Parfait

Chapter Fifty

When it came to commitments, Hana preferred those forged by bonds and bites to those with signatures and seals. She had gotten used to the concept of being loved. Contracts and legalese would probably always intimidate her.

Despite all of her nerves, it was done. The pack owned a house; she owned a house. All eight of them had gone together to the final signing to witness it, so there was no way it had been a dream. Then they had taken the keys and gone to the empty house to celebrate.

Seokjin kissed her in the kitchen to the soundtrack of the younger pack members' feet running back and forth in the upstairs hall and told her they would do that every day. Yoongi hugged her from behind as he described the setup they had designed for their home studio and pointed out where the equipment he had chosen overseas would be. Hoseok spun her in a playful dance around their huge dining space because he said that when empty it reminded him of a ballroom, but soon it would be filled with a table large enough to seat them all and host guests, too. Namjoon held her hand as he showed her around the back yard, mapping the parts that would be shaded by trees at different times of day.

Upstairs Jimin pulled her into one of the rooms to steal a kiss before pointing out how perfect the spot would be for a library with a view of the garden below. Taehyung was down the hall standing in the open doorway of the nest room, already deciding how to arrange their huge pack nest, and he happily tucked Hana under one arm so that they could confer on the matter for a while, and cuddle. Then she went in search of Jungkook, who had been surprisingly quiet since the game of chase had ended.

She found him in the laundry room. To her great surprise, his scent had taken on a sour edge, filling the small room with bitter pomegranate. "Googie? What's wrong?"

"I..." His brows were furrowed when he turned to her, and when she closed the distance between them he pulled her close and buried his nose in her hair. As always, her familiar scent grounded him, and helped him to put his distress into words. "It's silly," he still insisted, but Hana insisted that she wanted to know. "I was thinking about how much I'm looking forward to doing things that will make this house our home, like doing laundry, and I thought that I would be really happy just being a family like that forever. If we're together in our own pack house everything would feel perfect. But I then realized that I used to think life would be perfect if I could be on stage and performing with the other Bangtan members forever. I still do. But if we're doing that, then sometimes this really big house will be empty. We can't have both perfect lives."

"Don't be silly," she scolded him gently, reaching up to cup his cheeks. "I know how bored you would be if you had to stay home and do nothing but housework all the time. But I also know that idol life is exhausting. If there are times when you can't be at home much because of work, then the days that you do get to spend at home will be even more precious. And after you and the rest of the alphas rest here, in the home we're making together, you'll be energized to keep on making music. Never mind anyone else's ideas. For our pack, I think that's perfect."

Jungkook hugged her tightly, still not quite convinced. "Even if we have a family someday? Tae keeps talking about pups every time he sees the big nest room, and you'd be the most amazing mother..."

She nodded, pressing her palms gently to his chest, one right over his still-bandaged mating bite. "When it's time, we'll make it work. I don't know how yet, but we've solved so many problems together already, and we'll solve that too. I'm an expert at worrying, but I still chose this because I believe in us with my whole heart."

"Thank you, noona. I believe in us, too." He mirrored her intimate gesture and softly touched the bandages over her final bite, the other arm still holding her close. "I don't know why I started worrying. I've had to do this before. I used to think that I had given up my perfect omega to be an idol and meet my pack, but now you're here, and those two things together are better than I could have dreamed."