UNTILL I MET YOU || JIKOOK

27

JUNGKOOK POV

Jungkook kept running the event of the morning over and over in his mind.

His glove worked, Jimin was a shapeshifter, he'd been taken by pirates...

Jimin was a shapeshifter.

The doctor had stitched his hand and chided he for being careless and wandering the shores alone.

He let the words wash over him.

There was so much to think about. His glove had worked.

Jimin burst into the parlor, all energy and agitation.

The mood of the room shifted, the doctor and servant on edge, both of them leaving as quickly as possible.

And then Jungkook was alone with his husband.

His shapeshifter husband.

Jimin reached into his pocket and pulled out the glove.

"Tell me what this is."

It cut right through Jungkook's shock, straight through the thrill of his success, and carved a swathe of fear through his heart.

He opened his mouth to speak, to lie or deflect or do something to move the alpha's attention onto anything but this.

But Jimin was laser-focused.

There'd be no talking his way out of it.

His heart was in his mouth, pounding in time with the pulsing pain in his palm as the alpha crossed the room toward him.

"I... It's... I didn't..."

Each sentence he tried to start trailed off unfinished as the alpha got closer and closer.

And then Jimin was kneeling in front of him, right down on the floor, so that Jungkook was looking down at the alpha, not up.

"You're not in any trouble, I'm not angry with you."

"I just need to understand."

"What is this?"

"How did you get it?"

" What happened on that boat?"

Jimin's voice was impossibly gentle, as if he knew the terror running through Jungkook's veins.

It was too much to take in.

Was Jimin really not angry?

Would he truly listen to what he had to say?

There was only one way to find out.

"I made it."

"You made it?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

He could lie, couldn't he?

It looked like jewelry, so he'd just say that's what it was.

But he found that he didn't want to lie to Jimin, to be forced to hide what he was doing.

Maybe they'd banish him, send him home to his father or maybe they'd never let him practice alchemy ever again.

But that was the risk he'd have to take.

"For practice."

"You made it for practice?" Jimin repeated slowly, as if trying to make sense of the words.

"I've been teaching myself for years. I only had a tiny bit of celestial silver, so I could never do much."

"But I found some here, in an old storeroom. I didn't think anyone would miss it." He was babbling, but he couldn't seem to stop.