Chapter Text
The bus pulls into Goa-ri just as the sun disappears behind the mountains.
Jimin watches the village appear through the window. A handful of low buildings along both sides of the road, streetlights coming on in the dusk, mountains rising dark against the sky. Smaller than he expected. Smaller than anywhere he's been.
Good. Small means Junho won't think to look here.
The bus shudders to a stop. An old woman with a shopping bag stands, then a businessman in a wrinkled suit, then a student with earbuds dangling around his neck. They shuffle toward the front without looking at each other , without looking at Jimin.
He stays in his seat. His hands won't stop shaking.
"Last stop," the driver says, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. "Goa-ri."
Jimin nods. He stands, legs unsteady after five hours sitting, and pulls his duffel bag from the overhead rack. One bag. Everything he owns now fits in one bag.
The driver is still watching. Jimin keeps his head down and walks to the front.
The cold outside is different from Seoul. It gets into his chest when he breathes. He pulls his jacket closed but it doesn't help much. Nothing he brought is warm enough, but he'd only taken what he could carry. He didn't want anything Junho bought him. Didn't want to bring his past with him.
Junho is in Beijing. Three-day business trip. He's probably already called the apartment, left messages on the phone Jimin abandoned on the kitchen counter. By tomorrow he'll send someone to check. They'll find it empty and Junho will know he's gone.
But Jimin will already be here. Already disappeared.
The bus pulls away and Jimin stands alone on the sidewalk in a place where no one knows him. The air smells like winter and wood smoke. Mountains everywhere, close enough to touch.
He's here. He actually left.
Now he just has to figure out how to stay gone.
The main street is quiet. A convenience store with bright lights and a few customers inside. A restaurant with steamed up windows. A post office, dark and closed. A police station beside it with one light still on. Everything looks old, worn at the edges, but in use. People live here. They have lives here.
Jimin keeps his head down, hands shoved in his pockets. The glasses sit unfamiliar on his nose. He's worn contacts for two years because Junho hated how he looked in glasses, said they made him look plain. That's the point now. Plain, forgettable. He cut his hair this morning after Junho left for the airport, chopped off the blonde ends until it was just short and black. He liked the blonde. It doesn't matter anymore.
It won't be enough if Junho finds him. But maybe it'll buy him time.
He walks, looking for somewhere to sleep. His fingers ache from the cold. He should have brought gloves, a warmer jacket,but what's done is done. One bag, two million won in cash he'd skimmed over the past year whenever Junho gave him money and didn't watch too closely.
Two million won. Maybe two months if he's careful.
There's a building set back from the road, two stories, warm light in the windows. A wooden sign above the door reads Goa-ri Minbak in simple characters. It looks small and quiet, the kind of place that might not ask too many questions.
Jimin walks up to the door and opens it.
Warmth hits him first. Then sound. Voices from somewhere in the building, muffled and distant.
The entryway is small. Wooden floors, a front desk with a computer and a bell, papers stacked in a wire tray. Everything is clean and a little worn, the kind of worn that comes from being used and cared for over years.
There's no one at the desk. Jimin stands just inside the door, uncertain. Should he ring the bell? Call out? He's reaching for the bell when a voice comes from somewhere deeper in the building.
"Just a second!"
A door opens to the left of the desk and a man steps through, tall and broad-shouldered, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. He's an omega. Jimin can smell it even before the conscious thought forms. Warm and sweet, honey and fresh bread, the kind of scent that makes you think of home and safety and things Jimin hasn't had in a long time.
The man sees him and smiles. "Hi! Sorry, we were just having dinner. How can I help you?"
His voice is warm and easy. Like Jimin showing up at his door is the most normal thing in the world.
Jimin's throat is dry. "I need a room."
"Of course." The man moves behind the desk, clicks something on the computer. "Just yourself?"
Jimin nods.
"How long are you staying?"
The question he knew was coming. The one he doesn't have an answer for.
"I don't know yet," he says. "Is that all right?"
The man looks up. Really looks at him, and Jimin has to fight the urge to step back, to hide. But the man's face doesn't change. Just something in his eyes, some shift in the way he's seeing Jimin, like he recognizes something without knowing what it is.
"That's fine," the man says, and his voice is gentler now. "We do nightly rates. Thirty thousand won, breakfast included. You can let me know each morning if you're staying another day."
Thirty thousand won. Jimin does the math. Sixty days if he spends nothing else. Two months.
He needs to find work.
"Okay," Jimin says.
"Great." The man pulls a form from a drawer, sets it on the desk with a pen. "Just need a name and contact info. ID number if you have it, but..." He pauses, glances at Jimin again. "If you're paying cash,I don't need to be too thorough about paperwork."
Jimin understands what he's offering. The space to lie, if he needs to. No questions.
"Cash," Jimin says.
"Then just put down what you're comfortable with." The man turns back to the computer, giving Jimin space.
Jimin picks up the pen, tries to steady his hand. He writes quickly, the characters barely legible. Park Jimin. Common enough. He doesn’t bother changing it. A phone number that doesn’t exist. An ID number he makes up.
He slides the form across the desk.
The man glances at it, nods, and tucks it into a folder without comment. "I'm Seokjin," he says. "My husband and I run this place." He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a key, old brass with a wooden tag. 203. "You're in room two-oh-three, second floor. Bathroom's shared, down the hall. Breakfast starts at eight but I can save you something if you sleep late."
Jimin takes the key. It's warm from the drawer.
"Thank you."
"There's a convenience store down the street if you need anything tonight," Seokjin says. "Restaurant across the way is open until nine." He pauses. "You look like you could use some rest."
It’s not a question or prying. Just a kind and careful observation.
Jimin doesn't trust his voice, so he just nods.
Seokjin gestures to the stairs. "Second floor, first door on the right. Let me know if you need extra blankets."
Jimin bows, quick and automatic, and heads for the stairs. His legs feel strange. Heavy. He grips the railing and climbs.
Behind him, he hears Seokjin's footsteps, the door opening and closing as he goes back to his family. Back to dinner and warmth and normal things.
Jimin keeps climbing.
Room two-oh-three is small. A bed with a thick comforter, a desk and chair beneath a wall-mounted TV, a window with curtains that don’t quite meet in the middle. The walls are bare except for a small painting of mountains. Everything smells like laundry soap and old wood.
It's nothing like Junho's apartment. No floor-to-ceiling windows, no designer furniture, no suffocating luxury. Just a small room with a bed and a lock on the door.
Jimin sets his bag down. Closes the door and turns the lock.
He stands there with his hand on the knob, testing it. It holds. He's alone. The door is locked and Junho is thousands of kilometers away and doesn't know where he is.
His hands start shaking harder.
He crosses to the bed and sits. The mattress is firm, the comforter heavy. He should take off his jacket. Unpack. Do something.
He just sits.
He's in Goa-ri. He left. He actually left, got on a bus and ran and now he's here in a place Junho would never think to look, in a room Junho doesn't know exists.
The thought doesn't bring relief. It brings panic, sudden and sharp, tightening his chest. What is he doing? He has two million won and no plan. He doesn't know anyone. He doesn't have a job or a phone or any way to explain who he is or where he came from. He has nothing except a bag of clothes and a USB drive full of proof that won't matter if Junho finds him first.
What if this was a mistake?
What if Junho finds him anyway?
What if…
He cuts the thought off. Forces himself to breathe.
He can't think like that. He can't go back because going back is worse than anything waiting for him here.
He lies down without taking off his jacket or his shoes, pulls the comforter over himself. The room is warm but he can't stop trembling.
Outside, the village is silent. No traffic, no sirens, no city sounds. Just wind and distance and the kind of quiet he's never heard before.
Jimin closes his eyes.
He's in Goa-ri. He's safe, at least for tonight.
Tomorrow he'll figure out what comes next.
Jimin wakes up and doesn't know where he is.
The ceiling is wrong. Not the white plaster of Junho's apartment, smooth and expensive. This ceiling has a water stain in one corner, pale yellow against off-white paint. The light coming through the window is wrong too, softer than Seoul, no city haze filtering it.
Then he remembers.
Goa-ri. The bus. The inn. He's in room two-oh-three at Goa-ri Minbak and Junho is in Beijing and doesn't know where he is.
He lies there for a long time, staring at that water stain, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing does.
His body aches. Not from Junho this time, just from exhaustion, from five hours on a bus and a night of sleep so deep it felt like falling. The bruises on his ribs have faded to yellow-green, barely visible now. Another week and they'll be gone completely.
The room is cold. He pulls the comforter tighter and closes his eyes.
When he wakes again, it's past noon.
He finds the shared bathroom down the hall, small and clean with pale blue tiles and a shower curtain that's seen better days. There's shampoo and soap on a shelf, generic brands in half-empty bottles. For guests, he assumes.
The shower is hot. He stands under it until his skin turns pink, washing off the bus and the fear and the feeling of Junho's apartment still clinging to him. The cheap shampoo smells like generic flowers, nothing like the expensive stuff Junho kept in their bathroom. He uses it anyway. Uses it twice.
When he gets out, the mirror is fogged completely. He wipes a circle clear with his hand and looks at himself. Short black hair, still damp. Face that looks thinner than it should, shadows under his eyes. He looks tired. He looks plain.
Good.
He goes back to his room and puts on clean clothes, plain black jeans and a gray sweater, and sits on the bed with no idea what to do next.
The next few days pass in a blur of sleeping and hiding and trying not to think.
He misses breakfast the second morning, too paralyzed to go downstairs and face whoever might be there. His stomach growls by afternoon so he walks to the convenience store he'd seen on his way to the inn, buys instant ramyeon and kimbap and a bottle of water. The cashier is an older woman who looks at him with mild curiosity but doesn't ask questions. He pays in cash and leaves.
He eats in his room. The ramyeon is too salty and the kimbap is fine, and it's the first meal he's chosen for himself in two years.
He turns the small TV on for noise more than anything, some drama he doesn't follow, voices filling the silence so he doesn't have to sit with his own thoughts.
On the third day he ventures out further, walking the main street in the early afternoon when there aren't many people around. The village is even smaller than he'd realized from the bus. The convenience store, the post office and the police station, the small restaurant with plastic tables now visible through the window. And a garage, set back from the road with two bay doors and a hand-painted sign that reads Min's Auto Repair.
He walks past it without stopping, hands in his pockets, head down.
On the fourth morning he makes himself go downstairs for breakfast.
The dining area is a small room off the main entryway, three tables with simple wooden chairs, windows that look out onto the street. There's one other person there, an older man in a business suit eating rice and soup in silence. He glances up when Jimin enters, nods politely, goes back to his food.
Seokjin appears from what must be the kitchen, carrying a tray with more banchan. He sees Jimin and his face lights up.
"Good morning! You're up early today."
It's eight thirty. Jimin hasn't been up this early in months. "Good morning," he says quietly.
"Sit, sit." Seokjin gestures to a table by the window. "I'll bring you something."
Jimin sits. The businessman finishes his meal, stands, bows slightly toward Seokjin, and leaves. There's the sound of the front door opening and closing, and then it's just the two of them.
Seokjin brings out a tray. Rice, miyeok-guk, grilled mackerel, banchan. Simple, home-cooked, the kind of meal Jimin hasn't had since his parents died.
"Coffee or tea?" Seokjin asks.
"Coffee, please."
He disappears and comes back with a mug, sets it down gently. "You settling in okay?"
Jimin nods, not trusting his voice.
"Let me know if you need anything. Extra towels, blankets, whatever." Seokjin smiles, warm and easy, and heads back to the kitchen
Jimin eats slowly. The soup is hot and rich, the mackerel perfectly grilled. He can't remember the last time he ate breakfast that wasn't whatever Junho decided to order, usually something expensive and bland that Jimin had to pretend to enjoy.
He's almost finished when Seokjin comes back out, wiping his hands on a towel.
"Mind if I sit for a second?" He asks. "My feet are killing me."
"Of course."
Seokjin pulls out the chair across from him and sits with a grateful sigh. "Namjoon keeps saying we should get better mats for the kitchen but I keep forgetting." He looks at Jimin, expression friendly and curious without being pushy. "So where are you from originally?"
"Seoul," Jimin says, because it's true enough.
"Ah. Big change from Seoul to here."
"Yeah."
"Family here? Or just visiting?"
"No family." The words come out flat. "Just... needed a change."
Seokjin nods slowly, and there's something in the way he looks at Jimin that isn't pity, just understanding. "Well, Goa-ri's a good place for that. Quiet. People mostly keep to themselves but they're good people."
Jimin takes a sip of coffee. It's instant, a little bitter, perfect.
"How long are you thinking of staying?" Jin asks.
Here it is again. The question Jimin's been dreading and needing in equal measure.
He sets down his coffee cup. "I don't know yet. Maybe a while, if..." He stops, not sure how to say it. "I need to find work. I can't keep paying for the room without income."
"You're paying," Seokjin points out.
"I mean long-term. I need income."
Seokjin considers this. "What kind of work are you looking for?"
"Anything." Jimin meets his eyes. "I'm not picky. I just need something."
"Can you cook?"
"Not really."
"Cleaning?"
"I can learn."
Seokjin taps his fingers on the table, thinking. "There's not a lot of options here. The restaurant across the street might need someone for dishes or kitchen work. Old Park at the general store is always complaining she needs help with inventory. My cousin Taehyung runs a strawberry farm just outside the village with his grandparents. They'll need extra hands once harvest really gets going, but that's not until January." He tilts his head. "Actually, Yoongi might need someone."
"Yoongi?"
"Runs the garage down the street. Min's Auto Repair. He's been doing everything himself since he moved back and I know it's too much for one person."
Jimin thinks of the garage he'd walked past, the hand-painted sign, the quiet building set back from the road. "I don't know anything about cars."
"You can learn," Seokjin says with a shrug. "Yoongi's good at teaching if you're willing to work. And he's..." he pauses, choosing his words carefully. "He's a good guy. Fair. Won't ask questions you don't want to answer."
Something in the way he says it makes Jimin wonder what Seokjin sees when he looks at him. What's written on his face that he can't hide.
"I could talk to him if you want," Seokjin offers. "Let him know you're looking. Or you can just stop by. He's usually there weekdays till 5pm."
Jimin's hands are wrapped around the coffee mug, absorbing its warmth. He should say thank you. He should say yes, please, anything that keeps him here and pays for this room and keeps him off the streets and away from Seoul.
"I'll stop by," he hears himself say.
Seokjin smiles. "Good. Tell him I sent you. He trusts my judgment." He stands, picks up Jimin's empty tray. "More coffee?"
"No, thank you."
"Alright. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."
Seokjin leaves and Jimin sits there with his cooling coffee, looking out the window at the quiet street, at the mountains rising in the distance, at the garage barely visible down the road.
He needs work. He needs money. He needs something to do other than hide in his room and wait for Junho to find him.
Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after.
Maybe today.
Jimin stands outside Min's Auto Repair for a full minute before he can make himself walk in.
The garage sits back from the main road, a small building with two bay doors and weathered paint that might have been blue once. One of the bay doors is open, and he can see a car inside, hood up, someone moving around it. The hand-painted sign above the entrance is faded but clear: Min's Auto Repair, and below it in smaller characters, a phone number.
It looks exactly like what it is. A small village garage run by one person who probably can't afford to hire help.
Jimin takes a breath and walks across the gravel lot.
Inside, the garage is dim and smells like motor oil and metal and something else, something warm and smoky that he can't quite place. The car in the first bay is an old Hyundai sedan, its hood propped open, tools scattered on a rolling cart beside it. There's an office area to the right, glass-walled and cluttered with papers and parts catalogs, and a second bay with the door closed.
The man working on the Hyundai is bent over the engine, his back to Jimin. Dark clothes, a baseball cap, shoulders that look broader than they should on someone his height. He's doing something with a wrench, the metallic clink of it echoing in the quiet space.
Jimin clears his throat.
The man straightens and turns around.
He looks mid-thirties, with a face that's hard to read and eyes that look tired in a way that has nothing to do with lack of sleep. His scent hits Jimin a second later, rich and layered. Smoke and something deeper underneath that reminds Jimin of whiskey. Alpha. Unmistakably alpha.
Jimin's entire body goes tense, ready to run.
But the scent doesn't feel wrong. It doesn't feel like Junho's, sharp and chemical and suffocating. This is different. Warmer. Like sitting next to a fire on a cold night, like the smell of his father's old study before everything fell apart.
The man is looking at him, waiting.
"I'm sorry," Jimin manages. "I'm looking for Yoongi-ssi?"
"That's me."
His voice is low and quiet, the Gyeongsang accent softening the edges of his words. He sets the wrench down on the cart and wipes his hands on a rag, not taking his eyes off Jimin.
"Seokjin-ssi sent me," Jimin says quickly. "From the inn. He said you might need help."
Yoongi doesn't react. "Seokjin said that."
"Yes."
"I don't need help."
The words land flat and final. Jimin should have expected this. Should have known it wouldn't be easy, that nothing is easy, that he's stupid for even trying.
"Okay," he says. "Sorry to bother you."
He turns to leave.
"Wait."
Jimin stops, looks back.
Yoongi is still watching him, that same unreadable expression on his face. "You know anything about cars?"
"No."
"Ever worked in a garage?"
"No."
"What kind of work have you done?"
Jimin's mind goes blank. What can he say? That he was a student before his parents died? That he worked retail and cafes while drowning in debt? That he spent two years doing work he can never put on a resume, work that makes his stomach turn just thinking about?
"Different things," he says finally. "I'm good with my hands. I can learn."
Yoongi tilts his head slightly, studying him. Jimin fights the urge to look away, to hide. There's something about the way Yoongi looks at him that feels too careful, too thorough, like he's seeing things Jimin doesn't want anyone to see.
"Why do you need work?" Yoongi asks.
"Why does anyone need work?"
"That's not an answer."
"I need money," Jimin says, keeping his voice steady. "I can't stay at the inn forever. I need income."
"There's other places to work. Restaurant, store."
"Seokjin-ssi said you might need help."
"I don't."
They're going in circles. Jimin can feel the moment slipping away, can feel himself losing whatever chance he had. His hands are shaking again and he shoves them in his pockets so Yoongi won't see.
"I'll work hard," he says, hating how desperate he sounds. "Whatever you need. Cleaning, organizing, anything. You don't have to pay me much. Just enough to cover the room and food."
Yoongi doesn't respond right away. He's still looking at Jimin with that same careful attention, and Jimin wonders what he sees. Someone running from something, probably. Someone with secrets and fear written all over him.
"You running from something?" Yoongi asks quietly.
Jimin's throat goes tight. "No."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying."
"You're lying right now."
They stare at each other. Jimin wants to leave, wants to disappear, wants to be anywhere but here under this alpha's too-knowing gaze. But he needs this. He needs work and money and a reason to stay in Goa-ri, and this garage is his best option.
"I'm not running from the law," Jimin says, which is true. "I'm not dangerous. I just... I needed to leave Seoul. That's all."
Yoongi watches him for another long moment. Then he sighs, picks up the wrench again, turns back to the car.
"Trial period," he says, not looking at Jimin. "One week. Minimum wage, cash. You show up late or you're useless, you're done. Understood?"
It takes Jimin a second to process what he's hearing. "You're... you're giving me the job?"
"Trial period," Yoongi repeats. "Not a job yet. You have to earn that."
"Okay. Yes. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. You might hate it." Yoongi glances over his shoulder. "You ever change oil before?"
"No."
"Rotate tires?"
"No."
"Know what a spark plug is?"
"Not really."
Yoongi makes a sound that might be amusement or resignation, Jimin can't tell. "This is going to be interesting." He turns around fully, leans against the car, arms crossed. "Eight AM tomorrow. Wear clothes you don't mind ruining. Bring gloves if you have them."
"I don't have gloves."
"I'll find you some." He pauses. "What's your name?"
"Jimin. Park Jimin."
Yoongi nods once. "Tomorrow, Jimin-ssi. Don't be late."
"I won't."
Jimin bows, probably too deep, and turns to leave. He's halfway across the lot when Yoongi calls after him.
"Jimin-ssi."
He turns back.
Yoongi is standing in the bay door opening now, silhouetted against the dim light of the garage. "Seokjin's a good judge of character," he says. "If he sent you here, there's a reason. Don't make him regret it."
Jimin doesn't know what to say to that, so he just nods.
He walks back to the inn with his heart beating too fast and his hands still shaking and the lingering scent of smoke and whiskey in his nose, wondering what the hell just happened and whether he's made a terrible mistake.