｡꙳☼moon jar｡☽ ｡꙳|| jikook ||

｡꙳☼15｡☽ ｡꙳

Jungkook barely slept last night, his mind too full of the vivid image of Jimin blood stained and dancing around the fire. When he did manage to sleep his dreams revolved around it too.

He’s the last to leave the warmth of the tent in the morning, his body aching and fuzzy as he heads outside. It’s a routine now, how he skulks up to Miyoung to crouch by her side while they eat breakfast.

Everyday she nudges her shoulder into his, but doesn’t try to touch more than that. He likes it, likes being just close enough to feel the warmth of her.

This morning though, he shoots his head up at the touch of her shoulder against his.

He frowns.

Something leapt in the pit of the belly at the small push, something coiled low in his gut. For a second the green of the forest burns into his eyes and he hears a rush of sound. Then it’s gone.

He shakes his head.

‘You left that last night, when you scarpered,’ she nudges him again, ‘you’re lucky your Jimin isn’t too prideful.’

Jungkook looks up to see the carcass of the deer. Now skinned and hanging from the corner of the awning they sit under. ‘I took the liberty of starting to prepare it, the hide is ready to work on too.’

‘You didn’t have to do that…’

‘Yes, I did. Can’t leave a carcass even an hour without it spoiling. And I didn’t think you were quite ready to be eating it raw.’

Jungkook’s stomach churns.

‘No.’ He grimaces. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s no problem, pup. I barely sleep these days, it kept me occupied in the long hours of the night. I’ll help you prepare the rest if you want?’

‘What should I do with it?’

‘We could cure and smoke the meat, best way to preserve it. And I can show you how to treat the fur, it’s a skill you should learn anyway, but there’s something special about doing so for the first time on a treasured gift.’

‘Is that what it is?’

‘It’s what it should be.’ She smiles at him. ‘But I don’t think you need to force yourself to feel something you’re not ready for. Just trust me that you’ll want the fur. We’ll treat it and then we can fold it up and put it away. Maybe by the winter you’ll be ready for me to show you how to form it into something fit for an alpha’s shoulders, hmm?’

Jungkook snorts and they don’t say anything more while they eat.

From the first day to now, Miyoung is perhaps the only person he’s had truly honest conversations with. She’s so perceptive that she never outright asks him a thing, so he never has to lie in return. Instead, she just says something he needs to hear and they both let it hang in the air around them.

After breakfast, they carve all the meat from the deer and Jungkook can’t help being grateful that Miyoung had already dealt with the head, hooves and guts. They slice the meat into strips and pack them in salt to take to the smokehouse in the village.

The hide is rolled tightly in a wooden bucket and Miyoung takes it out with utter reverence, sinking her fingers into the tawny, orange-brown fur.

‘We need to remove the flesh,’ she says, ‘for some it’s the worst bit but I personally like how time consuming it is. Come, this way.’

They walk only a few minutes from their camp before they emerge into another much smaller clearing, filled with tools and racks hung with furs and animal hides. It smells strongly and Jungkook feels his jaw tighten as he tries to process the assault of it.

Like ammonia, leather and fur.

There's a large slab of stone to the edge of the clearing and Miyoung spreads the hide across it, fur down and raw flesh exposed to them.

‘Come watch me, pup,’ she beckons, grasping a large flat knife from a bucket on the floor. ‘We have to remove every little bit of flesh, until it looks like this, see, just the pure white of the skin. But you need to be delicate. If you push too hard you’ll make holes and at best it’ll make an ugly fur, at worst it will be ruined. But at the same time, if you leave even a tiny speck of flesh the whole thing could spoil.’

She brings the knife down, pressed at an angle into her palm, and scrapes it across the flesh which comes away with the blade. She works at the same small section while Jungkook watches over her shoulder until the patch of hide is left clear and white and smooth.

‘Take a knife,’ she gestures at the bucket, ‘sit there.’

Jungkook does as she says.

At first his hand feels clumsy on the blade, not comfortable with the angle needed so as not to rip the hide, but he works slowly and carefully and soon starts to relax.

The more peculiar thing is the return of that same curled tightness in his belly that he felt over breakfast.

He expected to feel a little squeamish of the raw flesh, of the feel and smell and texture, seeing as he was so used to his meat being provided to him divorced from the animal it came from and wrapped in plastic and labels.

But, he finds he likes the smell. Even more he feels an unfamiliar ache in his jaw and under his tongue. When the wind comes through the trees just right and the smell of the raw flesh assaults his nose he feels his head spin - but instead of being overwhelmed he feels sharp.

‘It’s a fine fur.’ Miyoung says approvingly.

They’ve been working on it for a long time, hours even. The sun is hot and high above them, though they’re shaded by the tree canopy.

‘I’m not sure I deserve it.’ He answers before he really means to.

She fixes him with a shrewd look.

‘No?’

‘Taehyung said it was a great honour, don’t think I deserve that.’ He shrugs.

Miyoung laughs and goes back to fleshing the hide.

‘I bet he was a brat about it too. Kim Taehyung was born with this mountain already bowing for him, he’ll always see the world through his own frame.’

‘Maybe he’s right though. Jimin is a good man, isn’t he? And I’m not…’

He drags the knife towards him, scouring a slice of muscle from the hide. He doesn’t feel the need to elaborate, Miyoung is shrewd and she knows that much about him. She just hums and they’re quiet for a few minutes before she speaks again.

‘Many, many winters ago, I was given the kill from the first hunt of the full moon too.’ Miyoung says. ‘It was a beautiful buck hare. Strong and golden and proud. And I treated the hide like this and turned it into a beautiful cap that I gave to the alpha that hunted it for me. Then we were mated on the next full moon.’

‘You think I’m going to be swayed by a love story?’ Jungkook smiles.

‘Who said anything about a love story?’ She grins back, though it holds a darkness in it. ‘Why do you think I’m here? Raising everybody else’s lost and abandoned pups year on year?’

‘Why are you?’

‘Because I was never able to have my own.’ She sighs, pausing above the fur. ‘My alpha only wore that hare fur cap for two winters before he put a pup in someone else to confirm the problem was me and not him. The next winter after that I was moved to the camp, too old for anybody else and not appealing anymore with an old mating mark fading back into the skin on my neck.’

Jungkook looks at her in shock.

‘Is, uh…do you think that’s comforting?’ He asks her, mouth dropped open.

Miyoung looks up, catches his eyes and then bursts into laughter. For some reason he joins her. They laugh until tears form in the corner of their eyes.

Then they go back to working on the fur.

‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ he murmurs after a while.

Miyoung nods.

‘What I meant,’ she adds, ‘is that we can’t ever control how things go, Jungkook-ah. Don’t miss out on something good while you try to.’