ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ʙᴜɴɴʏ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴠᴇ| Jikook

13

Jimins pov

I wokeup to the purring of Lux at my door, which was odd to say the least. He rarely came inside, and when he did, it was to find Grams, not me.

“I’m coming, silly cat.” I sat up, stretching my arms with a big yawn. I picked up my phone and saw it was ten thirty. No wonder he was at my door. Breakfast time had come and gone.

“Shit.” I popped out of bed and threw some clothes on. I’d considered just getting up after Jungkook and I had our talk, figuring a few hours of sleep wouldn’t be worth it. But then as I lay in bed, my mind started racing with all that had happened, and one hour of sleep became many until I slept through my alarm.

But who could blame me?

I still couldn’t wrap my head around that kiss—how it completely owned me. Which was ridiculous given the man had turned into my freaking pet before my eyes. By any logic on this planet, that should’ve been the confusing part, but somehow, it wasn’t.

Little bits of things Grams had told me started to fall into place as I tried to sleep. This town is different. Treat the animals the way you would want to be treated because you never know. When she said silly things like that, I didn’t question what she meant. But now I couldn’t help wondering just how much she had known all along.

I opened the door, and if anyone had witnessed the action, they’d have thought Lux loved me more than anything. “You’re not fooling me, little one.” I reached down and picked him up. “I know you’re only being sweet for the food.”

“I already fed him.” Jungkook stood in the doorway with a cup of coffee in his hands. He held the cup out for me.

“What time did you get up?” I grabbed the cup and looked at Lux apologetically, setting her down in favor of the liquid energy.

“I couldn’t sleep. I had a lot on my mind.” Lux ran straight to Jungkook and bumped his leg with his head. “I guess he’s mad about the coffee.”

“I’m not.” I took a long sip, and it was perfect. “Is this how you take yours?”

“Naw, I’m a black-no-sugar kind of guy, but I saw you make it every morning, so…” He shrugged and glanced at me. “I thought I could help you feed the animals, and then we could go see Doc.”

“Or I could arrange a house call.”

His smile was agreement enough, so we went to work while we waited for Doc to come visit. We’d barely finished as he drove up the dirt drive.

___

“This is Doc. I won’t say anything about bunnying out, but I think you can trust him.” I gave Jungkook’s shoulder a squeeze and walked to where Doc was parking his car.

“Hey, Doc. Thanks for coming. My friend is over there.” I pointed to Jungkook as he walked toward us, still holding the hay fork.

“I knew it.” Doc beamed with obvious recognition in his eyes. “I knew I scented shifter on you the other day.” He leaned in as Jungkook approached. “And you were going to buy the man a hutch.” He shook his head and chuckled at the idea.

“I didn’t know he was a man then.” How could I have known?

Jungkook looked Doc up and down then gave a nod. “Otter.”

“Bunny.” Doc nodded with a small smile. Great. I was witnessing some kind of supernatural pissing match.

“Human,” I chimed in, trying to be funny but falling horribly short of that goal if the two wide-eyed stares were any indication. “Jungkook is the one with the abandoned car.” I cleared my throat to change the vibe and get them to stop staring at me.

“Were you trapped in rabbit form?” Doc asked, looking at Jungkook from head to toe. “Or were you here for your mate?”

“Mate?” Sure, we kissed, but we hadn’t had sex. Did we look like people who’d had sex? And why would it matter if we did? We were both freaking adults.

“Let me rephrase… Why did you abandon your car?”

We decided to take the conversation inside with a cup of tea...the way Grams would’ve done. Turned out, Doc even had a favorite cup in the pantry. Jungkook told his story and I told mine while Doc listened attentively, asking clarifying questions where he thought they were needed.

“You’re in a pickle.” Doc crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “Sheriff Mark is kind of an asshat, and he’s gonna want to know where you’ve been. I don’t see you being able to just deal with Jaebum this one—him, I trust.” And so did Lux, so that worked for me.

“Can you help with that? Write a note maybe?” Asking for a doctor’s note felt weird, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

“I can go with you, and we can work this out.” He took a sip of his tea and relaxed even more. Apparently, he meant at some time in the future.

“Is your clan here?” Jungkook added milk and sugar to his tea, making it the exact opposite of his coffee.

Doc grabbed the tin of cookies that lived on the table and opened them up. They weren’t homemade like the days of my grams, but I couldn’t bring myself to ever let it go empty.

“No. There are a lot of shifters in this town, but no clans. We’re mostly a town of rogues, but not completely.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but I just nodded along as if I did. “Are Jisung and his dad shifters?”

“Nope, Clarence is just an animal, not a shifter.” Clarence, so that was his name. I reached in my memories to recall if Grams had mentioned him but came up blank.

“I worry about Jisung.” A lot.

“I do too, and believe me...I’m working on it. It just takes time.”

“If we were in a pack or a clan, things would be much easier.” Jungkook sighed heavily.

I cocked my head, unsure what he meant. “How so?”

“We’d kill him,” they both stated matter-of-factly.

It sounded like I had a lot to learn about shifters.