Parfait

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hana knew the signs of her own heat very well. The alphas thought that she was going on the day that she had a shivering surge of fever that lasted almost an hour, but she told them to stay calm. "Another day or so," she concluded after it passed, and she got to work making gimbap. Her alphas questioned why, tried to urge her to rest, but she insisted. "No more protein bars. These will be refreshing. If Jungkook and I are both under the fever, the food will have to be tempting or we just won't eat. I have always made gimbap for my heats."

Seokjin stepped up and pulled on a pair of gloves, asking what she needed next. Of course he would not hear it when she protested his help. "This time, you have to teach us your favorite recipes," he said as he picked up a knife to start chopping the vegetables. "But in the future, you aren't making your own meals right before your heat, when you should be resting."

"That's what a pack is for in the first place," Yoongi agreed, already laying out the ingredients in assembly line fashion.

Her shivers after that had nothing to do with a fever.

The next day she woke up and had an immediate, overwhelming urge to remake her nest. That was how she knew. "Wake up, oppa," she said, shaking Jimin urgently. He blinked groggily at her, but managed to understand when he looked at her pink-tinged cheeks. "Today is the day."

He sat up quickly, shaking off his fatigue. "What do you need?"

"I need to get some of this out of the nest. Anything that will be hard to clean first, and then I might have to take even more." Hana was already gathering items that she wanted out, but she was struggling when it came time to exit with them. "But... you might have to make me. My instincts want me to build the nest bigger, not take it apart."

"I don't want to distress you," Jimin said hesitantly. Then he seemed to have an idea. "Do you want to build a new one somewhere else instead?"

She mulled over the idea for a moment, then nodded. "Big one?"

"As big as you can make it," he agreed. With that goal in mind she happily handed over a pile of nesting materials, and carried her own armload to the living room too.

As soon as she was settled, Jimin began waking up the rest of the pack- or at least he tried. Jungkook was hot to the touch, and rolled over with a loud groan instead of waking. His scent wafted up from the sheets in powerful waves of sharp pomegranate. The signs of pre-rut were unmistakable, and it would be best to let him sleep while he could. Jimin huffed in frustration for just a moment to see that it was true, the maknae and their omega had synchronous cycles; a quick touch of his fingertips to the fading bite mark on his wrist reminded him that it was okay.

So did the sight of Hana building an enormous nest when he returned to the living room. The edges were already marked by tentative piles of pillows and lines of blankets. She had enlisted Yoongi to move the coffee table to prop up one wall, but she was struggling to decide its placement. Taehyung was standing to the side, watching silently and worrying his lip between his teeth. "Do you want to help?" Jimin asked his yearmate quietly. "The worst she can say is no."

"I don't want to intrude," Tae replied, but his eyes darted around the haphazard piles of pillows and blankets that had a long way to go before they could be called a nest. He was visibly tense, fingers flexing open and closed.

"It's a big job, she will probably welcome the help." Jimin gave his friend a quick back rub, then a gentle shove, but it was hardly needed. Taehyung eagerly trotted forward and knelt next to one of the pillow heaps, trying to look non-threatening.

"I think I can fix that problem," he said softly. "If you're okay with that."

"Yes, please," Hana agreed, and Taehyung smiled as he asked Yoongi to put the table up against the end of the sofa. Soon he and the omega were easily trading ideas for construction, and the walls began to take their shape.