another Monday.
__
“Sorry I’m a little late,” Namjoon said, patting at the sweat at his temples with his shirt cuff and fanning the lapels of his uniform jacket, releasing puffs of rich, warm, woody alpha scent strong enough for even Jungkook to pick up. He was exactly on time according to Jungkook’s phone. Normally, he was a few minutes early, which meant Jungkook could finish up his last duties and be on his way to the train before the podcast posted. But it was fine. For Namjoon, he would happily wait a few extra minutes.
“No problem, Namjoon-ssi,” he replied. Yes, Namjoon had said one time that Jungkook could call him hyung, but that had been the day they met and Jungkook was awkward and intimidated by the dimples, and it felt too soon and too much, and once he’d let the opportunity pass, he didn’t know how to reclaim the offered intimacy.
So he ceded the front desk to Namjoon, rolled the mail cart out of its storage closet and loaded the evening’s packages on it like he did at the change of shift every night. He drew in a deep breath when he rolled it past Namjoon—opening his mouth to taste the scent that was laced through all his most secret fantasies. He held the scent inside until his lungs were burning for air and he finally had to release the essence of Namjoon into the sterile, stale elevator.
Hardly any of the offices were occupied this late at night, so he headed straight for the community space on each floor, a bare-bones kitchenette, a wall of storage cabinets, some of them labeled as belonging to a specific office suite, and cubbies for mail. Aside from the few minutes he got to hang out with Namjoon at shift change, this was his favorite part of the night. He liked the quiet routine of it, riding the elevator, pushing the cart, slotting the mail into the correct cubby. He liked observing the personality of each floor in the building: the deluxe cappuccino maker on three where a law firm had the entire floor; the ever-changing assortment of hard candies in a scuffed silver bowl on four; the sink perpetually stacked with tea-stained mugs on five; the lingering sweet milky scent of the chiropractic suites on six that he used to believe was aromatherapy until he shared the elevator with the omega massage therapist once.
On seven, he sometimes ran into a distractingly handsome man who he’d thought for the first couple months he worked here must be a celebrity client of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers, but who turned out to be one of the actual bookkeepers. The floor was dark tonight, the hall lights only snapping on when he rolled his cart out of the elevator. One of these days he was going to satisfy his curiosity about which Kim the night owl was, and whether the other Kim took the morning shift.
When Jungkook rolled his empty cart back into the closet, Namjoon turned his book face down and stood to let Jungkook reach under the desk to retrieve his backpack, and when he knocked into the rolling chair upon straightening up and staggered slightly, Namjoon grabbed his upper arm to steady him.
“Whoa,” Namjoon said, squeezing Jungkook’s arm a little more firmly. “Been working out?”
“Oh, yeah, um,” he stammered, going warm in the face and trying not to be too obvious about puffing his chest out, “I go to the gym a few times a week.” Namjoon was still feeling his biceps, now with both hands, and Jungkook couldn’t stop himself from flexing slightly. It was ridiculous because Namjoon’s biceps were twice the size of Jungkook’s. In fact, everything about Namjoon was twice the size, he thought, refusing to let himself look down at the fabric of Namjoon’s uniform trousers stretched snug across his thighs or the bulge that confirmed his alpha status if his scent alone didn’t. “It isn’t far from here, actually,” he said, finding a reserve of boldness he didn’t know he possessed. “Maybe I could show you. Since you live in the neighborhood. You said.” Did he sound like a stalker? Namjoon had said he lived a couple minutes away. He’d mentioned it more than once. “We could work out together. Like gym buddies. If you want.” His mouth went dry at Namjoon’s dimpled smile. “Not that you need to work out. I mean, obviously.” His eyes drifted down to the buttons straining to hold the front of Namjoon’s shirt closed over his magnificent chest.
“I don’t know if the timing would work,” Namjoon said, finally turning Jungkook’s arms loose. “Since I work the overnight shift.”
Jungkook was on the verge of offering to quit this job and find one that aligned better with Namjoon’s schedule before he caught himself. He swallowed down any further thoughts of groveling. Namjoon would never fall for someone that uncool.
“Yeah, of course.” Jungkook gave a jerky half shrug and then tried to cover the twitchiness of the movement by repeating it and shrugging out of his uniform jacket. He rolled it up and stuffed it in his backpack, trying to see in his peripheral vision whether Namjoon was noticing that he’d also been working on his pecs, but Namjoon had turned back to his book. “Okay then,” he said, and Namjoon looked up vacantly, like he’d forgotten Jungkook was still there. “Have a good night.”
“’Night.”
He waited until he was down the block, around the corner and out of sight to pull his jacket back out and put it on with numb, icy fingers. Not that Namjoon would have been watching. Ah well, he thought, digging deeper in his backpack for his beanie. Such is life.
Which reminded him—in the heat of his moment with Namjoon, he had forgotten all about the podcast. He pulled out his phone and swiped open his notifications, but there was nothing. He was even late today by almost 20 minutes, but there was no new episode.
He stopped walking and huddled against the shuttered doorway of a bank. In the last two years, there had only been two weeks without an update, and they were both over Chuseok, when presumably the host had been with family and unable to record. And both times, he’d announced the week ahead that there would be a break.
Maybe he was just late today, Jungkook told himself. Probably delayed for some reason, and he’d post in the next few minutes. But his phone was still silent when he got on the train and when he got off at his stop and when he checked it before his shower and after and ten times between then and when he finally turned it face down on his bedside table and redirected his focus to the memory of Namjoon’s hands around his arm, and the possibility of maybe, one day, around his waist, or even, he thought with a shiver, around his cock. And with that happy thought, he fell asleep.
__
After stressing about the mysterious disappearance of his podcaster friend all week, Jungkook was on edge when Monday rolled around again and was grateful that Namjoon had resumed his usual schedule of arriving 15 minutes early so Jungkook could get a jump on mail deliveries and be out the door in time for the update. Assuming there was an update. He was going to stay positive.
He was determined to stay positive despite Namjoon not having touched him again since that night a week ago, even though he’d been working out harder than ever and he felt sure it showed in the way his uniform shirt sat across his shoulders and chest. If only he could think of a reason to untuck it and flash Namjoon his abs, maybe they could pick up again where they left off last week, but what excuse could he possibly make for stripping down in the lobby of their office building?
This was the thought preoccupying him when he nearly rammed his mail cart into the pretty omega massage therapist from six who was trying to leave the elevator at the same time he was trying to enter. He backed his cart away just in time and bowed repeatedly as she passed him, her heels clicking delicately on the tile floor. The elevator reeked of vanilla milkshake, overpowering Namjoon’s scent as soon as Jungkook took his first breath.
It was a light day for mail, and he was getting through the deliveries quickly. All he could think about was getting out in time to listen to the podcast as soon as it posted. He had decided the host must have met someone. Why else skip a week except to build a new relationship with that one perfect beta he’d found somehow. Fate, most likely. The way he and Namjoon were fated. A kind, smart, handsome alpha who just happened to work his same job? Who he happened to see every day? What was that if not fate throwing them together? If only fate would hurry up and do its work.
The building was quiet, as usual this late on a Monday, and Jungkook was laser focused on emptying the mail cart and clocking out. He didn’t even pause to count the dirty cups in the sink on five. He had just pressed the elevator call button after his deliveries on seven when the heavy wooden door to Kim & Kim Bookkeepers opened and the night owl stepped up next to him, a messenger bag slung across his body.
“Evening,” he said with a nod, his voice and smile cheery despite the late hour, and pressed a hand to the open elevator door to let Jungkook wheel his cart in first.
“Good evening, sajangnim. There was a package for you,” Jungkook recalled. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here or I’d have brought it to your office.”
Kim (or Kim) waved a dismissive hand and pressed the ground floor button. “Don’t worry. Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
He held the door again at the ground floor, so he was a step behind when Jungkook stopped walking. He crashed into Jungkook’s back, knocking him forward so his shins smacked against the cart, but the pain was nothing compared to the gash that opened up in his heart at the sight in front of him.
“Oh god, sorry,” Kim said, and at his exclamation, Namjoon pulled back from the pretty omega from six, who half turned away, wiping at the edges of her lips. Namjoon cleared his throat and brushed a hand over his own mouth but didn’t move back behind the desk as he obviously should have done after being caught in a compromising position at work with one of the tenants. Kim had gone quiet behind him, presumably because he finally noticed what Namjoon was getting up to in the lobby in public with the omega massage therapist from six.
“Jungkook-ssi,” Namjoon said with a smile that looked nervous but not nearly as nervous as it should have been under the circumstances. It seemed like he was waiting for Jungkook to continue across the lobby like he would have done on any other Monday night, but he was immobilized by shock and horror, halfway between the elevator and the security desk. Namjoon looked between Jungkook and the omega from six and then took her by the hand and led her across the lobby toward the place where Jungkook was standing, fingers growing white with the force of his grip on the mail cart. “Jungkook-ssi,” Namjoon repeated. The omega from six was blushing and taking twice as many mincing steps as it should have taken to cross the few meters. “This isn’t exactly how…” He cleared his throat again. “Jungkook-ssi, this is my fiance, Lim Soyun.” The omega from six dipped into a quick bow and then shuffled sideways on her clicky high heels so she was mostly behind Namjoon.
“What?” Jungkook said, not because he didn’t hear Namjoon’s words but because they didn’t work together in any way that made sense.
“I…we…you know how it can be with workplace romances,” Namjoon said, but Jungkook absolutely did not know anything about workplace romances. “We were keeping it quiet.” He turned to look at the omega from six, who smiled up at him. She was really very, very much shorter than Namjoon, which had to be uncomfortable for both of them—a thought Jungkook did not need to have in his head ever. “But I’m relieved,” Namjoon said with a sort of laugh. “It was kind of hard not mentioning it.” He exchanged another gross smile with the omega from six and Jungkook’s stomach turned over.
And finally, finally, Jungkook unstuck his feet from where they had grown roots into the lobby floor and swiveled the mail cart in a tight 180, mumbling something about a forgotten delivery. He almost hit Kim, who was for some reason still standing just behind him, and who loudly (and confusingly) exclaimed, “A package for me, you say? Yes, I need that package urgently, right away. Where did you say you left it? Please take me to it immediately,” and followed Jungkook back into the elevator.
Jungkook ran the mail cart all the way against the elevator’s back wall and turned sideways to rest his forehead against the cool paneling. Vaguely, behind the roar of blood in his ears, he heard the doors slide closed and the soft whoosh of the car ascending. At the tone, he forced himself upright and dragged the cart through the doors which, once again, Kim was holding open. And then he stopped, stranded again in the elevator lobby on some floor that looked exactly like every other floor in the building but thankfully didn’t smell like the milkshake omega, so it couldn’t have been six.
“Here,” Kim said, taking Jungkook’s mail cart away from him and wheeling it into the break room. Jungkook followed because following was all his brain was capable of compelling his body to do. Kim took him by the arm and guided him into one of three gray molded-plastic chairs at the tiny speckled gray break room table and sank into the chair next to him. “So,” he offered, and blew out an impressive puff of breath.
The table had a faint brown coffee ring that was probably sticky. Jungkook thought about dragging his fingertip over it to check, but his arms were leaden and lifting them for any reason other than to punch himself in the face was a nonstarter.
Kim reached out and patted Jungkook’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“What?” Jungkook said, which apparently was the only word he was capable of producing anymore.
“I’m sorry. It sucks.”
Jungkook was skeptical that Kim of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers could possibly have any concept of how profoundly inadequate “sucks” was to describe the black hole of hopelessness that had replaced Jungkook’s internal organs, but if effort was all that counted, he supposed Kim of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers was…
Well, he was kind. He’d rescued Jungkook from a nightmare without even knowing him more than to say hello to and without really knowing what was going on. And now he was sitting here while Jungkook’s dreams fell to pieces around him when he could be…doing whatever movie star-handsome bookkeepers do after work on a Monday. Jungkook needed to pull himself together and thank this man who had started making weird noises that sounded like they might be a video game soundtrack if the video game was of the horror genre and meant for children under five.
“Thank you, sajangnim. Um…which one are you?” he finally asked.
The video noises cut off abruptly. “Sorry?”
“Kim and Kim. Which are you?”
“Oh, I’m Kim,” Kim said, and after a lengthy pause with an unwavering grave expression, he slapped his knee, doubling over in unnecessarily loud laughter. “Sorry,” he said again, and the laughter vanished as if it had never existed. “There’s only me. I’m Kim. Kim Seokjin,” he clarified. “The other Kim is for symmetry.” He waited for Jungkook to respond, and when he didn’t, he said slowly, as if Jungkook’s silence was a failure of comprehension, “There isn’t another Kim. I’m the only one. Well,” another too-loud laugh, “obviously not the only one, but the only one in my business. It was an aesthetic choice.”
It was too complicated for Jungkook to address in this moment of crisis, so he deflected to, “You work late, sajangnim.”
Kim Seokjin hummed. “What is life if you can’t sleep in.”
Jungkook supposed he could agree with that. He’d been offered an earlier shift once but had turned it down for the same reason.
Kim Seokjin stood and disappeared from Jungkook’s line of sight. He was too drained to turn his head to see where he’d gone, but he was back in a moment with the package Jungkook had left on the counter below the mail cubbies for him. He started picking at the edge of the tape with his fingernail. It would be faster to use the knife that’s left out next to the sink half the time, Jungkook was too exhausted to suggest, so he watched the slow progress of peeling an edge of tape up and stripping it off the box. Inside was another box with a picture of something sleek and techy-looking on the outside that Jungkook didn’t get a close look at before Kim Seokjin was closing the flaps again and resticking the strip of tape sloppily across the seam.
Jungkook closed his eyes and sagged forward, almost laying his forehead on the table before he remembered the sticky spot.
“I know you’re hurting right now, but you’re taking it really well. Plenty of guys would have punched him.”
Jungkook looked up, alarmed. “I would never!” He drew a hard line at fists. Spank him? No problem. Edge him until he cried? Absolutely. Mock his big alpha dick to watch him blush? If he was into that, of course.
But these thoughts only led him down that same old path to his lonely bed in his parents’ apartment and the growing likelihood that fate had overlooked him entirely. He buried his face in his hands and sighed heavily.
“No, no, I can tell. You’re a good guy. And listen, you’re handsome, a hard worker, personable. You seem like the kind of guy everyone loves. I know we’ve barely met, but I have solid instincts about this kind of thing. You’re going to get past this and find someone else.”
“I don’t know.”
It was hard to imagine ever getting past the gut punch of seeing the man of his dreams, a smart, handsome alpha who didn’t treat betas like they’re invisible, the man he’d been trying to charm in five-minute increments for a year, kissing someone else—an omega after all—and then learning they were engaged. But what choice did he have? It was never going to happen, whatever he may have imagined. Namjoon wasn’t interested in betas. Namjoon liked omegas. So he had to get over it, like Kim Seokjin of Kim & Kim said.
“I guess,” he said with no conviction behind it.
“No, you have to be more determined than that. You will get past this.”
Jungkook sighed. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, what do you say, ready to brave the lobby again?”
Jungkook still felt like all the energy had been drained out of him, but Kim Seokjin had been kind enough to extricate him from the most horrifying moment of his imaginative love life, and he shouldn’t take advantage of his generosity any longer, so he forced himself back to his feet.
As they waited once more in the elevator lobby on seven, Kim Seokjin said, “Tell you what. I’ll drop this off,” he laid a hand on the mail cart, “and you take the side exit.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Happy to do it.” Kim Seokjin kept his eyes on the digital display as the elevator made its quiet way downward. “I know it feels awful right now, but you’ll move on. Honestly, it’s a wonder anyone ever finds their match in a world with almost eight billion people spread all over the globe, but somehow people do.” A chill came over Jungkook and his eyes snapped to Kim Seokjin’s face. “It sucks when you think you’ve found them and then they…” The elevator doors slid open to the lobby. Kim Seokjin sighed and shook his head. “Ah well,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Such is life.”
Jungkook stood in the open elevator, unmoving, staring at Kim Seokjin of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers like a character from a recurring dream had suddenly become real and appeared in front of him. Because he had.
Kim Seokjin had pushed the mail cart halfway across the elevator’s threshold before he noticed that Jungkook wasn’t following and turned back.“There are at least three billion omegas out there. You’ll find the right one.” He squeezed Jungkook’s shoulder.
“No. What?”
Kim Seokjin raised a warning finger to his own lips and whispered, “They might still be there.” He took hold of Jungkook’s elbow and gently coaxed him forward. “You’ll find your omega, I know it.” And when Jungkook was clear of the elevator but still staring at Kim Seokjin, he nodded toward the side exit. “Have a good night, my friend.”
Jungkook stayed where he was, watching Kim Seokjin push the mail cart, bent forward so his ass stuck out as he walked. Finally, when he rounded the corner out of sight, Jungkook forced himself to take one step after another away from the man who—it was hard to process, but he couldn’t see any other reasonable answer—had been whispering confessions about their shared interest in his ear for almost two years.
__
It couldn’t be. Right? The chances were… It was impossible. With trembling hands, Jungkook dug his phone out of his pocket and checked for a Dumb Alpha update. And it was there. It had updated 37 minutes ago. He stuck his earbuds in his ears, nearly fumbling one onto the subway platform. The first seconds of the episode were drowned out by a train entering the station, but once all the announcements had stopped and he was seated, the quiet voice in his ear emerged over all the other sounds.
…which i completely forgot I had promised my auntie. But I’m back now for the three people out there in the world who tune in to listen.
He felt a little guilty about it, but if the podcaster hadn’t found his fated beta when he was away last week, then the rest of the episode could wait. Jungkook dragged the slider to the last seconds of the recording.
The voice was soft, barely above a whisper, as always, but this time it was familiar.
“...but who can say. We have to keep going until then. What other choice does a dumb alpha have?” A pause. A sigh. “Ah well…such is life.”
Jungkook tapped pause.
Okay.
He could be wrong. It was possible. But not fucking likely. He listened one more time.
“Ah well…” The pause, the breath—it was all familiar. He could almost see Kim Seokjin standing at the threshold of the open elevator, his hair still swooped elegantly over his forehead despite the hour. “...such is life.” He jabbed his finger against the pause button again, heart racing.
How many people said that phrase in exactly that way?
Kim Seokjin of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers on the seventh floor of his own shitty little office building was the beta-positive alpha podcaster he’d been following for two years. It was fate.
It was fine.
That’s what he kept telling himself for the rest of his ride, leg jiggling madly with nerves. That’s what he told himself while he was walking from the subway to his house, far too jittery to listen to the rest of the podcast. That’s what he repeated to himself at least fifty times while he showered off the day’s grime and misery (which didn’t seem nearly as miserable as it had an hour ago).
And then, tucked deep in his bed with his phone under a tented sheet just to make everything feel a little more private, he typed Kim Seokjin, and then, when there were too many hits for even a determined but harmless cyber investigation, he added, bookkeeper.
Kim Seokjin, it turned out, was incredibly ordinary—aside from looking like the star of next year’s hit JTBC drama. His Instagram had a whole series of food pictures with amateurish but still appetizing styling, and numerous selcas of him with much-older men. Jungkook wasn’t sure what to make of that detail. There were also so many fishing pictures that Jungkook decided he’d put too much effort and money into them for it to be anything but a genuine hobby. He didn’t know what to make of that either.
After a solid hour of scrolling Kim Seokjin’s social media and scoping out his professional credentials (business degree, as expected; minor in performing arts was a surprise, but maybe it shouldn’t have been), Jungkook decided that Kim Seokjin was a shockingly ordinary person to be the longtime host of an anonymous kink podcast. Kim Seokjin was a good-looking, boring bookkeeper who spent every Monday whispering to the world about his forbidden sexual fantasies.
And that was hot.
Let Namjoon have his milkshake omega; Jungkook had just stumbled (literally) on the alpha of his dreams and the only thing standing in the way of them making each other blissfully happy forever was the fact that Kim Seokjin didn’t realize he had just met his fated match. Which reminded him—Kim Seokjin thought he was brokenhearted over the omega, not her alpha fiance. Jungkook was going to have to set him straight.
He imagined marching up to seven and confessing that he’d been a devoted listener since Kim Seokjin’s third episode when a late-night Naver search of “alpha submits to beta,” rather than turning up as its first hit a porn link as he’d expected, led him to the Dumb Alpha podcast and its host who, every week, related the latest disappointment in his search for a beta to love.
I know why you stay late every Monday, he’d say.
Kim Seokjin’s eyes would go wide with surprise, and then—
And then probably embarrassment if Jungkook approached him like that, and then, much worse, with fear because he’d think Jungkook was going to out him or blackmail him, and then he’d disappear forever, no more podcasts, and some burly moving guys would come and clear out the offices of Kim & Kim Bookkeepers and that would be the end of the luckiest accident in Jungkook’s life. The end of his one-in-eight-billion fated match.
So that wouldn’t work. He’d have to take a less direct approach, which would probably take a lot longer, but this was fate; no investment of time was too much.