Parfait

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was a long week.

There were bubbles of tension at home, moments that seemed strangely stilted but never turned into true conflict. Hana found herself avoiding the topic of a second omega with any alpha besides Namjoon. Some of the others seemed fine with the idea, on the surface, but she noticed patterns that suggested otherwise. Jimin and Jungkook always became even more clingy to her when the topic came up, which was quite a feat. Yoongi spoke rationally about the benefits but never could look her in the eye while he did. Seokjin always had a quick joke or topic change on standby. And Taehyung, well, his feelings had been made clear.

Hoseok? He was his own problem. She could not even guess how he felt about a new omega coming in, because that would have required him to speak to her in full sentences. It wasn't that he was avoiding her entirely, but the quality and quantity of his attention had changed. Hoseok was still there for a quick scenting in the morning, like the rest of the alphas, and on the rare occasions he was there for a meal he still partook with the rest and even thanked Hana for cooking with a seemingly genuine smile. But he was absent from cuddles on the couch, hurried through his turns in the bathroom that they shared, and notably ceased all flirting and teasing. Hana may have been the first to notice the changes, but such a drastic difference couldn't go unnoticed by the rest of the pack for long.

Unfortunately, none of them seemed to know what to do either. "He says he's working on it," Yoongi tried to reassure her. But he seemed disquieted after watching Hoseok hurry out of the room during breakfast and he moved to sit next to Hana until they both finished their coffee.

"He'll talk about it when he's ready," Seokjin said when the dancer disappeared right after dinner. He stuck to Hana's side for the rest of the night, even when it meant helping with dishes for the second day in a row.

"I'm worried about him," Jimin confessed under the covers of his bed. He had invited her to stay with him to see if Hoseok could handle it, but his roommate had vacated for the night without being asked. Hana was unsurprised by this reaction, but Jimin's next admission did catch her off guard. "Hobi-hyung hasn't been acting like his usual self since you got here. But at least before now, he was happy."

"What do you mean?" she asked, an icy tendril of dread curling in her belly. She had been thinking she wanted her confident and playful Hoseok back- but if that was not his usual self, who would she find instead?

"He's been..." Jimin seemed to struggle with his words, finally huffing out a small chuckle. "I'm sure it's going to sound funny, but he's been very alpha." Naturally, Hana's first reaction was to think that he was an alpha; but she had a feeling this was not what Jimin meant, so she waited patiently. "Hyung doesn't normally care about dominance or anything. He would make jokes about being a beta with a knot and I think he kind of meant it. That's how chill he usually is."

"No one seemed to mind, though," Hana observed. She would have expected a sudden rise in dominant behaviors to cause upheaval among the pack. But Jimin just nodded.

"He's never tried to muscle his way into the pack hierarchy, but he earned it anyway," he explained patiently. "If Hobi-hyung wants to growl at me a little bit now, well, there are probably a lot of times he had the right to do it and didn't, so I won't complain. And like I said, he was happy. But it is still different... and now this."

"I'm sorry." She ducked her head to hide herself under his chin, seeking out his vanilla scent to soothe herself. "I'm supposed to be here to support the pack, not cause problems like this."

"Hey, sweetie, stop that," Jimin scolded her lightly, even as he curled further around her to enable her to burrow. "You didn't cause this. You've been so good to us."