｡꙳☼moon jar｡☽ ｡꙳|| jikook ||

｡꙳☼7｡☽ ｡꙳

Desperate not to just sit around, Jungkook helps with clearing away the breakfast. Raon's older sister, Mari, takes him down to the stream and shows him how they wash the bowls with sand.

While they work, Raon plays in the stream. She charges around kicking up sprays of water and singing to herself as she does. Jungkook can’t help smiling at her.

When he looks back, Mari dips her head conspicuously from where she had obviously been staring at him.

She seems a little bit confused by him, wary even, like she doesn’t know how to act around him. Whether it’s because he's a terrible wolf or a terrible omega - or both - he can't fathom.

‘You can ask me, you know.’ He says, reaching out to drop the clean bowl into their basket and pick up another of the dirty ones.

‘What?’

‘You have questions, ask them. I won’t snap at you.’ He pushes.

‘Won’t you? That seems like your thing…’

Jungkook snorts, trust the sharp honesty of a teenage girl to read him.

‘I won’t snap at you…or Raon.’

As he mentions her she kicks a spray of water into his face and then crouches down in front of him, tipping her head to the side and pulling a face, tongue stuck out.

‘My sister wants to ask why you don’t smell…apart from of Jimin-ssi of course…’ Raon grins, gesturing at her embarrassed looking older sister, ‘you’re creeping her out.’ She sings-songs, then flops backwards, plonking her butt onto the stream bed and not seeming to care she’s sitting in a few inches of cold water in clothes.

‘Oh, well. I was taking, uh, medicine, before I came here that made me seem like I was a human and not a wolf. So I only smell as much as humans do, of normal things around us, but not very much of just me.’

‘Why did you have to take it?’ Mari asks, eyes wide.

‘I was living in a human city, in Seoul? And it was safer to pretend I was human too.’

‘But you don’t need to pretend anymore, right? So you’ll stop taking the medicine.’ She asks.

‘Yep.’

‘And then you’ll have a scent?’

‘Guess so…’

‘Hmm, Alpha Jimin will like you more when your scent comes back.’ Mari nods, seeming happy at the thought and going back to her washing up.

‘You don’t think he likes me enough already?’ Jungkook says with a laugh.

‘What alpha wouldn’t have taken you in right away?’ Raon cuts in. ‘He must be waiting to see if you’ll make a good enough omega.’

‘Which I very much doubt I will.’ Jungkook sighs, feeling a little sad at how perturbed both of them look at the thought.

So young and that’s already all they care about, he thinks.

After he finishes helping clear up, he finds himself alone again, sitting on the mats under the kitchen awning and waiting. He hates waiting.

And he hates waiting for his alpha more than anything else.

So he decides not to.

He can head into the main village on his own, it’s fairly obvious which way it is because there’s a broad swathe cut through the trees and it seems to be the direction everybody from the camp heads to.

Perhaps he will be able to register without Jimin, whatever that means. Even if he can't, at least he can look around the village.

He’s right and it’s pretty easy to find his way along the path through the trees, the ground worn flat and smooth by the passing of endless feet.